Performance

The Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GT 256MB card is a front-runner in the mainstream performance market and competes against a wide range of video cards. This means comparing it against a variety of competing mainstream and high-end models, and in order to facilitate this testing, our reference platform needs to have some serious power in reserve. Our standard system configuration includes a dual core Athlon 64 FX-62 processor, an nForce 590 SLI motherboard, and 2x512-MB of Corsair CM2X512-8500 memory. This represents a solid base for high-performance video card benchmarking, which utilizes all the latest features, and makes sure that the platform itself will not hold any of these cards back.

The competition in our video card benchmarking has the Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GT 256MB card up against a selection of ATI and NVIDIA models, covering a range of mainstream and higher-end solutions. The NVIDIA reference cards include the GeForce 6600GT 128MB, GeForce 6800 GS 256MB, GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB, and GeForce 7800 GT 256MB, while the ATI contingent includes the Radeon X700 Pro 256MB, Radeon X1600 XT 256MB and Radeon X1800 XL 256MB. Our operating system is Windows XP Pro SP2 with the latest DirectX 9.0c.

Our benchmark selection includes standard game tests such as F.E.A.R., 3DMark06 Advanced, Quake 4, Half-Life 2, DOOM 3, Chronicles of Riddick, FarCry, Halo, Unreal Tournament 2004/2003, and Quake 3. All testing has been performed using standard 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 32-bit settings, along with high-end 4X anti-aliasing and 8X anisotropic filtering results as well. The 4X AA and 8X AF settings are representative of the detail settings many enthusiasts use for their high-end 3D gaming.

* Please note that unless otherwise stated, all performance graph results equate to the standard "higher is better" format.

Test System

General Settings:
Desktop Resolution: 1024x768
Color Depth: 32-bit
V-Sync: Disabled

Reference System:
Processors: Athlon 64 FX-62 (2.8 GHz dual core)
Memory: 2 x 512-MB Corsair CM2X512-8500
Motherboard: Asus M2N32-SLI
Motherboard chip set: nForce 590 SLI
NVIDIA motherboard drivers: 500 Series 9.34
NVIDIA reference drivers: ForceWare 84.21
ATI reference drivers: Catalyst 6.5
Hard-Drive: Maxtor MaxLine III 250GB
IDE Interface: Serial ATA-150
CD/DVD: AOpen 5232 Combo Drive
Power Supply: Enermax EG651P-VE-24P 550W EPS12V
DirectX 9.0c
Operating System: Windows XP Pro SP2

Video Cards:
Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GT 256MB
ATI Radeon X700 Pro 256MB
ATI Radeon X1600 XT 256MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT 128MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 256MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS 256MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB
ATI Radeon X1800 XL 256MB
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT 256MB