Is a 7600 GT still better then any onboard video?

[vss1980]

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

Agree and disagree with this.

From the IGP review, I'd say they are about 50% as good as the 5450 (give or take depending on game/resolution).

The 7600GT, as long as the game wasn't DX10 only or very shader heavy, would perform about even with an 8600GT which would probably be around the 4550. Again, there is no direct review comparing the both of them (or the 5450).
I think people under-estimate some of the pre-DX10 cards possible performance. On paper the 7600GT can out-render the newer cards (and easily beat out integrated GPU in pixel power), but will loose out badly in shader operations: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=625&card2=385

(EDIT: Oh and by the way, (whoever said it), it does do Vista Aero)

However, I think this argument is now a bit pointless with regards to the next comment:

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.

Yes geepondy, the HD3200 would be capable of playing back full HD video on a full HD display.

As for Dell are you sure you can't actually get them to do a 2x2 configuration - on their web-site configuration for the memory on some models you can tweak it to have set-up's like that.

 

[PingSpike]

The trouble with low end cards is while they have the features required for modern games, their balls are cut off and they usually have slow ass memory using a 64-bit bus or onboard memory. So they suck at new games and they suck at old games because they have no old school grunt.

The only time I remember a low end card being good at old games was the old Geforce Mx series...the Geforce4 Mx's were basically superclocked geforce2s. They couldn't run dx8 stuff, but they were actually respectable at running older games.

 

[deimos3428]

The most powerful IGP at present is the HD 3300 (790GX), which is based on the HD 3450 discrete card.

For gaming the 7600 GT would still have an edge, but for HD video playback/editing you'd want the newer HD 3300.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=555&card2=385

 

[fuzzymath10]

This is a very limited reference point, but my parents' P4 1.8 with a 6600GT 128MB outperforms my Q8200 + HD3450 512MB in 3dmark (I think I tried 03 and 05). The memory bandwidth difference is quite substantial (14GB/sec vs 6.4GB/sec) and having a CPU that is 8 years ahead can't close the gap. Obviously only I can play 1080P blu-rays; the best the old machine can do is 720P WMVs, and only barely.

 

[taltamir]

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.

they will not, as you said "boo on dell". crap hardware is a price you pay when buying from an OEM.

A modern IGP has every feature she could possibly need, the only place where it suffers is gaming performance. If she is serious about gaming, she will probably want something higher end than the 5450.