In the test 15 years ago: The absolute price-performance tip GeForce 7600 GST

With the GeForce 7600 GST (test), Inno3D created an Nvidia graphics card based on the G73 chip, which was placed between the GeForce 7600 GS and GT. With a price of 120 euros it was an absolute price-performance tip 15 years ago.

Table of contents

  1. 1 A fast GeForce 7600 GS or a slow GeForce 7600 GT
  2. Solid distance to the GeForce 7600 GS
  3. Nothing for quiet computers
  4. Conclusion

A fast GeForce 7600 GS or a slow GeForce 7600 GT

Like the GeForce 7600 GS and GT, the GST model also relies on Nvidia's G73 GPU. The differences between the three graphics cards were therefore limited to the clock rates. Compared to the 7600 GS, the GST came up with a 25 percent higher GPU and 75 percent higher memory clock. For its part, the GeForce 7600 GT had a GPU clock that was 12 percent higher. At 105 euros, the GeForce 7600 GS was the cheapest model, followed by the GeForce 7600 GST for 120 euros (+14.2 percent) and the GeForce 7600 GT for 160 euros (+ 33.3/16.6 percent respectively ).

GeForce 7600 GS Inno3D 7600 GST GeForce 7600 GT Chip G73 transistors approx. 178 million production 90 nm chip clock 400 MHz 500 MHz 560 MHz pixel pipelines 12 shader units
per pipeline (MADD) 2 FLOPs (MADD/ADD) 77 GFLOPS 96 GFLOPS 108 GFLOPS ROPs 8 pixel fill rate 3,200 MPix/s 4,000 MPix/s 4,480 MPix/s TMUs per pixel pipeline 1 texel fill rate 4,800 MTex/s 6,000 MTex/s 6,720 MTex/s vertex shader 5 triangular throughput 500 MV/s 625 MV/s 700 MV/s pixel shader PS 3.0 vertex shader VS 3.0 memory volume 256 DDR2 256 GDDR3 memory clock 400 MHz 700 MHz memory interface 128 bit memory bandwidth 12,800 MByte/s 22,400 MByte/s SLI/CF support yes

The PCB of the Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST corresponded exactly to that of the GeForce 7600 GT. The manufacturer also took over the cooler unchanged. The modification of the fan control that Inno3D made and resulted in higher sound pressure levels made suspicious, although the GeForce 7600 GST produced less heat than the 7600 GT due to the lower clock rates.

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Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST
Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST back
Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST SLI
content/uploads/d33ccb1b62e01ad8e1be2fdaa5dfdc84.jpg “/> Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST Kuehler
Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST voltage converter
Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST without cooler

Solid distance to the GeForce 7600 GS

In the benchmarks, the graphics cards were tested in a system with Athlon 64 FX-60, Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe (SLI systems) or Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe (CrossFire systems) and 2 × 1,024 MB Corsair TwinX1024-3500LL PRO (2- 3-2-5) tested. In 1,280 × 1,024 and 1,600 × 1,200 pixels, the Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST was able to set itself apart from the GeForce 7600 GS by 35 percent. The GeForce 7600 GT was missing an average of 10 and 11 percent, respectively. With activated anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the significantly higher memory bandwidth of the GeForce 7600 GST compared to the GeForce 7600 GS was noticeable. The lead over the GeForce 7600 GS grew to 48 and 53 percent, respectively, while the 7600 GST was only 6 and 7 percent behind the GeForce 7600 GT.

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

Not for quiet computers

The fan control of the Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST made it virtually unusable for quiet computers. Even without load, it produced a sound pressure level that was twice as high as that of the GeForce 7600 GS. It was almost five times the volume under load. Compared to the GeForce 7600 GT – whose cooling system formed the basis – the 7600 GST was significantly louder. In idle it was 26 percent and under load 19 percent. Due to the higher speed of the fan, the temperatures of the 7600 GST were lower than those of the 7600 GS and GT, but these models already had no temperature problems. As expected, the energy intake leveled off between the other two siblings.

«Previous VolumeTemperaturePower consumption Next»

Conclusion

With a price of 120 euros, the Inno3D GeForce 7600 GST was a real price-performance tip. Compared to the GeForce 7600 GS, there was significantly more power for an extra charge of 15 euros, especially when anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering were used. The 40 euros more for a GeForce 7600 GT resulted in a comparatively small increase in performance, so that the GeForce 7600 GST was a good alternative. One problem was the availability: Since the GeForce 7600 GST was not an official model from Nvidia, but in principle an Inno3D GeForce 7600 GT with lower clock rates and different fan control, there was not a large number of models. At the time of the test, the graphics card was only available from a retailer in Germany.

From today's perspective, it seems almost unthinkable that Inno3D is exactly one manufacturer of such a GPU with a supposedly official name: Today there is no way around the variants that Nvidia and AMD offer all partners – every deviation from the norm has to be approved beforehand.

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 Core 2 Extreme X6800 left them all behind
  • < li> The Zalman VF-900 Cu dominated them all

  • Three GeForce 7950 GX2 from loud to fast
  • GeForce custom designs in extra fast and silent
  • The “gamer cube” that only ventilated via the power supply
  • Nvidia's double decker alias GeForce 7950 GX2
  • Intel's Core 2 Duo E6700 shone in the preliminary test
  • 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 against 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
  • Intel's Pentium EE 965 was faster and more economical
  • brought silent winter with RAM-OC the Athlon 64 on tour
  • ATi's all-in-wonder Radeons with TV tuner
  • entry-level graphics cards were loud or slow

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


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