Today we have a special graphics card in our hands. Believe it or not, but it's an AGP card and it's intended for all of those who still have a motherboard with an AGP port. Yes, I'm talking about the GeForce 7600 GS AGP, NVIDIA's latest response to ATI's Radeon X1600 PRO AGP. This is the second card of the GeForce 7 family that is intended for the AGP market. The first card is the GeForce 7800 GS, which was revealed several months ago. NVIDIA already surprised us some time ago by releasing the GeForce 7800 GS to the AGP market. Then ATI decided to make an AGP version of the Radeon X1600 PRO. NVIDIA had to respond, and did so with the GeForce 7600 GS. - NGOHQ

Inno3D GeForce 7600 GS 256MB AGP Review

The GeForce 7600 GS GPU has 12 pixel pipelines, 5 vertex shaders and DDR2 memory. As you may have guessed already, this is based on the G73 core, 90nm. The Inno3D GeForce 7600 GS AGP has the following clocks, 400MHz for the core and 800MHz for the DDR2 memory. Unlike the GeForce 7800 GS, the GeForce 7600 GS's price is very reasonable and it's a medium range card. That means you can use this baby to play the latest games with playable frame rates. However, the GeForce 7600 GS is not aimed for the extremely high resolutions. Although it will be possible but with less details enabled.

All the GeForce 7600 family is based on G73 90nm core. The GeForce 7600 GS sits below the GeForce 7600 GT. The difference between them is the memory type and the clocks. Memory interface, pipelines and vertex shaders are the same. Basically, there are no differences between the GeForce 7600 GS AGP edition and the PCI Express version. The only difference is that the AGP edition has PCI Express to AGP bridge which converts the card into an AGP interface. These GPU's were made natively to PCI Express. To avoid extra costs they are just buying the HSI bridge and using it.

We have learned the GeForce 7600 GS is beating the Radeon X1600 PRO in most of the tests. When it comes to performance in this segment, the GeForce 7600 GS is leading. This card can be a great upgrade path for all the AGP users out there. I would prefer this card over the Radeon X1600 PRO because of its performance advantage. I even would prefer it to the GeForce 7800 GS because I think the GeForce 7800 GS is pretty overpriced. Unlike the GeForce 7800GS, this card is priced very fairly, from $135 to $180. I can recommend it to every AGP user looking for a decent card for a good price.

However, this card is not for extreme gaming. Don't expect this card to run the latest games at high resolutions with all the eye candy features enabled. Another lack of this card, which gives ATI a very nice advantage, is the fact that NVIDIA didn't come up with some trick to enable HDR and AA at the same time. However, there is only a very small amount of games that support it, and mid-range cards probably can't handle it anyway; so the GeForce 7600 GS has more advantages. When it comes to overclocking, don't expect much from it, unless you're a good overclocker and you can apply some voltage modifications.

When it comes to stability, this card is not suffering from any issues. We tested it over and over again and everything seems to run like it should. Bottom line, the GeForce 7600 GS is a great medium range card, priced well, and performing superbly. This would be my choice for our old AGP system.