Which 7600GT?

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 7:22 pm

I need some help choosing between the Novatech (looks very similar to the Leadtech - http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... ?nov-76gta ) or the Palit 7600GT.

Whilst the Palit is Â£18 cheaper, the Novatech looks like it has a larger fan, so I might find it quiet enough without needing to fit a third-party solution.
Then again, maybe the Palit's large heatsink will allow for sufficient cooling if I disconnect the fan and have a 120mm Nexus, attached to a Zalman FB123 bracket, running at 7v (28CFM) blowing on it (about Â£10 for the parts).

Alternatively, if I'll need to buy a third-party HSF, I'd be interested in the Galaxy pre-fitted with Zalman VF700 fan if it's available in the UK for a decent price.

And yes, I would rather get a x1950 pro, but unfortunately that would require buying a new PSU which makes it rather uneconomical

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 7:32 pm

sorry for the multiple post, my browser was glitching. Perhaps someone could delete one of these. Preferably the one without any replies

Operandi · Post by **Operandi** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 10:40 pm

Are Gigabyte graphics cards available in your country?

They make an excellent passively cooled 7600GT.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 4:22 am

Sorry, I forgot to specify I need an AGP card, which I don't think Gigabyte make a passive card for.

kater · Post by **kater** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:31 am

if you can get galaxy with vf 700 - by all means do so. it'll be quieter than other cards. if you can't or don't want to (for some reason - sorry, but i don't get your comment on the galaxy

) the next best choice will be palit - i read & heard they're pretty quiet as the heatsink is quite large and the fan is also bigger than the one normally used.
getting an aftermarket cooler on 7600gt agp might be tricky as there seems to be the same HSI chip as in 6600 agp cards. if so, the best cooler to fit would be... zalman vf 700 - which already sits on galaxy. i've recently read about ppl succesfully fitting their 6600 agp cards with passive zalman sandwich coolers, so it just might be possible with this one - but lots of modding will be required.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 7:37 am

What I was trying to say about the Galaxy is that if I can get it, and it's not stupidly more expensive, then it would be my first choice, but I can't seem to find it anywhere anyway

Thanks for the warning about the HSI chip. It looks like my best option would be to get the Palit and then if I find it's too noisy, I can put the money I've saved towards a VF 700.

kater · Post by **kater** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 7:45 am

oh, that

but DO try to get galaxy - i'm sure it's available in UK, got to be! another good thing about galaxy cards is they usually overclock like mad. for what i know they're very reasonably priced when compared to other makes

one more thing - you are aware there are 7600gs cards by asus and gigabyte with passive coolers? right? maybe that's the way to go if you can sacrifice a bit of performance for noiseless operation, huh?

EDIT - what's about the psu & ati? tell me what psu you have and i think i'll be able to tell you if you really need a new one.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:37 am

OK, I'll keep looking. I could even buy it from somewhere else in the EU if they have a website in English

I was planning on getting the 7600GS at first, but when I saw how much lower performance it has compared to the GT I changed my mind.

With the ATI and PSU, I understand that it needs quite a few amps on the +12v rail. I've got two PSU's, one's a 300W FSP Group Fortron/Source ATX 300GTF (1) (it came in the Fujitsu Scaleo tower case!) rated at 13A on +12v and the other's a 350W Q-TEC ADT-350 rated at 15A on +12v.

vincentfox · Post by **vincentfox** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:29 am

I like my 7600GT a lot. It's raw performance versus it's wattage puts it at the top of the list. It's idle power usage is not much more than a 7600GS. It's also nice being able to run it on any old PSU and not worry about a special power-connector just for the video-card and other craziness, I refuse to do that!

Good luck in your search for a good AGP part. I started a search for a good 7600GT AGP some months ago, and never found anything. Finally, it was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, and motivated me to build a new system with PCI-E. It's frustrating that it's so hard to get good AGP cards anymore, when we all know that AGP is technically as capable as PCI-E.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:59 am

I've just been looking at this comparison here: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/10/ ... index.html

and it seems that the 7600GT runs about the same as the 7800GS, at least with older CPUs. I've got a P4 2.8ghz, so my system isn't that different to the one they used, although I'm very interested to see part 2 of this article. It's interesting to see that the xt1950 pro doesn't confer much advantage with a lot of games when paired with a lower-end CPU.

I think it's only recently that more companies have been making 7600GT AGP cards so I can understand you having trouble finding one. At least now you've moved to PCI-E you've got a lot more options in terms of graphics card upgrades in the future and there seem to be more passive solutions available as well.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 9:53 am

I'm still unsure whether I need to get a new PSU or not, even for the 7600GT.

The charts here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?s ... ll.gif&1=1

seem to indicate that a 7900gs (I know it's not the same) would need a total of 44.1W from 12v when under peak 3D load

whilst this one shows a figure of 60W for the x1950 Pro:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?s ... ll.gif&1=1

I also used the Power Supply Calculator (http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine) which suggested I'd need 377W for a x1950 Pro system and 332w for a 7600GT system. So maybe my 350W PSU would be OK with the 7600GT, but how many amps do I need on the +12v rail?

The components I selected were:
P4 C 2.8Ghz Northwood
85% TDP
2 Sticks DDR SDRAM
X1950 Pro / 7600GT
2 IDE 7200RPM HDDs
1 DVD-RW
1 DVD-ROM
1 additional PCI card
1 80mm fan
1 120mm fan
100% PSU utilisation
15% Surge Compensation
45% Capacitor Aging

kater · Post by **kater** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:04 am

350w or even 300 is plenty for a 7600gt and x1950pro. it's true ati needs more power but it still won't cause any problems. power consumption calculators hugely overestimate power needs. your fsp is much better than q-tec, so i'd personally chose this one. 7600gt is a low power card so amps won't matter much here. seeing other people's rigs running on 300w power supplies i'd say its safe to go for x1950pro.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:48 pm

Cool. Thanks for the advice. It's actually easier for me to use the FSP 'cos that's the one that's already in my P4 case. The Q-tec I had to buy when my P3's PSU died, probably due to my replacing the fan to make it quieter. It lasted about a year, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the Q-tec was just as quiet, so I didn't need to butcher it.

I'll probably get the 7600GT, but I've found I can overclock my P4 2.8Ghz to 3.2 without any problems so maybe the x1950 Pro won't be as held back by my CPU as I thought it would.

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 1:49 pm

from a slightly different perspective, I was in a similar position a few weeks ago, trying to decide what new AGP card to get and even whether to bother upgrading at all. I was erring between a cheap 7600GS or gigabyte's passive 7600GS, then I found a DDR3 7300GT with similar performance to the 7600GS but for less money, so bought that instead.

I figured there wasn't much point splurging on a GPU when a) my PC isn't blazing fast anyway (Sempron 2400+, skt A!) and b) I'll probably be upgrading everything to a E4300 within 6-8mths. The cheapness of the card swayed me to the upgrading option. It's a Palit card (pretty much the same HSF as all their AGP models I think) and everything went in okay. The fan is noticeable (sounds like a muffled CD at 8x) but I'm going to remove it (it's attached with 3 accessible screws) and point an L1A @5v at it. I'm planning on making a DIY passive HS for it in the near future as it puts out so little heat - perhaps around 25W at load (guestimate from review sites). 'fraid I can't measure power consumption as I can't find a power meter anywhere in NZ. No performance figures yet either, as I don't have any recent games or test programs installed - I'll make a separate post soon.

so.. might not apply if you're gunning for performance, but it's worth considering as a stopgap measure.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 1:10 pm

Thanks for the suggestion but I've decided that I want either a 7600GT or x1950 Pro as I won't be upgrading my PC for some time.

It's interesting that you say the Palit fan is noticeable as a lot of people have been saying how quiet the fan on the Palit 7600GT is. I wonder if that uses a different fan.

The Palit is the cheapest 7600GT I've found so far anyway, so it doesn't really matter if I have to use an extra fan to cool it quietly as I would probably have to do the same with any other make.

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 2:34 pm

that's fair enough, everybody's needs differ.

at 50% (lowest it'll go with Palit's control panel) the fan is noticeable but not particularly offensive. At that speed it gives ~55 and ~65C idle and load temps, respectively (using ATItool to load the GPU). My PC is really rather quiet, though not silent (I can just about hear it late at night), so it wasn't a surprise I could hear a tiny fan spinning away at 3000rpm

I've done a little experimenting (to the amusement of my wife) - first overclocking (to 550/800!), then removing the fan, to finally bungying a 80mm L1A@5v off the end of the card. Running fanless was a no-go, temps went quickly up to 95C before I shut the PC off. The L1A was quite a success though, adding only 10C above stock but adding nothing to the noise floor. If you actually bungy a 80 or 92mm to the HS itself I'm sure temps would be far better, but this way my HDD gets a bit of cooling too.

Not sure that helps, but there it is anyway!

Solitary · Post by **Solitary** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 2:41 pm

I have the Leadtek 7600 GT AGP, didn't like the leadtek-fan noise level. In 2D mode the noise is ok, but in 3D mode the fan spins up and becomes noisy. After a few months the fan started buzzing. Took it as an excuse to get a new fan : P Bought the Zalman VF900 without the LED. And the blue zalman aluminium heatsink for the HSP chip.

The HSP heatsink fitted nicely. The VF900 didn't fit on the card. The two holes in the Leadtek PCB are spaced to far apart. Did a custom fastening one side, and used the original screw on other side. Working fine now

I am using the Aspire X qpack case. This one does not leave alot of room for the AGP card. The heatsink of the vf900 can't take up much space outside the PCB. But I rotated the fan and everything fits, but it is a tight fit.

I use the supplied fancontroller to make the VF spin at it's lowest rpm. Since the fan doesnt spin up in 3D, it runs a little hotter than with the leadtek fan, but makes less noise. Temps are about 40-45 C 2D and 60-65 C in 3D now, don't remember the exact leadtek-fan temps.

I am happy with the results

Good Luck with your choice.

I can take a pic if you are interested.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 2:51 pm

mattthemuppet,

It's interesting that you can adjust the speed of the fan on the Palit with the control panel. I can't do this with my current card, so I might find doing that makes it quiet enough for me. I wonder if it's possible to connect a different fan to the card and adjust the speed of that in the same way

I'm quite a fan of the old Zalman bracket and fan approach, as you don't have to worry about whether the graphics card's got the right holes in the right place or not, etc. Sure, it won't cool the card as well as a fan mounted on the heatsink, but providing the temperatures are within reasonable limits, that's good enough for me.

I'm intrigued as to what your 'bungying' a fan off the end of the card involves though

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 3:11 pm

Solitary,

Hmm, think I'll stay away from the Leadtek cards then. Sound like too much trouble. Thanks for the heads-up.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 3:21 pm

I've actually found one place that's selling the Galaxy 7600GT's. They're Â£109 though, and that's not the Zalman model, so if I get a 7600GT I'll probably get the Palit.

Having said that, I'm still not convinced my PSU is up to running either a 7600GT or a x1950 Pro.

If I've got the figures right, at Peak my Northwood P4 2.8Ghz (OC'd to 3.2) draws about 96W. The 7600GT draws 36W and the x1950 Pro draws 66W, so I'm looking at 132W or 162W, which is 11A@12v or 13.5A@12V. Add on a couple of amps for HD's, fan's, etc and I don't see my 13A PSU being happy!

Looking at the quiet PSU's that provide lots of 12V (Antec Neo or Seasonic), they're going to set me back about Â£50-60 which pushes my upgrade to Â£140-150 for the 7600GT and about Â£200 for the x1950 Pro. If I'm spending that sort of money, maybe I should just buy an Xbox360!

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 4:53 pm

you'll be fine I'm sure - it's unlikely you'll run everything at peak load at once.

You will be able to plug a fan into the cards fan header BUT you'll need to either splice the new fan wires to the cards original fan plug or do a swap. It's actually pretty easy - use a small screwdriver to release the 2 pins inside the fan plug, swap pins (may need soldering iron) and then push back into plug. You may even be able to gently pull the card socket off the header and push the new fan plug directly onto the header.

However, I think Rivatuner (if it supports the card) should allow you to lower fanspeed to less than 50%, which may be quiet enough for you.

As for the fan bungy, it's an idea I got off MikeC (should be a pic somewhere on here of his mod). In my case (da da!) I just threaded a bit of stretchy cord through the top 2 holes on the fan, then through a hole in the card (at the HDD bay end) and through the wires for the power connector. The bottom of the fan then just rests on the IDE connector of my HDD. I've taken some pics, I'll upload them and put my rig into the gallery soon.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:11 am

I would have thought it quite likely that playing a new-ish game would involve the CPU and GPU running at peak. Then the game might be loading files from my first HD, whilst using the Swap File on my second HD, throw in a few amps for fans and the motherboard and it adds up.

I think I'd be pushing my luck with the x1950 Pro. I'll have to see if I can get a 7600GT from somewhere that will give me a refund if it doesn't work with my PSU, because I'm really not interested in spending more money on a new one.

Thanks for the advice about the fan header. I'm looking forward to the pics of your bungy as well

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 5:13 pm

finally, I got off my arse and uploaded some pics:

and

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 6:24 am

Nice one, that looks pretty cool. You know, I never even noticed graphics cards had those holes until you brought this up

I think I'll have to relocate my hard drives so they benefit from this fan as well, 'cos they're above the graphics card at the moment.

Have you ever experimented with opening up one of the PCI slot expansion plates to see if that improved airflow/cooling, as I'd have thought that a lot of the air would be bounced back with them all closed?

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 1:39 pm

no worries, it's amazing what you find when you start looking

I had thought about opening up a PCI slot, but the two intakes (front bezel, flowing over HDD, and CPU duct) are filtered and it's a -ve pressure case, so if I open up a PCI slot there'll be more air drawn in there and not enough pulled over the HDD. That's the main reason the HDD is where it is, though I was thinking of putting a thinner filter behind the front bezel as the HDD was getting a bit warm, even with the new fan there. I have been pondering making a passive HS for the graphics card (have a huge old peltier HS at home), but that would almost definitely need an open PCI slot. Hmm.

Airflow's a tricky thing to balance, particularly if you want to minimise fan no. AND filter the intakes - not sure I'm quite there yet!

Derfel · Post by **Derfel** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:37 pm

If you go for a 7600 GT then you should seriously consider the XFX Fatality one - factory overclocked and has a passive cooler + 2yr warranty.

review/benchmarks:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/411/

ps. Just noticed you need an AGP one but I am pretty sure I read in a review that there is an AGP version of this with a slower clock - can't find anything straight away on google though

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:41 am

mattthemuppet,

Wherever you are, it's somewhere far in front of me. I don't even understand this -ve/+ve air pressure thing yet, although I haven't really looked into it so I'll have to do some reading and see if it makes any sense to me

Derfel,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll certainly look into it. There does seem to be more passively cooled PCI-E cards than AGP ones for some reason.

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:30 pm

doveman, it's pretty simple - I have only exhaust fans, so I have air being pulled into the case. As such it'll come in anywhere there's a hole, which is why you often see dusty USB ports on -ve pressure cases. If you have only intake fans, you'll be blowing air into the case and it'll escape wherever it can. Depending on fan size, no. and speed, most people's cases are somewhere in between.

The things I like about -ve pressure cases are that a) you use less fans and they're usually further away from you and b) by blocking any unwanted holes and putting components in front of intakes you can often get similar cooling to having an intake fan, but without the fan

The CPU duct I have also allows me to run my CPU passively, though the fan on it adds nothing to the noise floor so I usually leave it on.

bobov · Post by **bobov** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 5:53 pm

Derfel wrote:If you go for a 7600 GT then you should seriously consider the XFX Fatality one - factory overclocked and has a passive cooler + 2yr warranty.

review/benchmarks:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/411/

ps. Just noticed you need an AGP one but I am pretty sure I read in a review that there is an AGP version of this with a slower clock - can't find anything straight away on google though

I brought the XFX Fatality one 7600 GT. Core temp up to 129C during 3D bench. Obviously, something wrong with it. Does Gigabyte's 7600GT run much cooler?

Edit: Just reapply AS Ceramique on the core, now temp drop to 51C/79C idle/load. Seems OK now.

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 8:41 am

mattthemuppet,

thanks for explaining that. I'll try making my cases -ve pressure in future.