Is a 7600 GT still better then any onboard video?

[geepondy]

My friend is shopping for a relatively inexpensive PC. Mostly for not demanding family use but she does do some DVD and video editing. I have a spare 7600 GT I would offer her for a new PC but is it still better then any onboard video she might get with a PC? I know onboard video has improved.

 

[tvdang7]

yes

 

[Arkaign]

Outside of gaming, a 7600GT is no longer any better than new onboard video for desktop use. Video editing is still virtually all done by CPU, outside of some unloved GPU-accelerated codecs (the complaint is poor visual quality unless you're sticking it down to an iPod screen or something).

I would still definitely use the 7600GT though, as it has its own memory, and won't consume any of the system memory the way onboard video does (unless the onboard has some discrete ram to pull from).

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Still a little better, but not by much. Dedicated ram does save it.

 

[nafhan]

The best reason to leave it out: once you add something to what is an otherwise OEM PC, you're now tech support! Other than that, the only downsides are higher energy usage, heat inside the case, and (possibly) noise from the GPU fan.
Otherwise, I'd say put the video card in. It's essentially free and "family usage" to me means that some games will be played at some point. You don't want the kids to be disappointed when the Sims 3 won't run on integrated graphics, after all.

 

[frostedflakes]

Depends on what he's doing. For gaming, 7600GT would probably be a big improvement. Newer onboard video chipsets can fully offload H.264 and VC-1 decoding from the CPU, though, whereas the PureVideo engine in the 7600GT isn't nearly as sophisticated (PureVideo HD was introduced in the GeForce 8 series).

 

[vss1980]

In gaming terms, even the best onboard/integrated graphics will still loose out quite badly to a Geforce 7600GT - it was a fine mid-range DX9 effort from nvidia and one of their best bang-for-buck cards. The card just has practically so much more rendering power and memory bandwidth available to it.

As stated, it will loose out with Blu-ray playback but even a reasonable speed Core2 Duo could handle the playback.

It'll have to be up to you to decide based on how you think your friend will use the PC - if there is a hint that someone may use it for at least some casual 3D gaming then the 7600GT will have a visible speed advantage. If there is a chance of any HD Video processing regularly going on, then the integrated graphics may be a good choice, if only just to ease playback.

Should good quality CUDA/OpenCL software actually appear that will aid video compression, although the current crop of integrated chipsets might provide some compatibility, they do not offer anywhere near enough performance to exploit it so consider that aspect of the integrated chipset pointless - upgrades can always be made later on.

 

[Leyawiin]

Why do people say "loose" when they mean "lose"? Never been able to figure that one out.

 

[Voo]

Why do people say "loose" when they mean "lose"? Never been able to figure that one out.

Should we test your knowledge in some foreign languages if we're at it? Not everyone here has English as their mother tongue, you know..

 

[betasub]

So pointing out an error (without being mean about it) is unacceptable? I'm still learning, so I appreciate helpful corrections.

 

[geepondy]

Guys, are ATI Radeon HD3200 respectable onboard graphics (from a Dell candidate)? Is ATI Radeon anything better then Intel onboard graphics?

 

[vss1980]

Why do people say "loose" when they mean "lose"? Never been able to figure that one out.

No idea.

Guys, are ATI Radeon HD3200 respectable onboard graphics (from a Dell candidate)? Is ATI Radeon anything better then Intel onboard graphics?

Not sure how it stacks up against the new Core i3 integrated offering, but against the GMA X4500 (and everything older) in everything that matters to most people, the ATI integrated is much faster than the Intel integrated, as well as probably offering much better games compatibility.

 

[SlowSpyder]

If there won't be any gaming going on, I'd stick with the onboard graphics. Most modern integrated graphics will offer some video acceleration and probably save a bit on power and heat. I think the 7600's video acceleration is pretty lacking compared to a modern IGP.

 

[Bateluer]

Shrug, I'd go with the 7600GT myself over onboard. Better still, drop the 40 dollars for a Radeon 5450.

 

[geepondy]

Also there are power requirements. I was looking at the Dell she was interested in (Inspiration 546) and it only comes with a 300W power supply.

 

[frostedflakes]

Power shouldn't be an issue, the 7600GT is a pretty efficient card (I had one for years that used a single-slot passive cooler, the reason I bought it was because of its good performance per watt at the time). Xbit Labs has a really nice setup for measuring video card power consumption, and their tests show it using only 36w under 3D load.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/xfx-7600gt-xxx_5.html

 

[Imp]

I'd avoid the 7600gt just because of the fan. I used one up until February for nearly 4 years. That 60mm (?) gets pretty damn loud.

 

[Modelworks]

For general use I think they can be pretty even depending on what is on the board. Some of the newer intel integrated video is pretty good and has things like dxva for h.264.

 

[toyota]

I'd avoid the 7600gt just because of the fan. I used one up until February for nearly 4 years. That 60mm (?) gets pretty damn loud.

yeah if its the reference fan/cooler then its the loudest card I have ever used by far. in fact I returned it after a couple weeks because it was just unacceptable.

 

[mmnno]

I'd avoid the 7600gt just because of the fan. I used one up until February for nearly 4 years. That 60mm (?) gets pretty damn loud.

Guess I got lucky; mine broke within 1 year. I put some Zalman thingy on it.

 

[taltamir]

i would not use the 7600GT. it is way too underpowered for serious gaming, it will make her computer louder and much more power hungry and hotter.
A new IGP provides excellent features and capabilities, including accelerating DX10 (aero).
If your friend REALLY wants to game, then said friend should buy a card that is better than the 7600GT...

also, sell your 7600GT on ebay.

 

[taltamir]

argh... i am trying to somehow link modern IGP performance to the 7600GT but I can't... for some reason review sites don't really like to include older generation cards (which I could compare to each other to get an inaccurate but telling result).

best I can find is that:
1. the best IGPs are actually pretty close to an AMD 5450 http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3755&p=2
2. the 5450 is pretty close to the 4550 which was much faster than the 7600GT http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3734&p=6
3. the 7600GT is about 1/3 the speed of the 8800GTS 320MB... http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2970&p=6

its a bit difficult to link the two. But i think the fastest IGP in the world right now is faster then your 7600GT

 

[StinkyPinky]

I'd just go for a higher end IGP

7600GT offers nothing. It's useless for modern gaming and poor for modern decoding. Seriously, who cares if the 7600gt is a bit faster than a IGP in gaming. That's like saying a Pentium 3 is faster than a Pentium 2 in Windows 7. Pointless.

 

[geepondy]

Ok, should she/we decide the Radeon HD3200 IGP is not sufficient, any links to a good Radeon 5450? Will the HD3200 be able to play 1920x1080 (I think the numbers are right), high def video and run a monitor at that resolution (non-game playing).

Off subject but boo on Dell. I was looking at the Inspiration 546 candidate and the four gigs of memory are spread out over four 1 gig sticks. I wonder if speaking with a Dell Rep, they would reconfigure to a 2x2gig configuration to leave two slots open? Probably not, huh.

 

[Acanthus]

I'd just go for a higher end IGP

7600GT offers nothing. It's useless for modern gaming and poor for modern decoding. Seriously, who cares if the 7600gt is a bit faster than a IGP in gaming. That's like saying a Pentium 3 is faster than a Pentium 2 in Windows 7. Pointless.

Except that Tualatins are faster than Atoms and can run Win7