Performance and Conclusions
Performance
Recently, a lot of user feedback has been received that they wanted more quick looks at video cards to see which are some of the best options for them. That feedback was taken to heart and I have attempted to meet the requests by changing the way we look at some of the more standard graphics cards. Here, instead of running a full gamut of games on the card and reporting each and every benchmark result to you, I thought that giving you a quick estimate as to how the card compares to the competition would be an acceptable compromise in these cases.
Obviously, this is not going to work for new GPUs, or video cards that are greatly changed from the reference design. But for vendors that simply use the reference NVIDIA PCB, make a few changes and sell the card, these kinds of evaluations should be enough as differences between model’s performance are very slim.
It is important to note that these cards were all played and tested however, for many hours, during our normal gaming sessions in order to make sure there were no noticeable hiccups or defects in the card we received. Any of the “freezing” or “stuttering” would show up to us then if it occurred, but it did not in this case; that’s a good thing.
These scores here show the performance of the reference 7600 GT card, running at 560 MHz core and 700 MHz memory speeds. As we have mentioned several times, the XFX model we are reviewing here is overclocked to 590 MHz core and 800 MHz memory speeds. With that change in clock rates, you can expect the XFX 7600 GT XXX Edition to perform 5-10% faster in games that are GPU bound (meaning the GPU is the limiting factor in performance). Since the memory is about 14% faster while the GPU is 5% faster than stock speeds, in some areas that are compute bound, the XFX model will be limited to a 5% gain while in areas that are memory bandwidth bound, the card could go as high as 10-12% faster, depending on the specific gaming scenario.
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Conclusions
The XFX 7600 GT XXX Edition video card looks to offer a great gaming experience for the mid-range price levels. Does that warrent a purchase with your hard earned cash?
Warranty and Support
In these times of reference boards and clock rates, support and warranty services have become one of the most important sticking points in a products appeal. For all of XFX’s GeForce 7-series of graphics card, they have provided a double-lifetime warranty. The double-lifetime refers to the fact that the second owner, if you decide to sell your card to a friend or online, will still have a transferable lifetime warranty on the card as well. All that is required is that you register your XFX card online, pretty standard practice.
As for support, XFX does offer limited phone support as well as email and forum support on their website. In our experiences, and from reading about results from users in our very own forums, XFX has been easy to deal with in RMAs and support issues. Speed of support and replacements will vary case by case, but in general it appears that XFX is on the right track for US support.
Pricing and Availability
Support is important, but so is price to a budget-based gamer striving to get all the gaming horsepower he can for his or her dollar. With a simple look at our PriceGrabber engine under 7600 GT cards, we can see that GeForce 7600 GT graphics cards range in price from about $155 all the way up to $215 for the recently reviewed Asus 7600GT SILENT. The XFX 7600 GT XXX Edition (with the model of PVT73GUDD3) can be found for $175 or so at various online resellers. There doesn’t appear to be any shortage of the cards either as there are over 25 e-tailers with stock as of this publication date.
With a price hovering around $175 for the XFX 7600 GT XXX Edition, you get a lifetime warranty and overclocked speeds. Not a bad deal if you ask us.
Final Thoughts
The XFX 7600 GT XXX Edition graphics card offers gamers a solid gaming experience at a price well under $200. Though it is not the cheapest 7600 GT card on the market, it is one of the least expensive to offer both an overclocked configuration and a lifetime warranty on the product. XFX has been gaining in reputation among the top-tier NVIDIA partners as both a friend of the enthusiast and one to push the envelope. If you are looking for a great mid-range card to power your gaming system the XFX 7600 GT XXX Edition fits the bill perfectly.
Be sure to use our price-checking engine to find the best prices on these and other video cards and anything else you may want to buy.
