Comparing the features of the nVidia 7600 with its bigger brother, the 7900, it becomes obvious that the 7600
is meant to be more of a budget card. The 7600 contains 12 pixel pipes, while the 7900 has 24. The 7600 also
has 5 vertex shaders, compared to the 8 of the 7900. The numbers in the chart below show the main differences
between the 7600 series and the 7900 series.
The 7600GT
The 7600 series supports Intellisample 4.0, a very cool technology that includes the 2 new antialiasing modes.
These are transparency adaptive supersampling and transparency adaptive multisampling. Both increase the
performance and quality of antialiasing.
The MSI NX7600GT has an increased Core Clock speed of 580MHz, 20MHz higher than standard 7600GTs. It also
has an increased Memory Clock speed of 1500MHz, 100MHz higher than standard 7600GTs. The MSI NX7600GT has
a special cooling design, causing it to take up 2 slots.
Front of the Card
The NX7600GT is the only 7600GT card to offer Video In Video Out (VIVO) support. Having an Xbox360 in my
living room, my old Xbox was sitting around collecting dust. I decided to use it to test out the VIVO
support. I installed the WDM Capture Drivers from the Driver CD. After Windows XP recognized the device,
I went searching for a free TV Tuner software product. I found VirtualDub on SourceForge first, so I gave
it a try. After plugging in the Xbox to the VIVO adapter for the NX7600GT, and minor configuration on
VirtualDub, I fired up the Xbox. Then I was playing Xbox right there on my PC monitor, with sound coming
through my Logitech THX 5300's. Very, very cool.
It has a control panel option to enable and use Vivid, which allows users to change color settings. There
are four designations for Vivid. These are: Photo, Office, Game Mode, and Default. I played with the
alternate color modes, but for the most part, Default worked just fine for all the tests.
