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XFX GeForce 7600 GT XXX 256MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Tuesday, 23 May 2006 |
TheTechLounge reports
about their review on the XFX
GeForce 7600 GT XXX 256MB PCIe graphics card. A couple of months ago, NVIDIA launched three new video
cards, the GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB, GeForce 7900 GT 256MB, and the GeForce 7600
GT 256MB. The GTX, of course, is the high-end card, priced at around the $500
mark. The GeForce 7900 GT is what you could call an affordable high-end card,
priced at about $350. The GeForce 7600 GT is the new mid-range card, and you can
buy it for around $200. If you look for an XFX GeForce 7600 GT online, you'll find 4 different models,
with the only difference being the clock speeds of the core and memory. It's
actually a little confusing.
 XFX GeForce 7600
GT XXX 256MB PCI-E Review
When I asked XFX why they have so many versions, I was told they are experimenting with various price points and clock speeds to see what the consumer really wants. My personal opinion is that the company should just have a standard version and an overclocked version, because paying a little extra for a tiny overclock doesn't make much sense to me. The specific model we'll be looking at is the XXX Edition, the most overclocked version. This card has a core clock speed of 590MHz and a memory clock of 1.6GHz, whereas NVIDIA's reference GeForce 7600 GT has a core of 560MHz and 1.4GHz DDR.
You'll pay $30 extra over the standard GeForce 7600 GT, but if you want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the card without any extra hassle or worry, it could be a worthwhile upgrade for you. The fact that you get a guaranteed overclock out of the box without voiding your warranty certainly has some appeal. Adventurous buyers might go for the standard edition and then attempt to overclock to XXX speeds. ATI launched their Radeon X1800 GTO the same day NVIDIA launched the GeForce 7600 GT, attempting to keep the GeForce 7600 GT at gaining too much of the mid-range market share.
Upon looking at the benchmark results, we can see that the GeForce 7600 GT and the Radeon X1800 GTO perform very close to one another. In some of the games, one of the cards clearly wins, but for the most part the two cards are neck-and-neck. This makes my decision in recommending one or the other difficult. When it comes to price, the GeForce 7600 GT has the advantage. Not only is XFX's GeForce 7600 GT XXX Edition $30 cheaper than a Radeon X1800 GTO, but I just learned today that there is a $30 mail-in-rebate as well, making the GeForce 7600 GT $60 cheaper than its direct competitor.
I'd also like to mention a pretty sweet perk that you get when you buy an XFX GeForce 6 series or 7 series video card, the XFX Double Lifetime Warranty. XFX will repair and service your GeForce 6 or 7 series graphics card for as long as you own it. All you have to do is register the card with XFX online. And, should you sell or transfer the card, they'll honor the warranty for the card's second owner, too, as long as they register it with XFX online. You get protection and the added value of being able to pass along a full warranty with the card should you sell or otherwise transfer it.
In the end, if you're looking for a new PCI Express video card in the mid-range segment and you've got about $200 to spend, your main options are either a Radeon X1800 GTO or NVIDIA's GeForce 7600 GT. These two cards perform so close to one another that I can't give a solid recommendation for one over the other. You should rest easy knowing that either way, you'll have bought a good video card. In the end, you'll need to decide what is more important to you.
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