FiringSquad: Home of the Hardcore Gamer - Games, Hardware, Reviews and NewsSubmit your own or view users' CPU overclocking results!

  
 Home   News   THE MATRIX   Deals   Hardware   Games   Features   Media   Products   Forums   FS China 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Home : Hardware : Video Cards : NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS Performance Preview
» Join the Greatest Gaming Community NOW! (It's free)

Already a member? Login
 


Rodent Device (2) by PS2Fish
Funniest thing to do with the OCZ name (3) by SuperCharge
it could have been better T_T (0) by exe3
The Bland Addiction: World of Warcraft (17) by Discobiscuits
Clive Barker's Jericho Review (Round 2) (6) by jacobvandy
EVGA: my number 1 (0) by imagination
The Orange Box Review in 500 Words! [Preliminary #2] (7) by Swatt
Sins of a Solar Empire Beta Review [Prelim 2] (5) by Itchyeyes
Never fallen (0) by froggz
»» best haiku ever (0) by darkportal_4

More Blogs >>


 Hottest Topics
Blizzard statement on StarCraft II LAN (17)
StarCraft II lacks LAN support (13)
Wolfenstein system requirements released (11)
Street Fighter IV PC hits Steam (9)
Xbox 360/PS3 price cuts coming? (8)
Microsoft sued over Xbox LIVE (7)
Most users ignore routine computer maintenance (7)
ASUS 24" monitor for $169.99 shipped (7)
PS3 Slim production slated to begin this month (7)
100 million used games traded each year in US (7)
AMD sheds more light on TWKR CPUs (7)
Firefox 3.5 released (6)
Mozilla working to fix bugs w/Firefox 3.5 (6)
Tekken boss says unlockables are 'outdated' (5)
Rumor: Sony prepping PSP with phone capabilities (5)
Today's News >>
Today's Siteseeing >>


 News Archive
This Month

June 1 - 30, 2009

May 1 - 31, 2009

April 1 - 30, 2009

March 1 - 31, 2009

February 1 - 28, 2009

January 1 - 31, 2009

December 1 - 31, 2008

November 1 - 30, 2008

October 1 - 31, 2008

September 1 - 30, 2008

August 1 - 31, 2008

July 1 - 31, 2008



NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS Performance Preview
March 22, 2006   Brandon Sandman Bell > [View My Other Articles]
Product Info | User Reviews | Article Images(6) | Image Gallery | Comments | Forum Thread
Final thoughts


NVIDIA’s delivered another compelling GPU with the GeForce 7600 GS. You’ve got a card that delivers performance that’s greater than last year’s mainstream GPU of choice, the 6600 GT. In shader-heavy cases like F.E.A.R. the difference is as great as 10% at 800x600, while another shader-heavy case, Half-Life 2 Lost Coast sees even larger margins. The difference is greater than 20% at 1280x1024 and 1600x1200, despite the GeForce 6600 GT’s faster memory subsystem. With the GeForce 7600 GS delivering this kind of performance at price points similar to the GeForce 6600 GT, we’d definitely consider it to be the wiser upgrade. Basically the GeForce 7600 GS makes us forget about the 6600 GT. On top of this the board does all this with just passive cooling, and still supports NVIDIA’s transparency AA mode.

If NVIDIA can stick to the board’s $129-$149 price point, the GeForce 7600 GS could become a pretty popular solution for the lower-end of the mainstream segment. The GeForce 7600 GS trades blows with ATI’s more expensive Radeon X1600 XT, delivering superior performance in the flight sims we tested as well as Quake 4 and Serious Sam 2, while falling behind in titles such as Call of Duty 2, and Battlefield 2. Performance is pretty even in F.E.A.R. (with the X1600 XT coming in slightly ahead) and Half-Life 2 Lost Coast, where the X1600 XT fell behind in our HDR testing, but runs faster than the GeForce board once 4xAA is enabled. In terms of pricing, X1600 XT prices generally start around $150 and go up from there. And while we didn’t run tests today with the Radeon X1600 Pro, the board ships with a graphics core than runs 90MHz slower than the X1600 XT, while the X1600 Pro’s memory runs at nearly half the speed of the XT; we just don’t see the X1600 Pro keeping up with the GeForce 7600 GS.

Don’t get us wrong, you won’t confuse the GeForce 7600 GS’s performance with that of a GeForce 7600 GT. NVIDIA’s clearly built-in quite a bit of performance between the two cards, and while we didn’t have a GeForce 7600 GS board to test out overclocking with, we have a hard time seeing 400MHz DDR2 modules running at the 7600 GT’s stock memory frequency of 700MHz, so gamers looking for the most performance possible will still want to opt for the GeForce 7600 GT if they can afford it. The cheapest 7600 GT boards sell for just under $190, so you’ll pay about $50 more for a 7600 GT than a 7600 GS. In general, that $50 will buy you another 25-35% in performance, so you are getting your money’s worth out of the deal. More casual gamers though would likely be better served by the GeForce 7600 GS. And we certainly can’t wait to check out the HDCP-ready card from ASUS. Like we said earlier, it will probably be a huge hit among media center users.

In terms of availability, we’ve been told by NVIDIA that today’s GeForce 7600 GS announcement is “another hard launch”, with retail availability starting today, just like the GeForce 7600 GT and GeForce 7900 GT/GTX cards introduced a few weeks ago. In fact we were told that the GeForce 7600 GS launch was pulled from March 9th to today in order to ensure this. However, the fact that we weren’t able to get a reference board from NVIDIA nor a retail card from one of their board partners in time for this article strongly suggests otherwise. Gigabyte sent out a press release earlier today announcing their GeForce 7600 GS-powered GV-NX76G256D-RH. In the PR Gigabyte stated that their GV-NX76G256D-RH card wouldn’t be available until April. We have a feeling that timeframe is a little more accurate, and wouldn’t be surprised to see the GeForce 7600 GS hit retail en masse around then.

If you’re in the market for a midrange graphics upgrade, we’d highly suggest you check out the GeForce 7600 GS. After testing this product and the GeForce 7600 GT earlier this month, it certainly looks like NVIDIA’s got a pretty strong successor to the GeForce 6600 line. We wouldn’t be surprised to see these 7600 cards sell like hotcakes, just like the GeForce 6600s did…



Back! Serious Sam 2    
Blog + Share: Digg Del.icio.us Reddit SU furl • More: AddThis Social Bookmark Button
Send This Article to a Friend!  
Table of Contents
  Print Entire Article  

MATRIX CONTENT » RANDOM MEDIA BLOG More Blogs >>
No ratings yet
» Please rate this
I am an AMD AgentRead this Media-Blog entry!» WW2 License Plate says it all (0)
by Ph33rsPhun (7) Talk with this user on their Shout Box (My other blogs) Posted 3 months ago
  Latest Content
3D Performance with ARMA II Demo
3D Performance with ARMA II Demo
Wondering which video cards perform best with ARMA II? Wonder no more. In this article we've combined GPUs ranging from the Radeon 3870 up to the GeForce GTX 295 across two different CPUs: a Core i7-965 Extreme Edition, and a Core 2 Quad Q8400. See how well the game scales across the various GPUs and CPUs inside!
Jul 3, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]
ASUS Crosshair III Formula Review
ASUS Crosshair III Formula Review
With its $200 price tag, ASUS' latest Republic of Gamers board is designed to appeal to AMD enthusiasts looking for the best without busting your bank account. And thanks its dazzling array of LEDs, good cooling, and SupremeFX X-Fi audio, it's pretty feature-packed. Is it worth the premium ASUS charges though? See how it stacks up against the competition in our latest review!
Jun 25, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]
Sapphire Toxic HD 4890 Review
Editor's Choice Award Sapphire Toxic HD 4890 Review
With a beefier power subsystem, OC'ed clocks, and custom vapor chamber cooling, Sapphire's Toxic HD 4890 takes ATI's Radeon 4890 GPU to another level. In fact the card delivers performance rivaling the GTX 285 in some cases. But is it worth the price premium? Find out in today's review!
Jun 18, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]
Gigabyte AM3 Motherboard Roundup
Gigabyte AM3 Motherboard Roundup
Whether you've got $80 to spend on a new AM3 motherboard, or $180, Gigabyte's got you covered. In today's article we take a look at Gigabyte's high-end and low-end AM3 offerings and find a lot to like. See how the board's compare to one another and perform inside!
Jun 15, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]
Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition/Core i7-950 Performance Preview
Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition/Core i7-950 Performance Preview
Armed with higher clock speeds and a new D0 stepping designed to deliver improved OC'ing headroom, we were eager to see how far we could push Intel's latest flagship processor, the Core i7-975 Extreme Edition, and it didn't disappoint. See what happens when the 4GHz mark is easily shattered in this article!
Jun 2, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition/Athlon II X2 250 Performance Preview
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition/Athlon II X2 250 Performance Preview
Packing two processing cores, 6MB of L3 cache, an unlocked multiplier, and a 3.1GHz clock speed, AMD's Phenom II X2 550 Black is targeted towards enthusiasts looking to OC. Its $102 price tag is inexpensive too. But is it a worthy competitor to Core 2 Duo? AMD's also unleashing a new Athlon II CPU today. See how both new AMD CPUs perform against the competition from Intel inside!
Jun 1, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]
Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard Review
Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard Review
Sporting a larger, higher resolution color LCD, configurable backlit keys, and reconfigured G-keys, Logitech's G19 offers a host of improvements over its predecessor, the G15. But is it worthy of its lofty price tag? Decide for yourself in our review!
Jun 1, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]
Gigabyte GV-N275UD-896H GeForce GTX 275 Review
Gigabyte GV-N275UD-896H GeForce GTX 275 Review
With its 2-ounce copper PCB and 1200MHz memory, Gigabyte's GV-N275UD-896H is one of the first GeForce GTX 275 cards on the market to deviate from NVIDIA's reference design. See how it compares to the stock GTX 275 in today's review!
May 27, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]
ASUS W90Vp Review
Editor's Choice Award ASUS W90Vp Review
With two Mobility Radeon 4870 GPUs, dual 7200 RPM hard drives, an 18.4" 1080p display, and 2.8GHz Core 2 CPU, the ASUS W90Pv packs more horsepower than most desktop PCs. Remarkably of all though the system retails for $2199-$2499 depending on the SKU. Is this really the ultimate gaming notebook? Find out in today's review!
May 20, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]
ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix Quick Take Review
Editor's Choice Award ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix Quick Take Review
With its dual-slot cooler and support for voltage adjustment, we mananged to crank ASUS' excellent ENGTX260 Matrix to speeds we've never seen from a GTX 260 card before. In fact, once OC'ed the card outran the GTX285! Read on for the full details!
May 13, 2009   [ View Similar Articles | View Comments ]




 Latest Headlines
Microsoft aims for Windows 7 RTM this month (3)
3D Performance with ARMA II Demo (3)
Mozilla working to fix bugs w/Firefox 3.5 (6)
More DLC coming for Left 4 Dead; demo plans for L4D2 (3)
ASUS 24" monitor for $169.99 shipped (7)
Today's News >>
Today's Siteseeing >>


 Table of Contents


Check Out These Related Articles >>
3D Performance with ARMA II Demo
3D Performance with ARMA II Demo
Sapphire Toxic HD 4890 Review
Sapphire Toxic HD 4890 Review
Gigabyte GV-N275UD-896H GeForce GTX 275 Review
Gigabyte GV-N275UD-896H GeForce GTX 275 Review
ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix Quick Take Review
ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix Quick Take Review
MSI N285GTX GeForce GTX 285 SuperPipe OC Review
MSI N285GTX GeForce GTX 285 SuperPipe OC Review
Gigabyte GV-N96TZL-1GI GeForce 9600 GT Quick Take Review
Gigabyte GV-N96TZL-1GI GeForce 9600 GT Quick Take Review
ATI Radeon 4770 Performance Preview
ATI Radeon 4770 Performance Preview
FiringSquad is powered by... Back to Top Site MapContact UsAdvertise With Us Privacy StatementAbout Us  
News RSSSiteseeing RSSArticle RSS   © 1998-2009 FS Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved