I'd think that it's quite possibly a good contender for the spot. I also note that DH's testing was done with a significantly overclocked 7600GT, so that does change the comparison a little. One would also have to remember that when comparing benchmarks, one should always remember that if both cards score noticably above 60fps, it's a tie as well; however, DH wisely selected their benchmarks to show the "best" settings for the particular roundup; the only real exception being at
Quake 4 at lower settings.
The two cards are pretty close performance-wise, but then when it comes to other things... Obviously, the X1800GTO will overclock better; having that 256-bit memory bus does mean it gets twice the increased memory bandwidth for every MHz you add to its speed than the 7600GT does. Also, because the 7600GT is the maxed-out version of the G73 core, while the X1800GTO is the lowest form of the R520 core, there's also overclocking disparity there; as they found out, even judging off of stock speeds, you can still push the X1800GTO significantly farther.
Lastly, though it may only matter to some, there's always the IQ (image quality, not intelligence quotient, silly people! You can put down your pitchforks already!) issue. To date,
Half-Life2: Lost Coast appears to be the only HDR-enabled gaming title out there, wherin a GeForce card of any flavor can also use AA alongside HDR. To be honest, this puzzles me, because in virtually every HDR-enabled TECH DEMO, it's fully possible; this includes both third-party demos like Masa's RTHDRIBL, as well as card tech demos like nVidia's Luna and Mad Mod Mike. (not to be confused with the forum member of the same name
) This is also something that a gamer should keep in mind when buying such a card; even though some would dismiss sub-$200US cards as "middling," gamers using them are definitely not out of place to want to use AA in their high-end games with it.