W1zzard
01-26-2007, 10:13 PM
[page=Introduction & Specifications]
Introduction
NVIDIA's 7600 GS can be considered a low/midrange product. Of course it does not offer performance like the high-end video cards, but comes at a much smaller price. For people who are casual gamers and can live with lower resolutions or reduced details those cards can be a viable choice.
What Biostar did to increase the attractivity of the 7600 GS is put better memory on the PCB and add a software voltage control circuit. This means that the memory can run at much higher clocks, in this case 700 MHz, which is 75% more than the 7600 GS's default memory clock of 400 MHz
The voltage control gives you a greatly improved overclocking experience because you don't have to do risky voltmods to get more overclocking out of the card. Just use Biostar's own overclocking software and you can adjust the voltages by software.
Let's see how the specs look like compared to the regular 7600 GS and other video cards in that range.
<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td>7600 GS </td>
<td><strong>Biostar 7600 GS </strong></td>
<td>7600 GT </td>
<td>7800 GS </td>
<td>7800 GT </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Pixel Shaders</th>
<td align="right">12</td>
<td align="right"><strong>12</strong></td>
<td align="right">12</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right">20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Vertex Pipes</th>
<td align="right">5</td>
<td align="right"><strong>5</strong></td>
<td align="right">5</td>
<td align="right">6</td>
<td align="right">7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>ROPs</th>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right"><strong>8</strong></td>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Bus </th>
<td align="right">128-bit</td>
<td align="right"><strong>128-bit</strong></td>
<td align="right">128-bit</td>
<td align="right">256-bit</td>
<td align="right">256-bit</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Size</th>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right"><strong>256 MB </strong></td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Type </th>
<td align="right">GDDR3</td>
<td align="right"><strong>GDDR3</strong></td>
<td align="right">GDDR3</td>
<td align="right">GDDR3</td>
<td align="right">GDDR3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Core Clock</th>
<td align="right">400 MHz</td>
<td align="right"><strong>400 MHz</strong></td>
<td align="right">560 MHz</td>
<td align="right">375 MHz </td>
<td align="right">400 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Clock</th>
<td align="right">400 MHz</td>
<td align="right"><strong>700 MHz</strong></td>
<td align="right">700 MHz</td>
<td align="right">600 MHz </td>
<td align="right">500 MHz </td>
</tr>
</table>
Complete Specifications
NVIDIA GeForce 7600GS GPU
256MB, 128-bit GDDR3 Memory
Superscalar 12-pipe GPU Architecture
Innovation PCI Express with Dual DVI/ TV-out ports
CineFX 4.0 Engine supports DirectX 9.0c, OpenGL 2.0 & Shader Model 3.0
Supports SLI technology & PureVideo Technology & Full nView Multi-Display Technology
Supports Intellisample 4.0 & UltraShadow II & Digital Vibrance Control (DVC) 3.0 Technology
Supports True High dynamic-range (HDR) Lighting
Next-Generation Superscalar GPU Architecture
Full Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 Support
NVIDIA CineFX4.0 Engine
NVIDIA SLI Technology
NVIDIA Intellisample 4.0 Technology
True High Dynamic-Range (HDR) Rendering Support
NVIDIA PureVideo Technology
Adaptable Programmable Video Processor
High-Definition H.264, MPEG-2 and WMV Hardware Acceleration
Advanced Spatial Temporal De-Interlacing
High-Quality Scaling
Video Color Correction
Integrated HDTV Encoder
NVIDIA UltraShadow II Technology
128-Bit Studio-Precision Computation
Full-Speed 32-Bit Color Precision
NVIDIA ForceWare Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
OpenGL 2.0 Optimizations and Support
NVIDIA nView Multi-Display Technology
NVIDIA Digital Vibrance Control?3.0 Technology
PCI Express Support
Dual 400MHz RAMDACs
Dual-Link DVI Support
90nm Process Technology
Built for Microsoft Windows Vista
[page=Packaging & Contents]
Packaging
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/package1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/package1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/package2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/package2.jpg)
Biostar put a hot anime girl on their packaging, probably to attract more sales. Looks like the girl has a sunburn though. The back of the packaging has some information about how this card will perform and other features.
Contents
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/contents_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/contents.jpg)
Inside the box you will find:
Video Card
Driver CD
TV out adapter
Instruction Manual
[page=The Card]
The Card
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/card1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/card1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/back_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/back.jpg)
Biostar's 7600 GS V-Ranger is coming on a green NVIDIA colored PCB with a custom cooler by Biostar. There have been quite some changes to the PCB to accommodate the hardware required for voltage control and also to reduce cost.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/card2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/card2.jpg)
Only four memory chips are in use, all chips are on the same side as the GPU.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/outputs_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/outputs.jpg)
The output configuration has one DVI output and one analog output. Since this is a low- to midrange card it makes absolute sense to have it like this. Many users still have analog CRTs or budget TFTs without DVI input.
[page=A Closer Look]
A Closer Look
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/sli_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/sli.jpg)
Of course the card supports NVIDIA's SLI technology to link multiple video cards together for improved performance or better image quality.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/cooler1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/cooler1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/cooler2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/cooler2.jpg)
As cooler Biostar uses a simple aluminum construction, the base is copper colored. What I noticed is that the GPU does not sit exactly in the center of the heatsink base. With the limited heat output of the 7600 GS this is not going to be a big problem though.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/gpu_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/gpu.jpg)
NVIDIA's G73 graphics processor is the heart of the video card. It is made in a 90nm process with 177 million transistors.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/memory_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/memory.jpg)
From Samsung comes the 1.4 ns fast K4J52324QC-BC14 memory which should be good for around 715 MHz at default voltage, we will find out what it can do in the overclocking section of the review.
[page=Test Setup]
Test System
<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="150" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">AMD Athlon64 FX-60 @ 2900 MHz<br />(Toledo, 2x 1024 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Sapphire PC-A9RD580<br />ATI Radeon XPRESS 3200</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 1024MB G.Skill F1-4000BIU2-2GBHV CL3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Raptor 360GD 36 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">OCZ GameXStream 700W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">NVIDIA: 91.47<br />ATI: Catalyst 7.1</td>
</tr>
</table>
All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting
The following resolutions were tested per benchmark:
1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing, No anisotropic filtering. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering. Common resolution for most gamer flatscreens today. A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1600 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to a wide range of users. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2048 x 1536, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to any consumer video card. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
[page=Far Cry]
Far Cry
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/farcry.jpg
Far Cry (http://www.farcry-thegame.com) was released in early 2004 by the new development studio Crytek. It quickly became a massive success because it was one of the first titles to take you in a beautiful 3D outdoor world. Far Cry was one of the most demanding games at its time. Even with today's video cards you can still see big differences in frame rates, especially at the higher resolutions.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/farcry_1024_768.gif
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/farcry_1280_1024.gif
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[page=FEAR]
FEAR
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/fear.jpg
The first person shooter F.E.A.R (htttp://www.whatisfear.com), developed by Monolith Game Studios, was released in Fall 2005 and has a great 3D engine that uses a large number of shading and shadow effects to accurately model the game world. In addition to that it features a realistic physics engine that lets you interact with many objects in the game world. The game was voted game of the year by several publications.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/fear_1024_768.gif
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/fear_1280_1024.gif
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[page=Prey]
Prey
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/prey.jpg
Prey (http://www.prey.com) is based on a highly modified 3D engine made by id Software. This first person shooter brought a completely new way of gaming to the genre. In many levels you find yourself walking upside down or on the walls. This adds a completely new aspect to the gaming experience in this genre.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/prey_1024_768.gif
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/prey_1280_1024.gif
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[page=Quake 4]
Quake 4
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/quake4.jpg
The Quake titles are among the most successful first person games. Developed by id Software, the famous game studio that brought you DOOM, you find yourself in a scifi world that is full of aliens and shocking effects. The main focus of the game is the single player story line. Quake 4 (http://www.quake4game.com) puts you on the home planet of the Strogg. In a number of missions you and your fellow marines will encounter all sorts of enemies, including some really huge aliens.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/quake4_1024_768.gif
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[page=X3]
X3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/x3.jpg
X3 (http://www.egosoft.com) is a space combat/trading simulation game with beautiful graphics. The game world is gigantic and there is always something new to see. Even though the user interface is not that great, the title has found many fans that love to explore the rich content. When you are flying in your spaceship you are sometimes tempted to just stop the action to take a look at the highly detailed ships and planets.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/x3_1024_768.gif
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/x3_1280_1024.gif
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[page=3DMark03]
3DMark03
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark03.jpg
Futuremark Corporation (http://www.futuremark.com) is the number one player in the world of synthetic benchmarking. The 3DMark series is the most popular test suite for video card testing and is used by gamers, overclockers and manufacturers alike to determine how fast their hardware is. Even though it is a few years old, 3DMark03 can easily stress today's video cards.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark03_1024_768.gif
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[page=3DMark05]
3DMark05
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark05.jpg
Another benchmark from Futuremark (http://www.futuremark.com) is 3DMark05 which comes with four completely new game tests that make massive use of shaders and lighting effects. 3DMark05 is a great test for modern video card architectures - in some tests you are often close to the 30 fps mark, below which your games will feel sluggish.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark05_1024_768.gif
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark05_1280_1024.gif
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark05_1600_1200.gif
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark05_2048_1536.gif
[page=Power consumption]
Power consumption
Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.
To measure power consumption the whole system's mains power draw was measured. This means that these numbers include CPU, Memory, HDD, Video card and PSU inefficiency.
The load value was obtained by running 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. While the test was running, power consumption was recorded. The highest reading is listed in the following graph.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/power.gif
Compared to cards like the X1800 GTO which is a lot faster than the 7600 GS, the power consumption is higher. However, 30W do not really make a difference in PSU requirements or power cost.
[page=Overclocking]
Overclocking
The card does not use distinct 2D/3D clocks. It always runs at 400 MHz core and 700 MHz memory.
ATITool works nicely with the card, finding the maximum overclocks is easy.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/maxclock1.jpg
Without any voltage increases the card runs completely stable at 522 MHz Core (31 % overclock) and 815 MHz Memory (16 % overclock). Quite nice overclocking.
But let's see what those voltage controls on the card can do. We used the V-Ranger tool to set both the core and the memory to the maximum allowed voltage and tried our test again.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/maxclock2.jpg
Very nice, especially the GPU overclocking, we gained another 120 MHz over the previous overclock. So the final overclock is 651 MHz (63% overclock) and 841 MHz (20% overclock). This is really amazing and as you can see in the benchmarks it catapults the card into a completely different performance region. Our overclocked 7600 GS could easily beat the much more expensive X1800 GTO in most benchmarks.
[page=Overclocking: V-Ranger]
Biostar V-Ranger
Biostar supplies their own overclocking tool called V-Ranger on the accessory CD. It doesn't seem to be available for download off the Biostar website.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/vranger1.jpg
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/vranger2.jpg
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/vranger3.jpg
As you can see the asia-style user interface is not very intuitive to use. Text labels that show what the functions do are not available. However, you can get a mouse over tooltip which lets you guess what the settings does. Biostar also included a "Find Max" method which is not working that great even though it uses a furry cube which is obviously stolen from inspired by ATITool.
However, once you get used to the tool it is fairly easy to do and gets the job done well.
[page=Value & Conclusion]
Value and Conclusion
<table width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="result">
<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>
You can buy the Biostar 7600 GS V-Ranger for about $125 USD online, which puts the card between a plain 7600 GS and the 7600 GT in both price and performance.</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>
Excellent overclocking
Very Good price/performance ratio
Voltage controls
Included overclocking software
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbdown.gif</th>
<td>
Loud fan
Cooler could be improved
Software not very easy to use
</td></tr>
<tr><th>9.0</th>
<td>
With the V7603GS21 Biostar did a great job of taking NVIDIA's reference 7600 GS design and improving it to make the product more attractive for overclockers, yielding a much better performance. In our benchmarks we can see that even at its default clocks you can run most games with maximum details with acceptable frame rates. Once you start overclocking, the card can easily outperform a Radeon X1800 GTO which plays in a completely difference performance and price league.<br />
Although the V-Ranger software's user interface could be improved a bit, it does what it is supposed to do. Maybe a future version will improve this. But please Biostar, put the download on the web, it makes it much easier for users to get and also it makes version updates easier.<br />
Overall Biostar's 7600 GS is a great product for more casual gamers that don't want to invest too much money into a video card today, yet want to play their games without losing too much fidelity. Let's hope that Biostar implements their V-Ranger technology on more powerful cards in the future.</td></tr>
<tr><th></th><td>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/recommended.gif</td></tr>
</table>
Introduction
NVIDIA's 7600 GS can be considered a low/midrange product. Of course it does not offer performance like the high-end video cards, but comes at a much smaller price. For people who are casual gamers and can live with lower resolutions or reduced details those cards can be a viable choice.
What Biostar did to increase the attractivity of the 7600 GS is put better memory on the PCB and add a software voltage control circuit. This means that the memory can run at much higher clocks, in this case 700 MHz, which is 75% more than the 7600 GS's default memory clock of 400 MHz
The voltage control gives you a greatly improved overclocking experience because you don't have to do risky voltmods to get more overclocking out of the card. Just use Biostar's own overclocking software and you can adjust the voltages by software.
Let's see how the specs look like compared to the regular 7600 GS and other video cards in that range.
<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td>7600 GS </td>
<td><strong>Biostar 7600 GS </strong></td>
<td>7600 GT </td>
<td>7800 GS </td>
<td>7800 GT </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Pixel Shaders</th>
<td align="right">12</td>
<td align="right"><strong>12</strong></td>
<td align="right">12</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right">20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Vertex Pipes</th>
<td align="right">5</td>
<td align="right"><strong>5</strong></td>
<td align="right">5</td>
<td align="right">6</td>
<td align="right">7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>ROPs</th>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right"><strong>8</strong></td>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Bus </th>
<td align="right">128-bit</td>
<td align="right"><strong>128-bit</strong></td>
<td align="right">128-bit</td>
<td align="right">256-bit</td>
<td align="right">256-bit</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Size</th>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right"><strong>256 MB </strong></td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Type </th>
<td align="right">GDDR3</td>
<td align="right"><strong>GDDR3</strong></td>
<td align="right">GDDR3</td>
<td align="right">GDDR3</td>
<td align="right">GDDR3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Core Clock</th>
<td align="right">400 MHz</td>
<td align="right"><strong>400 MHz</strong></td>
<td align="right">560 MHz</td>
<td align="right">375 MHz </td>
<td align="right">400 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Clock</th>
<td align="right">400 MHz</td>
<td align="right"><strong>700 MHz</strong></td>
<td align="right">700 MHz</td>
<td align="right">600 MHz </td>
<td align="right">500 MHz </td>
</tr>
</table>
Complete Specifications
NVIDIA GeForce 7600GS GPU
256MB, 128-bit GDDR3 Memory
Superscalar 12-pipe GPU Architecture
Innovation PCI Express with Dual DVI/ TV-out ports
CineFX 4.0 Engine supports DirectX 9.0c, OpenGL 2.0 & Shader Model 3.0
Supports SLI technology & PureVideo Technology & Full nView Multi-Display Technology
Supports Intellisample 4.0 & UltraShadow II & Digital Vibrance Control (DVC) 3.0 Technology
Supports True High dynamic-range (HDR) Lighting
Next-Generation Superscalar GPU Architecture
Full Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 Support
NVIDIA CineFX4.0 Engine
NVIDIA SLI Technology
NVIDIA Intellisample 4.0 Technology
True High Dynamic-Range (HDR) Rendering Support
NVIDIA PureVideo Technology
Adaptable Programmable Video Processor
High-Definition H.264, MPEG-2 and WMV Hardware Acceleration
Advanced Spatial Temporal De-Interlacing
High-Quality Scaling
Video Color Correction
Integrated HDTV Encoder
NVIDIA UltraShadow II Technology
128-Bit Studio-Precision Computation
Full-Speed 32-Bit Color Precision
NVIDIA ForceWare Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
OpenGL 2.0 Optimizations and Support
NVIDIA nView Multi-Display Technology
NVIDIA Digital Vibrance Control?3.0 Technology
PCI Express Support
Dual 400MHz RAMDACs
Dual-Link DVI Support
90nm Process Technology
Built for Microsoft Windows Vista
[page=Packaging & Contents]
Packaging
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/package1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/package1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/package2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/package2.jpg)
Biostar put a hot anime girl on their packaging, probably to attract more sales. Looks like the girl has a sunburn though. The back of the packaging has some information about how this card will perform and other features.
Contents
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/contents_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/contents.jpg)
Inside the box you will find:
Video Card
Driver CD
TV out adapter
Instruction Manual
[page=The Card]
The Card
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/card1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/card1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/back_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/back.jpg)
Biostar's 7600 GS V-Ranger is coming on a green NVIDIA colored PCB with a custom cooler by Biostar. There have been quite some changes to the PCB to accommodate the hardware required for voltage control and also to reduce cost.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/card2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/card2.jpg)
Only four memory chips are in use, all chips are on the same side as the GPU.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/outputs_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/outputs.jpg)
The output configuration has one DVI output and one analog output. Since this is a low- to midrange card it makes absolute sense to have it like this. Many users still have analog CRTs or budget TFTs without DVI input.
[page=A Closer Look]
A Closer Look
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/sli_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/sli.jpg)
Of course the card supports NVIDIA's SLI technology to link multiple video cards together for improved performance or better image quality.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/cooler1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/cooler1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/cooler2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/cooler2.jpg)
As cooler Biostar uses a simple aluminum construction, the base is copper colored. What I noticed is that the GPU does not sit exactly in the center of the heatsink base. With the limited heat output of the 7600 GS this is not going to be a big problem though.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/gpu_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/gpu.jpg)
NVIDIA's G73 graphics processor is the heart of the video card. It is made in a 90nm process with 177 million transistors.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/memory_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/memory.jpg)
From Samsung comes the 1.4 ns fast K4J52324QC-BC14 memory which should be good for around 715 MHz at default voltage, we will find out what it can do in the overclocking section of the review.
[page=Test Setup]
Test System
<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="150" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">AMD Athlon64 FX-60 @ 2900 MHz<br />(Toledo, 2x 1024 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Sapphire PC-A9RD580<br />ATI Radeon XPRESS 3200</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 1024MB G.Skill F1-4000BIU2-2GBHV CL3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Raptor 360GD 36 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">OCZ GameXStream 700W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">NVIDIA: 91.47<br />ATI: Catalyst 7.1</td>
</tr>
</table>
All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting
The following resolutions were tested per benchmark:
1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing, No anisotropic filtering. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering. Common resolution for most gamer flatscreens today. A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1600 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to a wide range of users. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2048 x 1536, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to any consumer video card. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
[page=Far Cry]
Far Cry
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/farcry.jpg
Far Cry (http://www.farcry-thegame.com) was released in early 2004 by the new development studio Crytek. It quickly became a massive success because it was one of the first titles to take you in a beautiful 3D outdoor world. Far Cry was one of the most demanding games at its time. Even with today's video cards you can still see big differences in frame rates, especially at the higher resolutions.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/farcry_1024_768.gif
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[page=FEAR]
FEAR
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/fear.jpg
The first person shooter F.E.A.R (htttp://www.whatisfear.com), developed by Monolith Game Studios, was released in Fall 2005 and has a great 3D engine that uses a large number of shading and shadow effects to accurately model the game world. In addition to that it features a realistic physics engine that lets you interact with many objects in the game world. The game was voted game of the year by several publications.
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[page=Prey]
Prey
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/prey.jpg
Prey (http://www.prey.com) is based on a highly modified 3D engine made by id Software. This first person shooter brought a completely new way of gaming to the genre. In many levels you find yourself walking upside down or on the walls. This adds a completely new aspect to the gaming experience in this genre.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/prey_1024_768.gif
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[page=Quake 4]
Quake 4
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/quake4.jpg
The Quake titles are among the most successful first person games. Developed by id Software, the famous game studio that brought you DOOM, you find yourself in a scifi world that is full of aliens and shocking effects. The main focus of the game is the single player story line. Quake 4 (http://www.quake4game.com) puts you on the home planet of the Strogg. In a number of missions you and your fellow marines will encounter all sorts of enemies, including some really huge aliens.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/quake4_1024_768.gif
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[page=X3]
X3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/x3.jpg
X3 (http://www.egosoft.com) is a space combat/trading simulation game with beautiful graphics. The game world is gigantic and there is always something new to see. Even though the user interface is not that great, the title has found many fans that love to explore the rich content. When you are flying in your spaceship you are sometimes tempted to just stop the action to take a look at the highly detailed ships and planets.
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[page=3DMark03]
3DMark03
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark03.jpg
Futuremark Corporation (http://www.futuremark.com) is the number one player in the world of synthetic benchmarking. The 3DMark series is the most popular test suite for video card testing and is used by gamers, overclockers and manufacturers alike to determine how fast their hardware is. Even though it is a few years old, 3DMark03 can easily stress today's video cards.
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[page=3DMark05]
3DMark05
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark05.jpg
Another benchmark from Futuremark (http://www.futuremark.com) is 3DMark05 which comes with four completely new game tests that make massive use of shaders and lighting effects. 3DMark05 is a great test for modern video card architectures - in some tests you are often close to the 30 fps mark, below which your games will feel sluggish.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/3dmark05_1024_768.gif
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[page=Power consumption]
Power consumption
Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.
To measure power consumption the whole system's mains power draw was measured. This means that these numbers include CPU, Memory, HDD, Video card and PSU inefficiency.
The load value was obtained by running 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. While the test was running, power consumption was recorded. The highest reading is listed in the following graph.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/power.gif
Compared to cards like the X1800 GTO which is a lot faster than the 7600 GS, the power consumption is higher. However, 30W do not really make a difference in PSU requirements or power cost.
[page=Overclocking]
Overclocking
The card does not use distinct 2D/3D clocks. It always runs at 400 MHz core and 700 MHz memory.
ATITool works nicely with the card, finding the maximum overclocks is easy.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/maxclock1.jpg
Without any voltage increases the card runs completely stable at 522 MHz Core (31 % overclock) and 815 MHz Memory (16 % overclock). Quite nice overclocking.
But let's see what those voltage controls on the card can do. We used the V-Ranger tool to set both the core and the memory to the maximum allowed voltage and tried our test again.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/maxclock2.jpg
Very nice, especially the GPU overclocking, we gained another 120 MHz over the previous overclock. So the final overclock is 651 MHz (63% overclock) and 841 MHz (20% overclock). This is really amazing and as you can see in the benchmarks it catapults the card into a completely different performance region. Our overclocked 7600 GS could easily beat the much more expensive X1800 GTO in most benchmarks.
[page=Overclocking: V-Ranger]
Biostar V-Ranger
Biostar supplies their own overclocking tool called V-Ranger on the accessory CD. It doesn't seem to be available for download off the Biostar website.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/vranger1.jpg
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/vranger2.jpg
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/7600GS_V-Ranger/images/vranger3.jpg
As you can see the asia-style user interface is not very intuitive to use. Text labels that show what the functions do are not available. However, you can get a mouse over tooltip which lets you guess what the settings does. Biostar also included a "Find Max" method which is not working that great even though it uses a furry cube which is obviously stolen from inspired by ATITool.
However, once you get used to the tool it is fairly easy to do and gets the job done well.
[page=Value & Conclusion]
Value and Conclusion
<table width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="result">
<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>
You can buy the Biostar 7600 GS V-Ranger for about $125 USD online, which puts the card between a plain 7600 GS and the 7600 GT in both price and performance.</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>
Excellent overclocking
Very Good price/performance ratio
Voltage controls
Included overclocking software
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbdown.gif</th>
<td>
Loud fan
Cooler could be improved
Software not very easy to use
</td></tr>
<tr><th>9.0</th>
<td>
With the V7603GS21 Biostar did a great job of taking NVIDIA's reference 7600 GS design and improving it to make the product more attractive for overclockers, yielding a much better performance. In our benchmarks we can see that even at its default clocks you can run most games with maximum details with acceptable frame rates. Once you start overclocking, the card can easily outperform a Radeon X1800 GTO which plays in a completely difference performance and price league.<br />
Although the V-Ranger software's user interface could be improved a bit, it does what it is supposed to do. Maybe a future version will improve this. But please Biostar, put the download on the web, it makes it much easier for users to get and also it makes version updates easier.<br />
Overall Biostar's 7600 GS is a great product for more casual gamers that don't want to invest too much money into a video card today, yet want to play their games without losing too much fidelity. Let's hope that Biostar implements their V-Ranger technology on more powerful cards in the future.</td></tr>
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</table>