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XpertVision GeForce 7600 GT Sonic PCI-E Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Saturday, 22 April 2006 |
Hardware Zone shares with us a review on the XpertVision GeForce 7600 GT Sonic PCIe graphics card. Having seen a couple of NVIDIA's latest mid-range GeForce 7600 GT cards, we have had mostly nice things to say about these new cards, especially its attractive pricing and decent frame rates, factors that more than made up for the perceived deficiencies of the architecture. The ones we have checked are reference cards so they should serve as an accurate gauge of the card's performance. But in these cases, only the price and the bundle truly separate them from each other. Hence we had been talking about the same boring GeForce 7600 GT appearing from many vendors and in general, lamenting about the lack of unique offerings.
 XpertVision GeForce 7600 GT Sonic PCI-E Review
Well, it seems that our wishes have been granted, as a customized, overclocked version of the GeForce 7600 GT has arrived courtesy of XpertVision. Featuring a completely different PCB design, a changed cooler and extra memory heatsinks, the XpertVision GeForce 7600GT Sonic looks ready for some serious overclocking. That's besides its mild overclock out of the box. Instead of the rather boring reference design that we have been seeing from the vendors when it came to their GeForce 7600 GT, XpertVision unsurprisingly chose to take a different approach.
For its GeForce 7600GT Sonic, XpertVision has gone for a redesigned red PCB with quite a different layout compared to the reference version. If you are particular about this, you would be glad to know that just like the Palit cards, the GeForce 7600GT Sonic uses Rubycon capacitors from Japan, which has acquired a reputation for its quality among enthusiasts. The cooler is also different from the default one. It may not look that impressive due to its rather unflattering white plastic shroud but in our opinion, there is a discernible improvement over the reference version in the form of a slightly lesser noise output.
The XpertVision is overclocked to 575MHz for the core, a measly gain of 15MHz over the reference design. The memory chips though undergo a more significant boost to 1500MHz compared to the standard 1400MHz. Physically, XpertVision has also changed the default 1.4ns rated chips to 1.2ns for the GeForce 7600GT Sonic. That should leave a decent margin for those who are inclined to overclock it further. Remarkably, the XpertVision had more reserves when we started to overclock it. While our previous cards ran out of steam at 600MHz, the XpertVision kept on going, before it finally peaked at 670MHz.
Going its own way as usual seems to have done XpertVision no harm as the company has certainly customized a unique GeForce 7600 GT worthy of NVIDIA's efforts. Not many vendors would have taken the risk of almost revamping the entire card just to satisfy their intended cost and specifications. It would have been easier just to slap on their own, more powerful or less noisy fan, ramp up the clock speed and declare it a premium edition. We have seen that happen too often from the manufacturers but the extent of customization on the GeForce 7600GT Sonic is definitely much more radical than these.
The final clincher is the retail price of the XpertVision GeForce 7600GT Sonic. We were quoted $230 by its local distributor, but some retail outlets are actually selling as low as $210, making it one of the cheapest GeForce 7600 GT cards in the market. Throw in the bonus of the slight overclocking, better memory, a solid two-year warranty and we can easily ignore the few flaws of the product. For those who have been waiting impatiently for the special editions catering to enthusiasts, the first contender has shown up and looks just great.
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