7600Gt nvidia: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT Specs

If this introduction didn’t scare you and you are ready to fantasize about the possible characteristics and performance of the 7600GT together with the author, then, as they say — welcome!

You may ask — why do this at all, all sorts of predictions? The answer is yes, it’s just interesting. I would like to look into the near future with at least one eye. Moreover, it is not so difficult to do this. How exactly? Yes, if only this way…

How we came up with the 7600GT

Speaking very strictly, it cannot be called a technique. Here I will rather outline the course of thoughts and assumptions about the possible characteristics of the 7600GT.
Start over. Why the name 7600GT? Yes, by analogy. There was a 6600GT video card, so why shouldn’t its successor on a new generation chip be called 7600GT? What characteristics can the 7600GT have? If it has 8 pixel and 3 vertex pipelines like 6600GT, it will be one video card. If you believe this, then there will be a completely different video card. 12 pixel and 5 vertex pipelines should significantly increase performance compared to 6600GT even at the same frequencies and the same 128-bit bus. Or maybe it will be two related, but different video cards, like 6600 and 6600GT. Here these chips are called 7600GS and 7600GT, and have 8 and 12 pixel pipelines, respectively. It is assumed that the GPU frequency will be 500 MHz or higher. We don’t know for sure what the bus width will be for future video cards. Most likely 128-bit. Still, these are middle-class solutions, and the 256-bit memory bus is a sign of a higher segment. In addition, NVIDIA already has a video card with 12/5 pipelines and a 256-bit memory bus. Yes, I’m talking about the 6800GS. At frequencies of 425/1000 MHz, this video card shows a very decent performance. If the 7600GT frequency is 500 MHz or higher, and the memory bus is 256 bits, then it can outperform the 6800GS. Therefore, we can assume that the memory bus width of the 7600GT will still remain 128 bits. In this case, it will be possible to safely position it in the middle segment at a price of, say, 149-169 ue (only the author’s conjectures — editor’s note ) to replace 6600GT, and there will be no «conflicts» with 6800GS (recommended price $199).

Here, in general, all the assumptions about the characteristics of video cards of the 7600 series. As a result, the following set of characteristics emerges:

• 7600GS — 8 pixel and 3 vertex pipelines, 500/1000 frequencies, 128-bit memory bus.
• 7600GT — 12 pixel and 5 vertex pipelines, 500/1000 frequencies, 128-bit memory bus.

Let me remind you again — these are just assumptions. With a set of characteristics, we have decided. You can move on to testing.

How we «tested»

Of course, we did not conduct any real testing of the 7600 series video cards. Simulation was carried out on the basis of the video cards at our disposal and the results obtained were approximated taking into account the above «characteristics» of 7600GS and 7600GT.

Modeling of 7600GS and 7600GT was carried out using video card… ASUS EN7800GTX TOP. This video card was not chosen by chance, as it is capable of running the GPU at a frequency of more than 500 MHz. In order to get a GPU frequency of exactly 500 MHz, the video card BIOS was edited so that all functional blocks worked at the same frequency and the frequency change step was 1 MHz. For such manipulations, we used the NiBiToR BIOS editor. Next came the turn of the RivaTuner utility. To obtain a configuration of 12/5 or 8/3 pipelines from the available 24/8 pipelines, the corresponding number of blocks was disabled and the GPU/memory frequency was set. That, in fact, is the whole «secret of focus».

For comparison, we used the results in two games — Half-Life2 and DOOM3. In the author’s opinion, these games are «classics» of the present time and quite adequately reflect the load on the video subsystem.

Of course, that’s not all. After all, the 7800GTX memory bus width is 256 bits. «Cutting» the memory bus to 128 bits did not work. How to be? Here we again plunge into the realm of assumptions and extrapolations.

1. It was suggested that the difference in the performance of similar video cards (which differ only in the memory bus width) will most significantly manifest itself only in «heavy» graphics modes, and in the 1024×768 mode without AA and AF it will be insignificant.

2. And one more point that I would like to take into account is the difference in performance of video processors of the same configuration, but of different generations. Does it exist? And if so, how significant is it?

Let’s start with point number two. Checking the performance differences between different generations of GPUs is quite simple. Let’s take the 6800GS video card, set up the pipelines/frequency configuration for ASUS EN7800GTX TOP in exactly the same way and compare. The results of such an experiment are shown in the table below.

Table 1

		HL2, FPS			DOOM3, FPS
	mode	1024×768	1280×1024	1600×1200	1024×768	1280×1024	1600×1200
Original 6800GS	4AA/16AF	81.52	51.83	41.32	66. 5	45	32.9
7800GTX as 6800GS	4AA/16AF	88.57	55.63	45.77	84.7	57.6	41.9
increase		8.65%	7.33%	10.77%	27.37%	28.00%	27.36%

As you can see, there is an increase in the transition to the new G70 architecture, and in the game Half-Life2 it is about 10%, while in DOOM3 this figure is approximately 27%. We won’t go into details right now as to why the performance spike is so different from application to application. The important thing is that it is resolution independent. I’ll make an assumption that the increase in the transition from 6600GT to 7600GS (with the characteristics we described earlier) will remain the same.

Now let’s compare the results of the «classic» 6600GT and our model with the same number of pipelines and frequencies.

Table 2

		HL2, FPS			DOOM3, FPS
	mode	1024×768	1280×1024	1600×1200	1024×768	1280×1024	1600×1200
6600GT original	NO AA/AF	88.5	53. 69	44.36	85.8	59.2	42.2
7600GS 256-bit	NO AA/AF	94.41	57.52	48.01	112.0	86.4	64.5
increase		6.68%	7.13%	8.23%	30.54%	45.95%	52.84%

For us, the results in the lowest resolution — 1024×768 — are of the greatest interest in this table. It can be seen that in the case of HL2, the increase is slightly less, and in the case of DOOM3, it is slightly more than the increase from Table 1, due to the difference in architectures, but in general they are approximately equal to each other. From this we can conclude that the influence of the 256-bit memory bus in our artificially obtained 7600GS at 1024×768 resolution is practically absent. And the increase in the performance gap with increasing resolution in DOOM3 can be explained by the criticality of this game to memory bandwidth.

Let’s go further and make the following assumption that — as the resolution increases, the results of 7600GS will decrease in percentage terms in the same way as for 6600GT. The measured results for 7600GS are corrected taking into account the above assumption. The results are displayed in the table.

Table 3

		HL2, FPS			DOOM3, FPS
	mode	1024×768	1280×1024	1600×1200	1024×768	1280×1024	1600×1200
6600GT original	NO AA/AF	88. 5	53.69	44.36	85.8	59.2	42.2
drop to 1024×768			39.3%	49.9%		31.0%	50.8%
7600GS 256-bit	NO AA/AF	94.41	57.52	48.01	112.0	86.4	64.5
drop to 1024×768			39. 1%	49.1%		22.9%	42.4%
7600GS 128-bit (calculation)	NO AA/AF	94.41	57.28	47.32	112.0	77.3	55.1

The first two lines are the measured results for the 6600GT and the drop in performance when changing the resolution, respectively, as a percentage of the results in 1024×768.

The second two lines show the measured results for the 7600GS and the drop in performance when changing the resolution, respectively, as a percentage of the results in 1024×768. It can be seen that the drop in results is somewhat smaller, due to the 256-bit memory bus.

The last line is the results for 7600GS, calculated on the assumption that they should fall, just like for 6600GT. We will leave them as final ones.

Moving on to a more difficult mode — 4AA / 16AF. An important remark should be made here. Since this mode creates quite a serious load on the memory, our «model» with a 256-bit memory bus will obviously show overestimated results even at a resolution of 1024×768. We will correct them as follows — we will estimate how the performance of 6600GT drops when switching from the «NO AA/AF» mode to the «4AA/16AF» mode and reduce the results obtained using the «model» by the same factor.

Table 4

		HL2, FPS			DOOM3, FPS
	mode	1024×768	1280×1024	1600×1200	1024×768	1280×1024	1600×1200
6600GT original	NO AA/AF	88. 5	53.69	44.36	85.8	59.2	42.2
6600GT original	4AA/16AF	56.66	35.31	27.56	42.8	28.1	20.2
drop ave, times		0.64	0.66	0.62	0.50	0.47	0.48
7600GS 128-bit (calculation)	NO AA/AF	94. 41	57.28	47.32	112.0	77.3	55.1
7600GS 128-bit (calculation)	4AA/16AF	60.44	37.67	29.40	55.87	36.7	26.4

That’s all. Now we can build the usual diagrams and compare the calculated FPS values ​​for the 7600GS with the results shown by the real 6600GT and 6800GS.

«Testing»

We warn you again — the performance values ​​for the 7600GS are obtained as a result of the forecast and may categorically differ from the results of real video cards.