From Shane McGlaun,
Your Guide to Computer Peripherals.
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Previously, we looked at the performance you can get with both a single and SLI 7600 GS cards, now lets have a look at the performance to be had one step up the product ladder with the NVIDIA 7600 GT. The current lowest price on a 7600 GT on SLI Zone Marketplace is $99, making this a very affordable graphics card for the main stream market. The additional $30 in price the 7600 GT carries over the 7600 GS accounts for some good performance gains.

The specifications for the test system I am using here are:

• CPU: Intel X6800
• Mainboard: EVGA NVIDIA 680i
• PSU: Top Power 1000W
• HDD: 1x 74GB Raptor & 1x 750 GB Seagate
• Display: Eizo CE240W

I used the same test regime to benchmark the 7600 GT in single and SLI mode as I did with the 7900 GS article. The first test up was 3DMark06. A single 7600 GT scored as follows:

• 3DMarks: 3412
• SM2.0: 1327
• HDR/SM3.0: 1202
• CPU: 2489

The additional $30 in the cost of a single 7600 GT over a 7600 GS gives you an additional 48% performance right off the bat. If you are only buying one card, the 7600 GT is a much better bang for your buck. Now let’s see what performance gains are to be had with SLI 7600 GT as compared to a single 7600 GT on 3DMark06:

• 3DMarks: 6046
• SM2.0: 2546
• HDR/SM3.0: 2267
• CPU: 2486

Again we see huge improvements in performance over a single 7600 GT with a pair of the cards in SLI mode. What we are seeing here is a whopping 77% improvement in the total 3DMarks from a single 7600 GT to an SLI pair, and a 43% gain in performance over 7600 GS SLI.

Next up is FEAR, again FEAR is a hardware killer so let’s look again at the settings I used in the game:

Computer
• Single Player Physics: Max
• Multi Player Physics: Max
• Sounds: Max
• Particles Bouncing: Max
• Shell Casings: On
• World Detail: Max
• Corpse Detail: Max

Graphics
• Effects Detail: Max
• Model Decals: Max
• Water Resolution: Max
• Reflections & Displays: Max
• Volumetric Lights: On
• Volumetric Light Density: Med
• FSAA: Off
• Light Detail: Max
• Shadow Detail: Max
• Soft Shadow: Off
• Texture Filter: 4x AF
• Texture Resolution: Max
• Video Resolution: Max
• Screen Resolution: 1280 x 1024
• Shaders: Max

Now lets see what the 7600 GT could accomplish FPS wise in this game:

• Min: 33
• Avg: 52
• Max: 103

Percentages looked like this for the single 7600 GT, 0% of the time frame rates were below 25 fps, 28% of the time frame rates were 25 to 40 fps and 72% of the time frame rates were above 40 fps.

Now let’s put another 7600 GT in the system and see what the cards can score in SLI mode fps wise:

• Min: 44
• Avg: 78
• Max: 150

The percentages for 7600 GT SLI was 100% of the time frame rates were greater than 40 fps. Again we see huge improvements in performance with SLI over a single card of the same type. What we see here is a 50% improvement in performance with another $99 purchase.

The final benchmark for the 7600 GT in single and SLI mode is with Battlefield 2142. I again used Fraps to record average frame rate data in game with the settings on medium preset and 800 x 600 screen resolution. A single 7600 GT scored the following frame rate data:

• Min: 48
• Avg: 85
• Max: 100

I followed the first BF2142 run on a single 7600 GT up with a run on the same map at the same settings with an SLI pair of 7600 GT’s and got the following data:

• Min: 51
• Avg: 87
• Max104

I was a bit surprised on this test to see that the difference between one 7600 GT and a pair were not that great. What we are seeing is a mere 2% gain in performance on BF2142. BF2142 is a very popular game so I try to benchmark all the cards I use with it. However, the lack is an in game test loop leaves me reliant on Fraps and trying to follow as close to the same path as possible to get good scores. I’ll chalk this one up to not getting as much happening on screen with the single 7600 GT as I did with the SLI pair.

Conclusion

As you can see with the exception of the BF2142 tests on the 7600 GT SLI we get huge improvements in performance with 7600 GT SLI across the board. If you are looking to build a computer that you can upgrade when needed it is imperative that you choose an SLI capable mainboard to ensure your upgrade path.

This holiday season the cool thing about SLI is that you can get one card for Christmas to go with your SLI mainboard and then later for another $99 you can gain huge performance increases that you just typically won’t see from upgrades to other components like the CPU and RAM.