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Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GT 256MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Sunday, 28 May 2006 |
Hardware Zone brings us
a review on the Gigabyte
GeForce 7600 GT 256MB PCIe graphics card. As we have noted before, the
flurry of GeForce 7 series cards are coming in fast and furious to our labs,
with the GeForce 7600 GT unsurprisingly the most popular of the lot. Disparate
cards of various PCB colors and clock speeds have all met with our scrutiny and
highlight the intense competition between the vendors over this mid-range
graphics chipset. Already, prices of the GeForce 7600 GT have fallen as more
stocks and suppliers enter the market, which of course only spells good news for
consumers as the product variety increases, but also spells more decision
headaches.
 Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GT 256MB PCI-E Review
So it was only a matter of time before another vendor jumped into the fray with another passively cooled GeForce 7600 GT. Not that Gigabyte is a new upstart hoping to crash the scene. The company has been offering silent versions for a number of chipsets, ranging from the older GeForce 6600 GT to the low-end Radeon X1300 PRO. In fact, its line of passive coolers for graphics boards is into its second iteration with improvements that on its latest Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GT claims to be significantly better than other competing GeForce 7600 GT heatpipe solutions.
What you clock is what you get is probably the appropriate maxim for the graphics scene. Given the similar cores for a particular chipset, only clock speeds and frame buffer size will have any impact on performance. And in the case of the Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GT, its ordinary clock speeds means that at best, its performance was level with its competitors while its worst was also not too far from the mean. In short, don't be looking at the Gigabyte for extraordinary performance; it is a solid but conforming card in terms of benchmarks and clock speeds.
Instead, like the ASUS Extreme N7600 GT Silent, the quiet passive cooler on the Gigabyte is its unique selling point. This is not something to be underestimated, as there are probably a sizable proportion of users who prefer silence to the usual fan cooled variety. If not, you won't find major vendors like ASUS and Gigabyte coming out with these variants. Besides, the mid-range GeForce 7600 GT would not attract the hardcore, power users who place greater emphasis on raw performance over other aspects like power consumption and noise output.
Looking solely at the temperature aspect of its performance, we could be charitable and say that the Gigabyte fared roughly the same as the ASUS Extreme N7600 GT Silent but that would be unfair to the ASUS, which had a small but consistent temperature advantage for most of the onboard components that we measured. The two cards had similar core temperatures and while no doubt temperature measurements are never a sure thing, overall the Gigabyte was slightly inferior in this department. However, Gigabyte claims that it is better than unspecified competitors and this could still be true.
The temperatures for the most part were quite decent and not too far from a fan cooled GeForce 7600 GT. End users who don't mind a slightly warmer system will find the quiet passively cooled Gigabyte a good compromise. The important factor is to have a good ventilation path within the case. When that's established, your system would do pretty fine and passively cooled cards such as the Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GT would work as well as what's publicized to a certain degree and certainly at least as well as we have tested. If you are in need of a quiet system then the Gigabyte is good to go.
Finally, Gigabyte has priced its silent card at the prevailing market rate as a quick check at giant online retailer Newegg showed a retail price of around $178, which is very competitive indeed. Considering that these custom designs usually tend to cost more, Gigabyte has done well to price it reasonably around that of a standard reference card. Also interesting is that it also shows the gradual decline in the price range of a GeForce 7600 GT as the supply becomes more plentiful; if you can remember the original entry price was $199. So a drop of about $20 only in about two months.
Stacked against its main rival in the ASUS Extreme N7600 GT Silent, the Gigabyte has more than sufficient persuasion in terms of its pricing and bundle to deserve a thorough consideration from anyone looking to get an ultra quiet and competent mid-range graphics card.
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