take a look at this article. http://xtreview.com/review140.htm
in particular pay attention to the 7600GT agp vs. the 7800gs agp. the 7600gt outperforms the 7800gs in EVERY test. it lacks 4 additional pixel pipelines that the 7800gs has as well as 128-bit memory interface instead of 256-bit. can anyone knowledgable about this subject please explain to me why?

Zo

Most 7800GS are clocked at 375MHz/1200MHz (GPU/Memory), while the 7600GT is clocked at 560MHz/1400MHz. The increase in GPU & memory speeds make up for the fewer pipes & 128-bit interface

The 7600GT (AGP) also cost roughly $100.00 less than the 7800GS - probably the reason why Leadtek is about the only one that's adopted the card so far.

GeForce 7600GT

GPU: G73
Release Date: 2006-07-15
Interface: AGP 8X
Core Clock: 560 MHz
Memory Clock: 700 MHz (1400 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 22.4 GB/sec
Shader Operations: 6720 Operations/sec
Pixel Fill Rate: 4480 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 6720 MTexels/sec
Vertex Operations: 700 MVertices/sec

GeForce 7800GS

GPU: G70
Release Date: 2006-02-02
Interface: AGP 8X
Core Clock: 375 MHz
Memory Clock: 600 MHz (1200 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 38.4 GB/sec
Shader Operations: 6000 Operations/sec
Pixel Fill Rate: 3000 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 6000 MTexels/sec
Vertex Operations: 562.5 MVertices/sec

All the more reason why people shouldn't buy video cards without doing a little homework.
Don’t spend two dollars to dry clean a shirt. Donate it to the Salvation Army instead. They’ll clean it and put it on a hanger - Next morning buy it back for seventy-five cents.

Remember that memory bandwidth in the case of 256-bit vs. 128-bit may not actually be used; it is simply additional bandwidth to reduce the chance of a bottleneck.

Imagine an interstate with a speed limit of 55mph with not a lot of cars on it. If you widen the interstate from 4 lanes to 8 lanes, will that speed up the highway? No. There weren't a lot of cars on the intertate to begin with. In that case, raising the speed limit from 55mph to 65mph would speed traffic up more (analogous to raising the clock speed of the RAM and GPU).

Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina!

www.redcross.org

thanks guys. just one quick question then. when would that 256 bit interface make the 7800gs better? also i read some more articles and found out that the 7600gt can only overcloack to 580/1500 while the 7800gs can get to about 470/1500 stable. would this give the 7800gs enough juice to outpower the 7600gt? considering the 7600gt only has a slight advantage at stock speeds.

Zo

Obviously, you're still doubting the performance of the 7600GT (AGP) after the fact. The 7800GS (AGP) is simply sub-par in comparison to the 7600GT at stock speeds period! & as you can see (from your very own link) it more than makes up in clock speed, whatever it may have lost with the less pipelines and memory inteface.

Now to answer your question, I would think, you'll want to come up with at least a modest 10% overclock to counter the 7600GT. But why even bother when the 7600GT is already cheaper to buy - unless you already own a 7800GS (AGP) and that means you just got PWNED!................LOL

Don’t spend two dollars to dry clean a shirt. Donate it to the Salvation Army instead. They’ll clean it and put it on a hanger - Next morning buy it back for seventy-five cents.

haha right. but i was just wondering in what situation the 256 bit memory interface actually come into play? i mean it must help out somewhere. and im pretty sure that a fully overclocked 7800gs could still beat the fully overclocked 7600gt.

Zo

"im pretty sure that a fully overclocked 7800gs could still beat the fully overclocked 7600gt."

You aren't going to get it afterall.

Don’t spend two dollars to dry clean a shirt. Donate it to the Salvation Army instead. They’ll clean it and put it on a hanger - Next morning buy it back for seventy-five cents.

still havent really answered the question. im curious as to when the 256 bit memory interface actually makes a difference.

Zo

In the future. Games are always evolving and becoming more demanding. I remember not too long ago when people asked the same question about 128bit memory.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 300gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

so is 256 bit memory not being fully utilized by games in present day?

Zo

You're missing the point. The *7800GS* can't utilize it.

Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina!

www.redcross.org

oh really? whys that?

Zo