Cards Summary and Prices
In total, we have 20 silent GPUs for this review, and this is a large number of cards to keep track of. With that in mind, we have a breakdown of the cards and their prices in this section. Some of the cards are older generation and we don't have prices for them at this time; specifically, the ASUS EN6600 GT Silencer and the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent. These two cards have been around for a while and while rare, it is still possible to find them floating around on the market if you know where to look.
Here are the cards and prices:
As sometimes happens, some of these cards couldn't be found for sale at the time of this writing (marked with a *), but we still listed a rough idea of what kind of prices we expect them to carry. Keep in mind that these are all silent cards, so prices for a non-silent version of the same card may be very different. This is because it may be more efficient and therefore less costly to design and manufacture a card without any moving parts. On the other hand, with a card like the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent, the silent version is likely to be more expensive than its standard competitors, given the radical heat sink design required to keep the card running cool.
While we couldn't find any Gigabyte 7300 GTs available for purchase at the time of this writing, you should expect to pay around $140 or more for this part, depending on the vendor, availability, etc. This is a bit more than a standard clocked 7300 GT like MSI's, but the performance increase we will see from Gigabyte's factory overclock on this card puts it more in competition with the 7600 GS than the 7300 GT.
The Albatron 7300 GT also appears to be unavailable for purchase at this time, but we speculate that it should cost about the same or slightly less than the Gigabyte 7300 GT, given that their factory overclocks are similar. While there is a 50MHz difference in core clock speeds between these two cards, the difference in performance between them will be fairly close (depending on the game and settings) as we will see in the performance section.
We aren't sure about cards like the Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2, HIS X1600 Pro and Gigabyte X1600 XT, so we listed a price range that reflects a number of cards of the same type that are available by other manufacturers. There is a lot of overlap here of course, and we can't know for sure what these cards will sell for (or even when/if they will be available for purchase), but we can make some price suggestions for these cards based on their performance and the prices that we have for our other silent cards in this review. The Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2 for instance would be a good value closer to the same price as the Gigabyte 7300 GS, given the similarity in performance: probably about $45-$50. The HIS X1600 Pro would be a decent buy at around $95-$100, and the Gigabyte X1600 XT should probably list for around $140-$150, given current prices for this ATI part.
In general, the prices for all of these cards -- with the exception of the older ASUS 7800 GT and 6600 GT -- will range from about $50 to $170 which puts them in the mid-range and budget categories. Higher performance cards generate more heat, and as we mentioned, slower cards are better suited for silent operation. That is why we don't see many fast cards like the 7800 GT and above that are completely silent. As technology improves and cards become more efficient, we will surely see silent cards with much higher performance capabilities, particularly if there continues to be demand for silent solutions.
In total, we have 20 silent GPUs for this review, and this is a large number of cards to keep track of. With that in mind, we have a breakdown of the cards and their prices in this section. Some of the cards are older generation and we don't have prices for them at this time; specifically, the ASUS EN6600 GT Silencer and the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent. These two cards have been around for a while and while rare, it is still possible to find them floating around on the market if you know where to look.
Here are the cards and prices:
| Graphics Card Prices | |
| ASUS NVIDIA GeForce EN7800 GT Top Silent | $399* |
| ASUS NVIDIA GeForce EN7600 GS Silent 512 | $138 |
| ASUS NVIDIA GeForce EN7600 GS Silent | $129 |
| ASUS NVIDIA GeForce EN6600 GT Silencer | $178* |
| ASUS ATI Radeon EAX1600 XT Silent | $156 |
| GIGABYTE NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT | $167 |
| GIGABYTE NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS | $110 |
| GIGABYTE NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT | $100-$140* |
| GIGABYTE NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS | $55 |
| GIGABYTE ATI Radeon X1600 PRO | $95 |
| GIGABYTE ATI Radeon X1600 XT | $110-$170* |
| GIGABYTE ATI Radeon X1300 PRO | $73 |
| GIGABYTE ATI Radeon X1300 | $52 |
| EVGA NVIDIA e-GeForce 7600 GS | $117 |
| SPARKLE NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS Ultra 2 | $40-$115* |
| ALBATRON NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT | $90-$140* |
| HIS ATI Radeon X1600 PRO | $95-$110* |
| HIS ATI Radeon X1300 PRO | $98 |
| MSI NVIDIA GeForce NX7600 GS | $115 |
| MSI NVIDIA GeForce NX7300 GT | $77 |
As sometimes happens, some of these cards couldn't be found for sale at the time of this writing (marked with a *), but we still listed a rough idea of what kind of prices we expect them to carry. Keep in mind that these are all silent cards, so prices for a non-silent version of the same card may be very different. This is because it may be more efficient and therefore less costly to design and manufacture a card without any moving parts. On the other hand, with a card like the ASUS EN7800 GT Top Silent, the silent version is likely to be more expensive than its standard competitors, given the radical heat sink design required to keep the card running cool.
While we couldn't find any Gigabyte 7300 GTs available for purchase at the time of this writing, you should expect to pay around $140 or more for this part, depending on the vendor, availability, etc. This is a bit more than a standard clocked 7300 GT like MSI's, but the performance increase we will see from Gigabyte's factory overclock on this card puts it more in competition with the 7600 GS than the 7300 GT.
The Albatron 7300 GT also appears to be unavailable for purchase at this time, but we speculate that it should cost about the same or slightly less than the Gigabyte 7300 GT, given that their factory overclocks are similar. While there is a 50MHz difference in core clock speeds between these two cards, the difference in performance between them will be fairly close (depending on the game and settings) as we will see in the performance section.
We aren't sure about cards like the Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2, HIS X1600 Pro and Gigabyte X1600 XT, so we listed a price range that reflects a number of cards of the same type that are available by other manufacturers. There is a lot of overlap here of course, and we can't know for sure what these cards will sell for (or even when/if they will be available for purchase), but we can make some price suggestions for these cards based on their performance and the prices that we have for our other silent cards in this review. The Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2 for instance would be a good value closer to the same price as the Gigabyte 7300 GS, given the similarity in performance: probably about $45-$50. The HIS X1600 Pro would be a decent buy at around $95-$100, and the Gigabyte X1600 XT should probably list for around $140-$150, given current prices for this ATI part.
In general, the prices for all of these cards -- with the exception of the older ASUS 7800 GT and 6600 GT -- will range from about $50 to $170 which puts them in the mid-range and budget categories. Higher performance cards generate more heat, and as we mentioned, slower cards are better suited for silent operation. That is why we don't see many fast cards like the 7800 GT and above that are completely silent. As technology improves and cards become more efficient, we will surely see silent cards with much higher performance capabilities, particularly if there continues to be demand for silent solutions.
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yyrkoon - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
If its silly, why even bother replying . . . No need to go out of your way to be a jerk.nullpointerus - Friday, September 1, 2006 - link
Jerks don't take the time to apologize. As for why I apologized, I felt badly for responding in kind. I was belittling people who felt the need to belittle the site without taking the trouble to think their arguments through. Apparently that put some kind of chip on your shoulder such that you felt the need to attack me after I'd already apologized.DerekWilson - Friday, September 1, 2006 - link
maybe we can take a different angle as the standard reasoning has been rolled out already ...if we decide to test with a system that "matches" the graphics card, we are making a decision about what is reasonable for either a specific level of performance or price point. By making such a decision, we limit ourselves -- for instance, in this review we may have chosen a system to match a 7600 GS. But maybe it's too under powered for a 7600 GT, or perhaps its too overpriced for a 7300 GS.
we absolutely can't test every card with every processor and every memory configuration on every chipset for every review.
en lieu of choosing one system that is supposed to be a "one size fits all", we can remove the system from consideration by choosing the highest end configuration possible.
when a graphics card peforms better in our system, we know it is capable of better performance in any system. this is true in almost every case.
this does put a burden on the reader to understand the limitations of his or her own system -- i.e., will the fact that the 7600 GT performs higher than 7600 GS expose a CPU limitation on the system the reader is building/upgrading.
this question can be answered in a couple ways.
with game tests, if you can borrow a high end graphics card and see where the cpu limitation falls at something like 800x600 without aa and af, you'll know where the upper limit on framerate is based on the CPU. thus a decision can be made about the best fit for a card.
if you can't borrow a higher end card, you can turn all the graphics settings down as far as possible and run at 640x480 or lower if possible (does anything aside from the chronicles of riddick still support 320x240?). this isn't ideal, but even on a low end card you can get a pretty good idea of whether or not there will be a cpu limitation entering into the mix.
when you know what the cpu limit of your system is, pick the resolution you want to run, and find a card that gives you a number just over this limit. this card is the ideal fit for your system at your resolution. it will deliver the performance your cpu will ask for.
I know its complicated, but its much better than the can of worms we'd open if we went in another direction.
In GPU reviews meant to demonstrate the capabilities of a graphics card, we will not add unnecessary bottlenecks to the system.
nullpointerus - Friday, September 1, 2006 - link
You need a form letter, or something. Maybe you could put up a short page entitled Why We Test this Way and link to it on the front page of each article.nullpointerus - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Hmm...that last paragraph came out a little too harsh. I apologize in advance if I've offended anyone. I still think the points are valid, though.JarredWalton - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
If you look at the performance difference between an E6400 stock and 3.0 GHz OC in our http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=28...">PC Club system review, you will see that it makes virtually no difference in performance even with a 7900 GT. All of these GPUs are the bottleneck in gaming, but we use a higher-end (relatively speaking) CPU just to make sure.imaheadcase - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
I disagree 800x600 is great for sniping, i play on a 9700 Pro and normally switch between 800x600 and 1024x768 and like 800x600 better on large maps. It brings the objects "bigger" to me and lets me get better accuracy.Even if i had a 7900GT i would prob not go higher than 1024x768. Don't know why people play at higher rez, makes everything so tiny. Squinting to play a game is annoying and distracting from gameplay :D
Josh7289 - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
People who have larger monitors have to use higher resolutions to keep things from getting too large, and to make good use of all that real estate, especially when it's an LCD (native resolution).For example, a 17" CRT is best run at 1024 x 768 for games, while a 21" or so LCD is best run at 1600 x 1200 or 1680 x 1050, depending on its native resolution.
Olaf van der Spek - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
What do you mean with 'too large'?In games it's not like in Windows where objects get smaller if you increase the resolution.
DerekWilson - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
this is correct (except with user interfaces for some reason -- and there the exception is warcraft 3). thanks Olaf.lower resolution will give you much less accuracy -- larger pixels in the same screen area decrease detail.
the extreme example is if you have a 4x3 grid and you need to snipe someone -- his head has to be in the center of one of the 12 blocks you have to aim through to even be able to hit him. The smaller these blocks are, the more pixels fit into the head, the more capable you will be of sniping.