The New AGP Lineup, Continue
Geforce 7600 GT
Online Price: ~$185
Codename: G73, 90 nanometer technology
12 Pixel Shaders, 5 Vertex Shaders, 12 Texture Units, 8 Raster Operator Units
128 bit memory bus
560 MHz core, 700 MHz DDR (1400 MHz Effective) Memory
The 7600 GT is an amazing card in this price range, sporting new SM 3.0 technology and very high clock speeds to deliver excellent performance. Its weakest feature is its 128-bit memory bus, but its high memory speeds offset that disadvantage and make it competitive with 256-bit cards like the X800 XT/X850 XT and even the 7800 GS.
Leadtek 7600 GT AGP
Our sample 7600 GT was provided by Leadtek. It also requires a molex connector for power - the 7600 GT for PCI express requires no separate power connector, but that's because the PCI express bus provides more power than the AGP bus.
We should note that the only other company to manufacture the 7600 GT for AGP is XFX.
BFG 7800 GS OC
Online Price: ~$240
Codename: G70, 110 nanometer technology
16 PixelShaders, 6 VertexShaders, 16 TextureUnits, 8 Raster Operator Units
256 bit memory bus
375 MHz core, 600 MHz DDR (1200 MHz Effective) Memory
The 7800 GS was a contender for the fastest AGP card title until the AGP flavors of the 7600 GT and X1950 PRO showed up on the scene. It is essentially a stripped-down 7800 GT, with 16 instead of 20 pipelines.
BFG 7800 GS OC
The BFG flavor of the 7800 GS is factory overclocked, like most (if not all) of BFG's offerings. Both the core and memory speeds have been bumped up to 400 MHz and 625 MHz, respectively, to give the 7800 GS a slight edge against other 7800 GS cards. Let's see if this edge helps it against the other contenders.
Like most of the other cards, the 7800 GS OC requires one molex connector for power.
Radeon 9700 PRO
For reference, a Radeon 9700 PRO was included in Round one. We couldn't include the same card in the round two testing, but we plan to test it on the Athlon64 3400+ at a later date and include this data.
