dead for now: possible 7600GS (7300GT?) 128MB $37.25 shipped

[foofoo]

Originally posted by: mellondust
The picture on their website is still not the same fan as what you get.

It is more of a round heatsink with a big fan in side. It is a very quiet fan though. Even though I had problems with mine I could not even hear the fan running even with my case open. (And I did check to make sure it was on) It was much quieter than my cpu fan. The fan is similar to this but a little bigger and more fan blades.

If mine would have worked out of the box I would have been quite happy with it. I would really like another if I know it will work. Need a couple of other people who have got theirs to post their results. I'm just trying to determine if I just got a bad one or if it is a bad batch.

Thanks for the info update -
I may keep mine if the fan is truly inaudible. if not, it goes back.
Mine is supposed to arrive today - I'll post and let you know if it was DOA.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Disappointed to hear that it's not fanless. I knew it was too good to be true.

 

[AAman]

I installed it, it recognized my 32" Vizio, but does not recognized the maximum display, and my 22" Emprex is recognized but it will only display on it like an older model LCD (it's widescreen), the 7100 I pulled had no problem with either, google isn't much help so far, off to read the NVidia forums.

Ok, got it- they have to be entered manually and weren't automatically recognized even with the newest driver package from NVidia weird but working now....ok off to test BF2 on it

 

[magreen]

Any updates?

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Hopefully mine will be delivered tomorrow. I will plug it into my Windows machine in the extra x16 slot to check functionality before I start trying to make it work with Linux.

 

[mellondust]

I have e-mailed geeks 2 times since last week about mine being DOA but have gotten no response. Will they respond or do I have to call them on the phone? I don't know that I can call them from work and they are closed by the time I get home.

 

[Lanyap]

Originally posted by: mellondust
I have e-mailed geeks 2 times since last week about mine being DOA but have gotten no response. Will they respond or do I have to call them on the phone? I don't know that I can call them from work and they are closed by the time I get home.

It's been my experience that RMAs with geeks.com takes a couple of weeks before they respond to your email.

 

[vwfan17]

I bought one of these 3 weeks ago as well, lured by the "fanless" advertising. Got a card with a fan.

While testing it, found it identifies itself as a 7300gt, but clocked at 500/1000 (core/mem). Running 3dmark06, it performed BETTER than a stock 7600gs. At least as far as I could tell. Which makes sense: stock 7600gs is 400/800, 7600gt is 540/1080 (7300gt is 333/666). So, I looked at it as: 7600gs OC for $37 out the door. Fan is pretty quiet. Not a bad price. Happy/familiar with Nvidia..

btw, if you DO want to get a hold of someone at geeks (rather than sitting on hold), do this (thanks to resellerratings.com):
Please contact Kristopher at 760-726-7700 (dial 263 immediately) or email at Kristopher@geeks.com at your earliest convenience if you still feel you need additional assistance.

Or, call the main store, ask for "tech support" and ask for Guy (I spoke to him) - employee #2081, IIRC. He checked through the stock for me, and was willing to issue an RMA the second time I talked to him (after he pulled some cards off the shelf to see if there were any fanless cards around). Hope that helps someone..

VW

 

[I4AT]

The 7300GT is an 8 pipeline card while the 7600's are 12 pipes. Can you run everest on your card and post the results?

And stock clocks for a 7600gt are actually 560/1.4, I believe.

 

[VirtualLarry]

7300GT? Only 8 pipelines? This deal is the suck!

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Got mine today. Yep, it has a fan on a tiny little heatsink. On the plus side, the RAM chips read: "hynix hy5rs573225a" and "FP-14" which, if you search for it, you find that these same chips are used in higher-end cards like 8800GTS's and an ASUS 7900GS, and the Hynix site shows them rated at 1.4GHz. That's, uh, quite a bit better RAM than I was expecting. I took off the heatsink (really easy, just squeeze the bottom of the clips) and found that there's no paste, and there's a featureless heatspreader covering the GPU itself, so no luck there in identifying it. Will update again once I've got it plugged in and booted up.

 

[sisq0kidd]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
7300GT? Only 8 pipelines? This deal is the suck!

I was thinking about getting this as a backup, so it's a no go on the fanless design?

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

I can't speak to this card specifically, but my son has a 7600GS PCI-E card in his PC and it works great for games like TF2, SupCom, UT3, etc. at 1280x1024 with half or more of the settings set to high. Obviously, above 1280, it's going to get a lot worse, but for those with like 17" or smaller monitors, this isn't a bad, super-cheap gaming card to go with.

 

[onza]

Few Q's

1. 12 or 8 pipes?
2. Noise Level?
3. Speed of Core/Mem?
4. Heat?
5. Its cheap, so w/e lol

 

[slashbinslashbash]

3DMark05 shows 7600GS, clocks 0/0

RivaTuner shows NV4B/G73 revision A2 (8pp, 4vp), memory bus 128-bit, DDR3, core 401MHz, memory 500MHz (1GHz effective)

Sandra shows 7600GS, 500MHz memory clock.

Everest shows 400MHz GPU, 8 pixel pipelines, 4 vertex shaders, 8 pixel shaders, 500MHz/1GHz RAM.

edit:Hmm, after reading the post below, I downloaded ATITool and it also shows 12 pixel pipelines and 5 vertex pipelines. Hmmm, which is more accurate, ATITool or Everest/RivaTuner?

Also, Everest shows 500MHz GPU speed when 3D mode is on in ATITool.

I was able to bump up the memory to its rated 701MHz (1400MHz effective) with seemingly no ill effects.

GPUCaps shows 5 vertex / 12 pixel as well. I wonder which it is??

close of edit
It's definitely quiet though. And it looks pretty much like this card:

http://www.geeks.com/details.a...600-512MTV-P&cpc=RECOM

Different capacitors, and different layout of the connectors (VGA-DVI-HD), but that's the exact same heatsink.

 

[cwilson]

Just received mine today and working well so far. Mine also arrived with a fan and small copper heatsink unlike the fanless model pictured.

ATI Tool reports 12 pipes, 5 vertex, and default speed is 500/1000 in 3d mode. According to nTune temps were around 65C after I played a ~30 minute game of counter-strike source. 48C idle. nTune also shows the GPU fan at 675 RPM which never increases or decreases. I can't hear the video card in a shuttle SFF system but this also has a CPU (Pentium 4) fan that sounds like a freakin' leaf blower under load.

I tried overclocking and my results were 572/1198 anything higher and it crashed.

slashbinslashbash,
I just tried Everest and have the same results that you reported.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Ok, I decided to return mine. Regardless of the pipes/etc., the card is simply not what was listed on the site, and I have a problem with that.

So I called the Geeks at 760-726-7700 (took 11 minutes total for the call), and they are e-mailing me a prepaid FedEx label. I just have to drop off the box at a FedEx location, and I will get a full refund. I can't say that I'm happy with the situation, but at least they are taking care of it.

 

[mindless1]

You guys are nuts. Number of pipes? Who cares so long as it benchmarks well enough per your application.

8500GT is a slower card, at anything both could play near acceptible framerates. 256MB memory isn't much of a factor because to get 8500GT to play semi-modern games as fast as an oc 7600gs can, you'll have to turn down enough eyecandy and resolution that it just don't matter.

A quiet fanned heatsink is best. Passive heatsink require more case airflow for long life and decreases oc ceiling speed. Passive heatsink is worse even for a HTPC which tends to have worse airflow than a typical desktop.

I agree it's wrong for geeks to not send what is advertised but as for the rest the only real issue is if you needed a card in this performance range or would rather spend more. However, 8500GT does do more HD hardware acceleration than 7-series so that's something in it's favor.

 

[JWade]

as far as being reported as somethign else by a program, i downloaded the drivers from ATI/AMD for an x600 card, it reports it as any of three cards (x300/x500/x600 family it says)

 

[magreen]

Wow, this is getting really interesting. Now I want to hear the outcome of this mystery!

 

[Replay]

Anyone have more 3DMark benchmarks they can share, with system specs?

 

[I4AT]

Or better yet, if somebody that bought this card has a true 7600gs they can counter bench clock-for-clock, that would help determine the actual number of pipes. It's great that the ram is of higher than expected quality, but that bandwidth goes to waste if there isn't enough pixel pushing power to match it.

 

[skillyho]

For what it's worth to you guys........I had an EVGA 7600GS @ 400 core 800 mem which benched around 31K in 3dMark01 with my Core2Duo @ 3.2GHz. It was a filler card that I used for a while. There are tons of other reviews on the web that clearly show the 7600GS beating the 7300GT in most every situation. As far as I know, there were no 7600GS's made with DDR3 either (but there are several 7300GT's with said memory).

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Ok, I just ran 3DMark05 at 1024x768, and the Game tests got 3827 3DMarks. This is with the hardware in my sig (4400+@stock, 2GB DDR400) and the 7600GS at stock speeds.
GT1: 16.1fps
GT2: 11.6fps
GT3: 19.3fps
CPU score is 6107.

Overclocking the card to 550core/700mem brought the score up to 4561.
GT1: 18.7fps
GT2: 13.5fps
GT3: 24.1fps
CPU score went up to 7299. (??!?)

3DMark03:
10977 3DMarks when overclocked. Game tests 301.7, 80.7, 68.4, and 66.9. CPU score 1189. Vertex shader 31.6fps and Pixel Shader 2.0 129.0fps.
9122 3DMarks at stock speed. Game tests 270.8, 63.8, 55.8, and 55.8. CPU score 1184. Vertex shader 27.7fps, Pixel shader 2.0 96.3fps.

Take these for what they're worth. I really don't know if these are even in the right neighborhood or not. I've not been much into benchmarking in years. I could be doing something totally wrong.

 

[BIGFOOTPI]

if they had a 256mb version of that card for sub-$50 it would be a steal- 700x2=1400mhz capable RAM! NICE! lol!