7600GS passive, 32W

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:11 am

The NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS is a single slot card that features a 400MHz core clock speed with a GDDR2 memory clock speed of 400MHz (800MHz double data rate). The 7600 GS features 5 Vertex shading units with a total of 12 pixel shader pipelines. This is the same number of shading units and pipelines found on the GeForce 7600 GT, so the only difference on the card is the clock speeds and the memory type used. Thanks to the lower clock speeds NVIDIA has been able to get the peak power consumption down to 32 Watts from the 67 Watts found on the 7600 GT. This is big news for those wanting a silent cooling solution and for those in the HTPC market.

flyingsherpa · Post by **flyingsherpa** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:05 am

D'oh! i just bought a new passive card, but i would have waited for this one had i known.

isn't it always that way?

edit: looks like its pci-e only so now my AGP-only self doesn't have to feel so bad.

Le_Gritche · Post by **Le_Gritche** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:12 am

Article quoted by QuietOC wrote:Thanks to the lower clock speeds NVIDIA has been able to get the peak power consumption down to 32 Watts from the 67 Watts found on the 7600 GT.

Halving the power consumption seems a lot. The core is at 400 MHz rather than 560MHz, but the 7600GS is also using DDR2 memory when the 7600GT is using DDR3 memory.
The core speed difference can explain maybe a 15W difference, I'm not sure if the DDR2/DDR3 difference can explain the remaining 20W, so maybe they also lowered the core voltage.

All in all that's very interesting, they will be affordable, quite and powerful, and maybe the price of the 6600 will drop when vendors will discount their remaining inventory.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:14 am

too bad it was a "preview" and not a "review". the performance section is just somthing nvidia did, not somthing they did independantly.

and while during the whole thing they constantly compare the gs to the gt, when you get to the performance benchmarks, its the gs vs some ati card. no gt in sight on the performance charts. lame.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:18 am

Aris wrote:and while during the whole thing they constantly compare the gs to the gt, when you get to the performance benchmarks, its the gs vs some ati card. no gt in sight on the performance charts. lame.

The awful wavy graph has a "line" for the 7600GT.

doudou · Post by **doudou** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:16 am

Hey,
You might want to have a look at this french website which has a review and compares 7600Gs to Gt and to 6600 GT.

They also measured the power consumption and found a 42 W difference between GT and GS. This is roughly identical to NVidia claims (35W).
The GS consumes also like 8W less than a 6600GT.
Comparing with previous xbitlabs review on power consumption of graphics cards, this is not very consistent with Nvidia TDP figures. If xbitlabs is right, a 6600GT consumes 48W at worse. 48 - 8 = 40. That's an 8W difference with NVidia TDP figure (32W). Who's right ? I don't know. But anyway, the geforce 6600 was measured by the same xbitlabs guys at 28W.

To me the 7600GS is not a good deal. You do not get extra 2D features compared to a 6600 but the price is a lot higher, and it consumes more.
Maybe it will be useful for things like Vista's Aero interface ?

X1600s seems of more value for money.

Le_Gritche · Post by **Le_Gritche** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:17 am

doudou wrote:Hey,
You might want to have a look at this french website which has a review and compares 7600Gs to Gt and to 6600 GT.

Be cautious, that's not a real 7600GS review, they took an eVGA 7600GT and under-clocked it at 400/400:

Comme nous n'avons pas pu nous fournir d'exemplaire final, nous avons utilisé notre carte 7600GT eVGA que nous avons sous-cadencée à 400/400 MHz

That's mostly fine except for the memory : The GDDR3 of their 7600GT at 400MHz may not emulate exactly the DDR2 at 400MHz of the 7600GS.

I found another preview of the 7600GT/7600GS at Rojakpot
On the next page they cover also the 7300GS and 7300LE.
There too they publish only benchmark results provided by nVidia, I will reserve my judgement until I can see these cards benchmarked by a website for real.

diver · Post by **diver** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:51 am

The 7600GS was not exactly unexpected. Thre have been pictures of a passive card on the web, and when the 7600GT arived with its box cooler, by elimination the passive model had to be the GS.

It is actually a good deal for someone who wants an out of the box passive VGA card with reasonable performance. Not everyone needs to run Doom 3 @ 100 fps. This way you get the performance of a 6600GT without the heat and passive cooliing without a price premium. For builders of quiet PC's this looks like a step in the right direction. As this is a reference design, it is likely to work a lot better than Gigabyte's somewhat twisted attempts at building passive VGA.

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 6:13 pm

I know that graph is from Nvidia but I would have liked to see the 7600gs in SLI mode to see how it stacks up to the single 7600gt. I might be interested in this card for SLI - seems fairly cheap and it's silent so if the performance is good it may be worth it. The ASUS one might be perfect for my HTPC.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 6:55 pm

Wow I'm highly impressed, a card many times quieter than the 6600gt with less heat/power usage and higher performance. PLUS dual-dvi! This is going to be totally the perfect card for HTPCs and anyone who wants a silent low heat computer.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:05 pm

Hmmm... $148 shipped...

500mHz core, 900mHz memory -- how many pipelines does it have?

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:25 pm

I haven't seen an ATI card (built bt ATI) that was fanless since the 9600. At least nVidia is presenting an option by reference design for a totally passive solution without us having to do any modifications, and it's going to be relatively inexpensive

While I still feel like going for the 7600GT/VF700 combination, it sure is nice to know there is a totally silent solution by reference design available if my present idea doesn't satisfy my quest for quietness.

I wonder how this 7600GS will do in Vista . . .

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:28 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Hmmm... $148 shipped...

500mHz core, 900mHz memory -- how many pipelines does it have?

The 7600GS and 7600GT have 12 pipelines.

Where did you see that card?

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:36 pm

The eVGA 7600GS has one DVI-I http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cf ... =CA9602807

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:58 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Hmmm... $148 shipped...

500mHz core, 900mHz memory -- how many pipelines does it have?

Ahh, that's the XFX version with a deviation from the reference design of core and memory clock speeds. eVGA is using the reference design of 400 and 800.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... ategory=48

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 8:15 pm

doudou wrote:To me the 7600GS is not a good deal. You do not get extra 2D features compared to a 6600 but the price is a lot higher, and it consumes more.
Maybe it will be useful for things like Vista's Aero interface ?

X1600s seems of more value for money.

What 2D features are you referring to?

Ackelind · Post by **Ackelind** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 1:14 am

JVM wrote:I haven't seen an ATI card (built bt ATI) that was fanless since the 9600. At least nVidia is presenting an option by reference design for a totally passive solution without us having to do any modifications, and it's going to be relatively inexpensive

While I still feel like going for the 7600GT/VF700 combination, it sure is nice to know there is a totally silent solution by reference design available if my present idea doesn't satisfy my quest for quietness.

I wonder how this 7600GS will do in Vista . . .

Why not go for a 7900GT combined with passive cooling by either Aerocool VM-102 or BeQuiet! Polar Freezer?

The 7900GT actually consumes LESS power than a 6600GT, and I manage to run my 6600GT passive with great results even with very limited airflow.

doudou · Post by **doudou** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 1:56 am

gvblake22 wrote:
doudou wrote:To me the 7600GS is not a good deal. You do not get extra 2D features compared to a 6600 but the price is a lot higher, and it consumes more.
Maybe it will be useful for things like Vista's Aero interface ?

X1600s seems of more value for money.
What 2D features are you referring to?

Purevideo. And actually i was wrong: 7600s have dual link DVI, which 6600s lacked.

JVM wrote:
I haven't seen an ATI card (built bt ATI) that was fanless since the 9600. At least nVidia is presenting an option by reference design for a totally passive solution without us having to do any modifications, and it's going to be relatively inexpensive

The X1300 and X1600 can be found in passive flavros without to much pain even though they are not reference designs (Sapphire for instance).
And a X1600XT is cheaper than the GS without being slower or consuming more.

I am not saying the 7600GS is a bad card. Just that it is not a bargain as you can have better from ATI.

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 5:48 am

doudou wrote:The X1300 and X1600 can be found in passive flavros without to much pain even though they are not reference designs (Sapphire for instance).
And a X1600XT is cheaper than the GS without being slower or consuming more.

Are you sure? NewEgg shows the 1600XT is $149 to $180 while the first 7600gs are $139 and $143.

I am not saying the 7600GS is a bad card. Just that it is not a bargain as you can have better from ATI.

There aren't any actual benchmarks yet but so far the information being thrown by Nvidia shows the 7600gs beating the 1600pro in almost all tests as show in the first url provided http://www.legitreviews.com/article/318/3/.

We don't have actual head to head numbers yet but I'm not sure how you can say that the 1600 is both cheaper and better based on what we have, especially the cheaper part. This is especially true if you try to compare total passive to total passive as the only passive 1600xt I can see is $180 vs the $140 for the 7600gs. The 1600pro compares well in price but I don't see any passive cards.

doudou · Post by **doudou** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 6:29 am

Ok i based my comparison on what i knew form european news sites and it appears prices changed.
If a 7600GS is cheaper than a X1600XT (for the same perf), then it is ok, i'll buy one, as purevideo is better than Avivo.
Or maybe not : it is not AGP !

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:10 am

Ackelind wrote:
JVM wrote:I haven't seen an ATI card (built bt ATI) that was fanless since the 9600. At least nVidia is presenting an option by reference design for a totally passive solution without us having to do any modifications, and it's going to be relatively inexpensive

While I still feel like going for the 7600GT/VF700 combination, it sure is nice to know there is a totally silent solution by reference design available if my present idea doesn't satisfy my quest for quietness.

I wonder how this 7600GS will do in Vista . . .
Why not go for a 7900GT combined with passive cooling by either Aerocool VM-102 or BeQuiet! Polar Freezer?

The 7900GT actually consumes LESS power than a 6600GT, and I manage to run my 6600GT passive with great results even with very limited airflow.

I haven't seen Be Quiet! Polar Freezer available in the USA. I'll have to check into Aerocool VM-102. One more thing is I don't honestly know if I want to spend that much more for the 7900GT, because I'm not a heavy gamer.

Le_Gritche · Post by **Le_Gritche** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:21 am

PretzelB wrote:We don't have actual head to head numbers yet but I'm not sure how you can say that the 1600 is both cheaper and better based on what we have, especially the cheaper part.

Fortunately HKEPC just published a review of the 7600GS (Babelfish translation to english).
They tested a 7600GS versus a x1600XT, both in single card setup and SLI vs Crossfire setup.
In single card configuration the 7600GS wins in most games and 3DMark2006, the x1600XT wins in 3DMark2005 and 2003.

Regarding the reasons for the lower power dissipation, they tell that the 7600GS core is at 1.1V while the 7600GT is at 1.3V.
The heatsink reach 57°C at full load, while the GPU 'die surface temp' reach 70°C (probably reported by the driver)
They overclocked the card to 505MHz/ 880MHz from the stock 400MHz/800MHz.

derekva · Post by **derekva** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:32 am

I've heard from eVGA that they will be offering HDCP on this card sometime this year, so when that happens, I'll be upgrading my MCE2005 system with a PCIe board (probably GA-K8NE Rev2) and an eVGA passivly-cooled 7600GS.

Happy-happy, joy-joy!

-Derek

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:31 pm

nice, the GS beat out an x1600xt. and it ran pretty cool too. die temp only reached 70c under load. not bad for stock passive cooling.

faster than x1600xt
uses less power than an x1600xt
uses a stock passive solution, whereas the x1600xt uses a fan
costs less than an x1600xt

you know i was gunna get the 7600gt and put an aftermarket passive heatsink on it, now im thinkin of just getting the cheeper 7600gs and leaving it stock. it'll still be faster than my current 6600gt (which still runs all the games i wanna play just fine).

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:48 pm

So it looks like the 7600gt is gonna be about 20-50% faster than the 7600gs in most cases, but it costs $190 + additional silent cooling for it is another 20 at least so about $215 shipped. while the 7600 gs is $145 and already silent.
So the question is 20-50% worth $70 extra dollars?

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:05 pm

doudou wrote:i'll buy one, as purevideo is better than Avivo.

It is?

openwheelformula1 · Post by **openwheelformula1** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:18 pm

well PureVideo is more mature and proven technology. It's the most popular solution for HTPC users. Additionally, 85.xx drivers will enable 1080p h.264 for 6600GT and higher. Purevideo decoder is pretty cheap as well.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:45 pm

GamingGod wrote:So it looks like the 7600gt is gonna be about 20-50% faster than the 7600gs in most cases, but it costs $190 + additional silent cooling for it is another 20 at least so about $215 shipped. while the 7600 gs is $145 and already silent.
So the question is 20-50% worth $70 extra dollars?

Good question

I wonder how much effect the heat will have from the 7600GS on your system temperatures?

The review had an open-bench test and what can we expect inside the case?

I would like to see idle and load temps with the 7600GS inside the case, and compared to the 7600GT with say a VF700 at 5V just for comparison sake.

mb2 · Post by **mb2** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:50 pm

when are 85.xx drivers available?
or can u get them beta now? (if so, link?)

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:58 pm

mb2 wrote:when are 85.xx drivers available?
or can u get them beta now? (if so, link?)

AFAIK, there's only an 84.25 beta now, and the WHQL version is 84.21 at this time.

7600GS passive, 32W

7600GS passive, 32W

Re: 7600GS passive, 32W