Video Upgrade, ps limited

andyL · Post by **andyL** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 9:34 pm

Hi, new poster, been lurking for a while now. I want to upgrade my son's AGP video card from a 9600 PRO. The SFF comp has a 200 watt power supply and I am not sure what video card I can get away with. I am looking for better game performance with a 1280x1024 resolution LCD (DVI). These are the cards that I have considered and would welcome advice/comments.

ATI 9800 too power hungry
ATI X1300 too slow
ATI 1600 too power hungry
NV 6200 too slow
NV 6600 - looking like the best choice, can pick one up for about $85 should be low power and cool enough to work
NV 6800 GS too power hungry (I have one of these in my wife's computer, I could try it if you think it may work)
NV 7300 too slow
NV 7600GS - pricey, too power hungry

thanks,
Andy

Computer specs
Biostar Ideq 210M SFF
200W power supply
P4C 2.8
VIA PM800 chipset
2 512 DDR400
DVDROM
7200 RPM IDE HDD
PCI WIFI NIC

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 3:34 am

According to Xbitlabs the 7600GS has about the same power draw as a 6600 (27.4W max vs 27.6W), and outperforms it by a factor somewhere between 1.5 and 2, so it might be worth the higher price.

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 7:16 am

I assume you mean this Xbitlabs article?
- http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... ise_6.html

The "7600GS" tested is a underclocked 7600GT. From the article:
"We had to down-clock a GeForce 7600 GT to emulate the GeForce 7600 GS, so the real GeForce 7600 GS may have slightly lower power consumption than shown.

Since the 7600GT runs at 1.3v and the 7600GS at only ~1.05-1.1v the real power consumption of the 7600GS should be much lower than 27.4W. Strange that Xbitlabs haven't tested a real 7600GS. They have volt modded a few cards but not cared to show the power consumption in those articles.

It's madness to pick a 6600 over a 7600GS today imho. The latter is better in almost every way (all but price).

andyL · Post by **andyL** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 7:43 am

To prevent madness, 7600GS it is. Any preferred brands? Gigabyte silent would be nice, but there is very little airflow over or around the card. Typically for a small form factor, it has to be a single slot card.

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 8:38 pm

Pick the one that looks like it would work the best with one of these on it.
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/vie ... 0&code=013

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 5:10 am

Or go for one of the passive ones, like the Gigabyte you mentioned. I think the temp would be ok even with very little airflow. If it should get much to hot it's easy to underclock the card a little.
Others beside Gigabyte have 7600GS-cards with stock passive cooling, like Leadtek and Gainward.

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 8:40 am

The Gigabyte was the only passive AGP one I found, the rest all seemed to have tiny (probably noisy) fans.

andyL · Post by **andyL** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:19 am

Like floffe, the Gigabyte was the only passive AGP I found. I know there are lots of passive 7600 PCIe cards.
Does anyone use/like/dislike the Gigabyte? Price for the Gigabyte is about the same as the others.
Andy

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 12:37 pm

I use the Gigabyte one, although in a regular ATX case with a 120mm front fan. It claims to stay under 60C even after a couple of hours of gaming on 1280x1024 (Q3-based game with HDR). Idle temps are low 50s.

wwenze · Post by **wwenze** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 1:42 pm

The 9600 is a pretty good card for low-power but relatively high performance. You can try modding it to an XT to get a performance near that of a 9800 @ 20+ watts IIRC. Normal 9600 runs @ 10+ watts.

If you really have to upgrade, do consider the 7300GT. It has a performance that beats that of 7600GS, at a power consumption lower than that of a 9800/6600GT (these two have similar power draw and performance).

Plus the DDR3 version (that beats 7600GS) is quite cheap. 6600 is long out of production so shops may charge higher than what it's worth, or people sell 2nd-hand still thinking this is a mid-end card.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 1:57 pm

Can you point me to the article that claims the 7300GT is faster than the 7600GS? The 7300GT uses the same core as the 7600GS. The 7300GT is clocked at 350mhz and the 7600GS is clocked at 450mhz. Can memory make that much difference? Also, there are some 7600GS's with GDDR3.

wwenze · Post by **wwenze** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 6:18 pm

Hmm why did it double post after editing?

wwenze · Post by **wwenze** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 6:20 pm

Here you go here's one:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/vi ... cid=3&pg=4

Memory can make that much of a difference. The 128-bit cards are heavily starved for memory bandwidth. 6600 vs 6600GT, 7300GS vs 7300GT DDR2 vs 7300GT DDR3, 7600GS vs 7600GST (Inno3D) vs 7600GT, apart from the some difference in clockspeed, the memory speed are very apart, with that of the fastest card twice as fast on that of the slowest card.

7600GS with DDR3 almost makes them a GT already. Of course, those slower cards that are equipped with DDR3 are usually premium overclock editions. These are the best to get and more bang-for-buck. If you can find a DDR3 7600GS cheap, and by cheap I mean around the price of a GST or less, go for the extra pipes. If not, get the DDR3 7300GT.

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 1:24 am

The problem with the 7300GT DDR3 is that they are pretty expensive, at least here in Sweden. Best price for the Inno3D 7300GT 256MB DDR3 PCIe is 1143 SEK and the Gainward 7600GS 256MB DDR3 PCIe is 1199 SEK. My Leadtek 7600GS 256MB DDR2 PCIe was 950 SEK and came with a stock passive cooler. (Prices includes 25% VAT and 1 USD is ~7.2 SEK).

Also I can't find a 7300GT DDR3 AGP.

wwenze · Post by **wwenze** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 3:03 am

Hmm... Vic... looks like the DDR3 7600GS is the choice.
Here in Singapore the Leadtek DDR3 version of 7300GT used to sell for $165 SGD while the DDR2 7600GS ~$190-200. This is of course before Xpertvision came in and stuff DDR3 on everything. Now a 7600GS with DDR3 costs $179 SGD.

I didn't know of its existance lol until just now. I take back my word of getting 7300GT. Get the 7600GS!!!

7300GT AGP exists in limited quantity, by Inno3D, and is priced rather expensively.

If I have time I'll try to find the power consumption difference between 7300GT & 7600GS, for threadstarter, since performance isn't the major problem here.

andyL · Post by **andyL** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 4:39 am

There is (at most) an 8 watt difference between the 7600gs and gt, according to x-bit labs. if we add 8 watts to the 7300gs, it would be less than 25watts, definitely in the same league power wise as the 7600gs. I was looking at some different sites as well as the one liked to, and I would have to say the 7600gs and 7300gt are awfully close to the same performance, but its not easy to find an AGP 7300GT with DDR3, and when I do, the are basically priced the same as the 7600gs (easy to find)

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 8:08 am

I think the power consumption of the 7600GS and the 7300GT are very similar. Take a look at this thread by smilingcrow for example. According to his tests the 7600GS and the 7300LE draws the same at idle.

I don't know the voltage of the GPU on the 7300-cards, but I think it's not much lower than on the 7600GS. The 7300 has fewer pipes but that in itself does not mean lower power consumption.

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 8:09 am

(double post, sorry)