XFX GeForce 7600GT XXX Edition

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Fast
Stability	Very stable
Ease of Installation	Good - quick to install
Picture Quality	Excellent
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Cheap for the power of it
Disadvantages:	7900GT only slightly more for more power

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

WHAT IS IT?:

This is a video card designed for rendering 3D models such as in games or 3D modelling software. However this is not designed to do professional renderings as in 3D animations.

BRIEF:

The XFX 7600GT XXX edition is a creation of nVidia, one of the biggest graphics card manufactures in the world. And they have come up with an excellent card, it plays most modern games at 1280x1024, without dipping under 25FPS.

OVERCLOCKING:

Overclocking is the process of increasing the "speed" at which something runs, beyond that which it is designed to run at. For example, say a graphics card's processor is designed to run at 500Mhz, and you overclock it to 570Mhz, that is a 14% overclock. You won't see a 14% increase in Frames Per Second while playing games, but you will see a slight performance increase. Why bother you might ask? Well, essentialy what you have done is increased the power of your graphics card without increasing the price tag! The only difference with this product is XFX has already done it for you, there by guarenteeing the card will be stable overclocked.

INSTALLATION:

Installing the card was a doddle, as the card doesn't need external power from the power supply, so no cables to plug in, just slide it into the PCI-Express slot, and its ready to go!

PERFORMANCE:

The 7600GT is nVidia's mid range video card. The 256Mb RAM means games with large textures will run faster as the game does not have to throw unused textures back to the hard drive to retrieve new ones.

I tested the game on Half Life 2, Episode One. Valves latest game, which does stress cards as it features HDR technology. I ran this test at 1280x1024, the standard resolution for 17" monitors.

The card ran at a smooth 40 frames per second, on average. In English, this means you won't be able to see any graphical lagging, the game will be smooth.

I have also tested the card on World Of Warcraft, at 1280x1024 again. The card gave an easy 50FPS outside major cities, and inside around 30FPS. It would have gone higher than 50FPS, but it is automatically capped at 50, as any higher would be useless, as most TFT monitors have a refresh rate of no more than 60Hz.

STABILITY:

I feel, as this is a preoverclocked card, stability needs to be looked at. As overclocking has the tendancy to make cards unstable or even break all together. I have been using this for months and have had no stability issues that we're resultant of the card.

OVERALL:

I give this card 5 stars because, for £100, you won't find a better card. And despite being this cheap, it still excells in one of the most popular games ever made.

NOTES:

Many companies are hazy about what "extras" come with this graphics card. I live in the UK and ordered from OcUK, although they don't sell the card anymore. It came with Starship Troopers the game, a disc from XFX full of (rubbish) game demos, and a driver CD.