Copyright
1996-2024
by TSW
(Nikolay Tuzhilin)

Last updated: 08.07.2007

General information

This videocard produced by Gigabyte company is based on the modern, fast and cool graphic chip (Oct`2006) nVIDIA GeForce 7600GS.

Comparing to my previous videocard Radeon 9500 Pro it faster switches resolutions and has lower 2D quality. When switching into the running full screen 3D game for about a second you can see something like geometry rebuilding (e.g. scene without texturing or something like that).

3DMark 2003

3D benchmark of nVIDIA GeForce 7600GS (ForceWare version 91.47 driver) results measured by FutureMark 3D Mark 2003 for default and antialiased versions, compared to the 3 years old ATI and nVIDIA models and also modern (2006 year) integrated graphics:

Audio was provided by integrated sound on nVIDIA nForce2 MCP-ST SoundStorm subsystem.

Temperature test was 76C of the heat sink after and 88C of the core. Maximum during the test is 100C (core). Maximum videomemory usage was 128MB.

Even with 4x antialiasing enabled GeForce 7600GS outperforms Radeon 9500Pro at least twice times. But 4x AA + 16x Aniso are too much for this card.

More benchmarks here.

3DMark 2006

3D benchmark of nVIDIA GeForce 7600GS (ForceWare version 93.71 driver) results measured by FutureMark 3D Mark 2006 for default settings, compared to previous generation nVIDIA videocard:

So, it is obvious that such configuration is too cheap for this modern test. And there are no real difference in playability between old and new card :(

More benchmarks here.

Overclocking

Not tested yet.

It is seems natural between users of fanless videocards to supply them with external fan :). In my case the very small fan blows air through the empty slot hole out thus lowering the temperature of the heatsink and code about 20C down.

The following information taken from the official Gigabyte and nVIDIA pages.

Specifications

GV-N76G256D-RH

1. Powered by NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS GPU
2. Supports AGP 8x/4x and 12 pixel pipelines
3. GPU clock 400MHz
4. Microsoft DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0 support
5. Integrated with 256MB GDDR2 memory and 128-bit memory interface running at 400(800)MHz.
6. Supports PureVideo technology
7. Features DVI-I/D-sub/HDTV

NVIDIA® CineFX® 4.0 Shading Architecture

The fourth-generation NVIDIA® CineFX® engine builds unimaginable speed into the NVIDIA® GeForce® graphics processing units (GPUs). Using the CineFX 4.0 engine, developers can create and display the most advanced and high-quality visual effects for emerging PC games and other cutting-edge visual applications.

Every requirement for 3D visualization falls into one of two categories—performance or image quality—and being able to carry out more calculations in less time with the highest possible image quality.

The new NVIDIA GeForce 7 Series and GeForce Go 7 Series GPUs featuring the CineFX 4.0 engine incorporate architectural advancements that accelerate the most common operations required for 3D visualizations. This allows for more complex shader effects while maintaining the highest levels of image quality. The new design introduces innovation at every stage of the pipeline:

• A redesigned vertex shader unit reduces the time to set up and perform geometry processing.
• A new pixel shader unit design can carry out twice as many floating-point operations and greatly accelerates other mathematical operations to increase throughput.
• An advanced texture unit incorporates new hardware algorithms and better caching to speed filtering and blending operations.

The NVIDIA CineFX 4.0 engine injects breakthrough graphics technology into the core levels of the vertex shader, pixel shader, and texture engines. By accelerating triangle setup, crucial math elements of the pixel shader, and texture manipulations, the newest engine lets 3D graphics developers achieve new levels of performance and visual quality.

• Vertex Shaders
  • Support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Vertex Shader 3.0
  • Displacement mapping
  • Geometry instancing
  • Infinite length vertex programs
• Pixel Shaders
  • Support for DirectX 9.0 Pixel Shader 3.0
  • Full pixel branching support
  • Support for Multiple Render Targets (MRTs)
  • Infinite length pixel programs
• Next-Generation Texture Engine
  • Accelerated texture access
  • Up to 16 textures per rendering pass
  • Support for 16-bit floating point format and 32-bit floating point format
  • Support for non-power of two textures
  • Support for sRGB texture format for gamma textures
  • DirectX and S3TC texture compression
• Full 128-bit studio-quality floating point precision through the entire rendering pipeline with native hardware support for 32bpp, 64bpp, and 128bpp rendering modes

64-Bit Texture Filtering and Blending

• Delivers true high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting support
• Full floating point support throughout entire pipeline
• Floating point filtering improves the quality of images in motion
• Floating point texturing drives new levels of clarity and image detail
• Floating point frame buffer blending gives detail to special effects like motion blur and explosions

NVIDIA® Intellisample™ 4.0 Technology

Building on the revolutionary NVIDIA® Intellisample™ technology, the NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7 Series graphics processing units (GPUs) introduce Intellisample 4.0 technology. The fourth-generation Intellisample technology introduces two new antialiasing modes—transparency adaptive supersampling and transparency adaptive multisampling—which increase the quality and performance of antialiasing.

Transparency adaptive supersampling and multisampling take additional texel samples and antialiasing passes to enhance the quality of thin-lined objects such as chain link fences, trees, and vegetation. These types of objects are generally rendered on very simple polygon models (or even one polygon). The complexity of the final image (a group of branches or vegetation) comes from the texture that is mapped onto the polygon. Conventional antialiasing does not help this situation, because the edges of the vegetation or branches are actually inside the projected texture. Pixels inside a polygon are not touched by current antialiasing methods.

Transparency adaptive multisampling also improves antialiasing quality—with even higher levels of performance because one texel sample is used to calculate surrounding subpixel values. Although transparency adaptive multisampling is not as high quality as the supersampling method, its increased efficiency balances improved image quality and high levels of performance. The visual improvements of adaptive supersampling are obvious when compared to generic supersampling/multisampling approaches.

• Advanced 16x anisotropic filtering (with up to 128 taps)
• Blistering-fast antialiasing and compression performance
• Gamma-adjusted rotated-grid antialiasing removes jagged edges for incredible image quality
• Transparent multisampling and transparent supersampling modes boost antialiasing quality to new levels
• Support for normal map compression
• Support for advanced lossless compression algorithms for color, texture, and z-data at even higher resolutions and frame rates
• Fast z-clear

NVIDIA® UltraShadow™ II Technology

Accurate shadows are critical for realistic and believable scenes in games. But the complex interactions between light sources, objects, and characters involve elaborate programming. For every frame in a game, every light source must be analyzed relative to every object, potentially bogging down the PC and affecting your gameplay. The NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6 and GeForce 7 Series of GPUs deliver the patent-pending NVIDIA® UltraShadow™ II technology, which can be applied to today’s games to build stunning visual effects and to create distinctive digital environments. With a system powered by a GeForce 6 or GeForce 7 Series GPU, anytime a game or application calculates shadows, UltraShadow II will enhance the overall performance.

With UltraShadow II hardware, the more passes that are required for the lighting and shadow calculations in a scene, the more significant the performance improvement, with the most complex scenes achieving the most noticeable results. Thus, emerging next-generation games, that employ multiple light sources with many visible objects in each scene—such as DOOM 3™ from id Software—will see dramatic improvements in execution speeds. The technology advancements in UltraShadow II also deliver a 4× performance increase (compared to the previous generation) for passes involving shadow volumes.

Additionally, NVIDIA UltraShadow II gives developers the ability to calculate shadows much more quickly by eliminating unnecessary areas from consideration. By defining a bounded portion of a scene (called "depth bounds"), and focusing calculations only on the area most affected by the light source, developers can greatly accelerate the shadow generation process. With the ability to fine-tune shadows within critical regions, developers create incredible visualizations that mimic reality, and still achieve awesome performance for fast-action games. UltraShadow II also works perfectly with NVIDIA® Intellisample™ technology to ensure that shadow edges are properly antialiased.

Ultimately, the innovative techniques combined in NVIDIA’s UltraShadow II technology will empower developers with more programming flexibility and the hardware muscle they need to create unprecedented effects in their games and 3D applications. Complicated lighting and shadow effects become practical and next-generation games rise to the next level in cinematic realism. The results are more photorealistic scenes and environments in your games, without compromising PC performance.

NVIDIA® PureVideo™ Technology

Today’s consumers demand a high-definition (HD) home theater experience on their PC. They want superb picture clarity, stutter-free playback and multiple display connectivity options. The best way to achieve this is with NVIDIA® PureVideo™ technology.

Watch videos on your desktop PC, notebook PC, or HDTV without the annoying artifacts and imperfections of traditional PC-based video solutions. NVIDIA PureVideo technology is the combination of a dedicated video processing core and software that delivers ultra-smooth, high-definition H.264, WMV, and MPEG-2 movies with minimal CPU utilization and low power consumption. And the high-precision subpixel processing enables videos to be scaled to any size, so that even small videos look like they were recorded in high-resolution.

• Ultra-smooth Video:
  • Dedicated video processing core provides astonishingly fluid high-definition video on your PC without stutter or skips.
  • Programmable video processor accelerates H.264, WMV, and MPEG-2 high-definition movies.
  • Discrete video processing core offloads the CPU and 3D engine of complex video tasks, freeing the PC to run multiple applications simultaneously, while consuming less power.
• Superb Picture Clarity:
  • NVIDIA PureVideo delivers crisp pictures by eliminating double images, blurring, and distortions.
  • Jagged edges are smoothed with spatial temporal de-interlacing, inverse telecine, and advanced scaling technologies.
• Precise, vivid colors on any display
  • Gamma, brightness, saturation, color temperature correction, and LCD sharpening provide lifelike pictures and vivid colors on any display.
  • Native HDTV support drives high-definition televisions at resolutions up to 1920x1080p through Component, DVI and HDMI interfaces.

• Dedicated on-chip video processor
• High-definition H.264, MPEG2 and WMV9 decode acceleration
• Advanced spatial-temporal de-interlacing
• Inverse telecine (2:2 and 3:2 pull-down correction)
• High-quality video scaling
• Video color correction
• Microsoft® Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) supports multiple video windows with full video quality and features in each window

Built for Microsoft® Windows Vista™

Windows Vista™ is the first Windows operating system that directly utilizes the power of a dedicated GPU (graphics processing unit). NVIDIA® GeForce® GPUs are essential for accelerating the Windows Vista experience by offering an enriched 3D user interface, increased productivity, vibrant photos, smooth, high-definition videos, and realistic games.

• Third-generation GPU architecture built for Windows Vista
• Delivers best possible experience when running Windows Vista 3D graphical user interface
• New OS supported by renowned NVIDIA® Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) for maximum stability and reliability
• NVIDIA® PureVideo™ technology delivers high-quality VMR pipeline for best-in-class video for Windows Vista

Advanced Display Functionality

• Dual integrated 400MHz RAMDACs for analog display resolutions up to and including 2048x1536 at 85Hz
• Dual-link DVI capability to drive the industry's largest and highest resolution digital flat panel displays up to 2560x1600
• Integrated HDTV encoder provides analog TV-output (Component/Composite/S-Video) up to 1080i resolution
• Full NVIDIA® nView® multi-display technology capability

High Speed Interfaces

• Designed for PCI Express x16
• Support for AGP 8X including Fast Writes and sideband addressing
• Designed for high-speed GDDR3 memory

NVIDIA® Digital Vibrance Control® (DVC) 3.0 Technology

• DVC color controls
• DVC image sharpening controls

API Support

• Complete DirectX support, including the latest version of Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0
• Full OpenGL support, including OpenGL 2.0

GeForce 7 Series GPUs Model Comparison

Reference videocards comparison

The following information extracted from article at fcenter.ru