New Nvidia cards on sale

[fsgregs]

In paging through the TigerDirect and NewEgg catalogs a few days ago, I ran across Nividia cards on sale per rebates for some really good prices. Specifically, three cards caught my eye:

An EV3A brand GeForce 7600 GT with 256 MB GDDR3 memory, PCI express - $99
or BFGTech brand GeForce 7600 GT with 256 MB GDDR3 memory, PCI express - $89

PNY brand GeForce 7600 GS with 512 MB memory, PCIe - $139


Although the 7600 GS seems to have double the video RAM, its effective Memory clock is 540 MHz, while the 7600 GT claims 1400 MHz. I don't know what a memory clock is, and don't know which is better.

I can afford up to $160 for a new video card to replace my current GeForce 6600 GT with 128 MB memory. Here is my question:

Is the performance of the 7600 GT or GS with their higher memory so superior to the 6600 GT that I should spend the $100 or so to upgrade now, or should I wait another few months for a newer model to drop in price??

If upgrading now is worth it, which choice above makes most sense for loading a 64 K VT texture of Earth, plus a 64 K VT Normal map, plus all the other bells and whistles that Celestia 1.5.0 is offering? Also, I love to play video games. Is the 7600 GT better or worse for gaming than the 7600 GS, compared to my current 6600 GT?

Your gracious advice is GREATLY appreciated. Since all the above cards are offering rebates that will expire in a few days, I'd be grateful if you could reply before the end of January, if possible. Lots of other Celestia users may also be interested in these rebates.

Thanks in advance

Frank

[Johaen]

Although the 7600 GS seems to have double the video RAM, its effective Memory clock is 540 MHz, while the 7600 GT claims 1400 MHz. I don't know what a memory clock is, and don't know which is better.

Memory has a clock speed, just like the CPU/GPU does. Higher clock speed means faster performance. Specifically within Celestia, all those textures that you're wanting to load in take time, and the less time it take for the texture to load into memory, the faster performance you have.

I can afford up to $160 for a new video card to replace my current GeForce 6600 GT with 128 MB memory. Here is my question:

Is the performance of the 7600 GT or GS with their higher memory so superior to the 6600 GT that I should spend the $100 or so to upgrade now...

Yes, the performace difference will be definately worth it.

or should I wait another few months for a newer model to drop in price??

This is actually debatable. Within the next few months, NVidia should be releasing Mid-range 8XXX cards, which might be worth the wait. They will be better than what is currently available in the 7 series cards. It's mostly up to you if you want to wait or not. Also you have to think about the DX9 vs. DX10 support.

If upgrading now is worth it, which choice above makes most sense for loading a 64 K VT texture of Earth, plus a 64 K VT Normal map, plus all the other bells and whistles that Celestia 1.5.0 is offering? Also, I love to play video games. Is the 7600 GT better or worse for gaming than the 7600 GS, compared to my current 6600 GT?

The 7600GT would be a much better choice than the 7600GS, for both gaming and Celestia. The extra RAM on the 7600GS won't make enough of a difference to counter the 7600GT's much higher GPU speed and memory speed. But, looking at newegg, I'd go with the eVGA 256-P2-N554-AX Geforce 7600GT, rather than the cheaper one you were looking at. It has a higher clock speed in both the GPU and the memory, and a better heatsink, so it will run cooler. As for gaming, it will run almost anything nearly maxed completely out, and will do so for atleast a little while.

Any other questions, ask away. I (or other people) should be able to answer just about any question you want to ask.

[Don. Edwards]

Hey Guys,

Another thing that is very important that seems to always be over looked is the cards memory bandwidth. I discussed this in length with Frank when he offered to buy me a new video card 3 years ago so that I could finish the Terraaformed Mars Educational project.

Memory bandwidth is the ability of the memory to moved texture data in and out of the memory system and at what throughput it has.

I have been extensively looking into the 7600 family of cards and just received my chosen card today. More on that card later.

The 7600 GS 512MB uses DDR2, so its bandwidth is somewhat limited. The rated memory bandwidth, depending on the DDR Ram speed can be as low as 8.5Gigs per second and as high as 12.5Gigs per second. It tends to depend on what the cards maker chooses to use at the time of the cards design.

The 7600 GS 256MB DDR2 cards tend to have an average of 12.5Gig per second across the board and across multiple manufactures. They tend to use faster DDR2 memory modules than the 512MB versions; this also helps keep the costs down on the 512MB cards.

The 7600 GT 256MB DDR3 however is clocked higher most around 500MHZ and they have a memory bandwidth of 22.5Gigs per second, putting the card much more in line with the lower tier 7900 cards.

To put things in perspective, the card I got 3 years ago was a GeForce FX 5900 XT with 128MB of DDR RAM. But it had a memory bandwidth of 22.2Gigs per second while all the FX 5200, 5500, 5600, and 5700 had memory bandwidths of 8.5 and 12.5Gigs per second. So even though my old card was somewhat limited in its type of memory, DDR1, it still was able to perform fairly well.

Now about my new card for my new computer system.
I went with a DiabloTek GeForce 7600 GS+/Sonic 256MB DDR3. This is a bit of a hybrid card. It set me back a whole $96 US dollars plus shipping. It has the standard 7600 chip but upclocked to 450MHz over the standard 400MHz of the 7600 GS cards. BFG's 7600 GS is only upclocked to 420MHz so this card has an additional 30MHZ to play with. Also it is using DDR3 instead of DDR2 as is normal for the 7600 GS series cards. So this put the card a bit closer to a 7600 GT. The card is rated at 15Gigs per seconds in memory bandwidth, and while it?€™s not as wide a memory path as my old card, everything is moving through the cards silicon at a much faster rate so the slight loss in memory bandwidth should be negligible at best. The most important thing is that the card is fully OpenGL 2.0 compatible and of course is fully DX 9 and Vista ready. Another thing to consider is that the 7600 series cards while being great performers, many are also SLI ready, and they tend not to need all the extra power plugs that the higher end cards need. Not to say I wouldn?€™t love to get my hands on a 7950 GTX but costs at this time make that a pipe dream.
The new 8xxx budget series cards will of course add a whole new layer to this. But they are not available yet and even when they do their prices are going to be higher from the start. When the 7600 GT came out it was just under $200 US dollars. Now they can be had as low as $129 at many dealers. I am sure that the if there is an 8600 GT that is will start somewhere in the $220 range at first and then start to slide down. But don?€™t be surprised at all if it ends up costing more.

Ok I said my piece; any of the above mentioned cards will work fantastic with Celestia so it?€™s just making up one?€™s mind as to what to buy.
Addendum:
My original choice was to also go with the e-VGA 7600GT, but I needed to shave a few more dollars off my choice, hence the Diablotek choice. Also, don?€™t be fooled by the coolers you see on the e-VGA cards. While they do a good job, the fan on my GeForce FX 5900XT has now had it third replacement. So this means that I have had to change out the fan twice and it is now on its third fan. Not saying this had anything to do with your choice, but the card I chose has a larger cooling system than what e-VGA is offering. The heat sinks from e-VGA are Nvidia stock coolers and are very prone to getting clogged with dust bunnies. If they get clogged they stop being coolers and become heaters instead. So a more opened and air design might be worth looking into. The one on my card looks positively wicked.


Don. Edwards