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Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GS 256MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Zombie
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Wednesday, 24 May 2006 |
Legion Hardware presents a review on the Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GS 256MB PCIe graphics card. NVIDIA has been cruising along smoothly recently with several highly successful product launches under their belt. The GeForce 7 series has been particularly successful and will continue to be for some time with the very recent launch of the GeForce 7900GT and GTX products. However, these high-end performance parts cost upwards of $280 for the GeForce 7900 GT and $450 for the GTX. Obviously if NVIDIA wishes to capture the mainstream market where the majority of graphics card sales are to be had, they would need to offer something a little more affordable.
 Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GS 256MB PCI-E Review
This is where the GeForce 7600 series comes into action, with the GeForce 7600 GT version currently priced at just $170. Nevertheless, even at $170 many buyers will find these graphics cards just far too expensive and why not, when some dual-core Intel processors are cheaper. Therefore, NVIDIA reduced the price even further by announcing the GeForce 7600 GS, which is of course priced at $120. The GeForce 7600 GS is cheaper than the GeForce 7600 GT as it is essentially just a cut down version of the original product. So what exactly makes the GeForce 7600 GS a cut down version of the GeForce 7600 GT?
In short not a lot; like the GeForce 7600 GT the GS version uses the same G73 core featuring all 12 pixel pipelines along with the 5 vertex pipelines. Furthermore the GeForce 7600 GS still offers support for all the new rendering technologies and is capable of utilizing SLI mode. The GeForce 7600 GS also uses the same 128-bit wide memory bus and 256MB of onboard DDR2 memory just like the GeForce 7600 GT. Where the two differ is of course in the memory and core clock frequencies. While the GeForce 7600 GT comes with a core clock of 560MHz, the GS version is clocked at just 400MHz.
The NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS is exceptionally good value at $130 and the Gigabyte version can be had for roughly this price. At this price the GeForce 7600 GS is cheaper than the older GeForce 6600 GT. In fact it is even cheaper than the Radeon X1600 PRO. Sure the Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GS is quite a lot slower than the GT version, but with a $50 price discrepancy who cares? The Gigabyte version of the GeForce 7600 GT costs $180, where as the GS version is just $130. What's more, if you carry out a little overclocking, this Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GS graphics card comes quite close to delivering GT like performance.
Currently for this price bracket, there are no other current generation graphics cards that offer a better bang for your buck than the GeForce 7600 GS. Furthermore, you would be hard pressed doing better with a past generation graphics card as well. The GeForce 7600 GS really does fill the $100-130 price bracket very well. Performance and price aside there is more that impresses about this graphics card; take for example the completely passive design. Though it is all very well and good to use a passive design with this Gigabyte graphics card, does it run at a reasonable temperature?
Well of course it does, at idle the black heatsink is barely warm to touch. Furthermore after a few hours of game play the heatsink would struggle to become hot. How about this for an example, when overclocked without a fan over the heatsink the idle temperature was just 42 degrees. Additionally, the stress temperature without a fan was just 60 degrees! So the Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GS offers amazingly good performance for just $130, features the latest GeForce 7 technologies and uses a very suitable cooling solution. Now you are probably wondering what is bad about this product.
As far as value for money is concerned the GeForce 7600 GS is a winner in my eyes. Those seeking a bargain will be extremely pleased with what the GeForce 7600 GS can offer them. Those looking to the future are best off waiting till they can afford a slightly more up-market graphics card. That said I feel Gigabyte has hit the nail on the head with their latest product. They have built a simple no frills graphics card around the G73 core and in doing so have created the impressive GeForce 7600 GS.
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