In the test 15 years ago: GeForce custom designs in extra fast and silent

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Aside from the countless graphics cards in the reference design, Asus offered two models with their own cooler (test) 15 years ago. The EN7600 GT Silent relied on a passive cooler, while the EN7900 GT TOP was actively cooled and operated with significantly increased clock rates.

Table of contents

  1. 1 Lots of plastic and little space
  2. There was nothing to complain about in terms of performance
  3. Conclusion

A lot of plastic and little space

The Asus EN7600GT Silent relies on the G73 GPU with 178 million transistors. This was operated with the standard frequency of 560 MHz. The 256 MB graphics memory also clocked at the 700 MHz specified by Nvidia. The built-in cooler was its own design. A copper plate dissipated the waste heat from the GPU and then via a heat pipe to the aluminum fins. An interesting detail was that the actual heat sink was mounted vertically above the graphics card and could be rotated by 90 ° using a swivel arm. This made it possible to place the heat sink above the CPU cooler in order to be cooled by its fan.

  1. Asus N7600GT Silent

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Asus N7600GT Silent
G71-Core

Asus N7600GT Silent backside
Asus N7600GT Kuehler
Asus N7600GT Silent voltage converter
Asus EN7600GT Silent cooler back page
Asus EN7600GT silent connections
Asus EN7600GTfigure = “/wp-content/uploads/8dac0d143d2e7b42f05a41a22dca653f.jpg” />Asus N7600GT Silent Swivel Arm
Asus EN7600GT Silent without cooler
Asus EN7600GT Silent VRAM
Asus EN7900GT TOP back
Asus EN7900GT TOP Kuehler
Asus EN7900GT TOP slot bracket
Asus EN7900GT TOP VRAM
Kuehler Rueckseite
The EN7900 GT TOP also built on the reference board with its own cooler. The graphics card's G71 GPU worked at 520 MHz instead of the 450 MHz provided by Nvidia. The memory clock was also slightly increased to 720 instead of 660 MHz. Compared to the reference design, the built-in cooler, which also covered the video memory, was larger. Since all GeForce 7900 GT with reference PCB had a defective fan control, the small radial fan worked at the same speed when idling as under load. Accordingly, the EN7900 GT TOP was not a quiet graphics card, but it worked a little quieter than the particularly loud reference design.

There was nothing to complain about in terms of performance

The performance of the Asus EN7600 GT Silent corresponded exactly to that of a conventional GeForce 7600 GT, as the clock rates were identical. It was interesting that the built-in passive cooler ensured lower GPU temperatures than the reference cooler. In the benchmarks, the EN7900 GT TOP was able to achieve a performance increase of between 10 and 13 percent compared to the reference design. In addition, the volume was lower – but it was not recommended for users who wanted a quiet system. At 71 ° C, the GPU temperature of the graphics card was low even under load. With a functioning fan control, the volume could have been easily reduced to a comfortable level.

«Previous performance rating 1280x1024Performancerating 1600x1200Rating 1280×1024 4xAA/16xAFRating 1600×1200 4xAA/16xAFLVolumePower consumptionTemperatureOverclock Next »

In the test, further overclocking the EN7900 GT TOP resulted in an additional 9 to 13 percent performance. The EN7600 GT Silent had even greater reserves: With a clock rate of 620/870 MHz (GPU/memory) it worked between 19 and 28 percent faster than in the delivery state.

Conclusion

The EN7600 GT Silent was an attractive offer at a price of 180 euros. For a surcharge of around 15 euros, customers received a silent and at the same time well-cooled graphics card that had sufficient performance for most players. The conclusion to the EN7900 GT TOP looked less positive. Although it worked faster and a little quieter than the GeForce 7900 GT reference design, it still didn't do justice to the price of 285 euros due to the high volume. Customers could find significantly better and quieter cooling solutions with the GeForce 7800 GTX (512) and 7900 GTX, although these graphics cards were more expensive. Another alternative were coolers from third-party suppliers, which were much quieter.

In the “Tested 15 years ago” category, the editorial team has been looking into the test archive every Saturday since July 2017. The last 20 articles that appeared in this series are listed below:

  • The “gamer cube” that only ventilated via the power supply
  • Nvidia's double decker alias GeForce 7950 GX2
  • Nvidia's nForce 500 for AMD's AM2 socket with DDR2 RAM
  • The best Radeon X1900 XTX came with a Zalman cooler
  • PCIe x8 versus PCIe x16 for multi-GPU systems
  • ATi's X1900 GT bit its teeth on Nvidia's 7900 GT
  • PhysX accelerator for 299 euros from Ageia
  • The GeForce 7600 GS was a stunner for 125 euros
  • HTPC case from Lian Li and Silverstone
  • The GeForce 7900 GTX in 90 nm and with a higher clock rate
  • Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi for more audio quality and FPS

    • < li> Intel's Pentium EE 965 was faster and more economical

  • Silentwinter got the Athlon 64 going with RAM-OC
  • ATi's all-in-wonder Radeons with TV tuner
  • Entry-level graphics cards were loud or slow
  • Noctua's first CPU coolers NH-U9 and NH-U12
  • The GeForce 7800 GS breathed life into AGP again
  • ATi's Radeon X1900 XTX was fast, hot and loud
  • Dual-core CPUs from AMD and Intel in a duel
  • In the second attempt, ATi CrossFire was better

Even more content of this kind and many more reports and anecdotes can be found in the retro corner of the ComputerBase forum.