Leadtek WinFast PX7600 GT TDH

NVIDIA's engineers were an extremely excited bunch when they created G73 - the chip behind NVIDIA's GeForce 7600 GT - in fact, they were even more excited than they were when they created GeForce 6600 GT. G73 is manufactured on TSMC's 90-nanometre process and features twelve pixel pipelines, five vertex shaders and eight pixel output engines.

Leadtek's card comes clocked at NVIDIA's reference GeForce 7600 GT frequencies, but it isn't just another reference design. Leadtek has refined the PCB design and moved away from the noisy cooling solution, while keeping the price right in line with other GeForce 7600 GT's - lets have a look if its a step above the crowd...

Leadtek WinFast PX7600 GT TDH

Core Clock: 560MHz
Memory Clock: 1400MHz
Warranty: 2 years limited (parts and labour)
Price: £121.01 inc VAT - Scan.co.uk

The box for Leadtek's WinFast PX7600 GT TDH lists all of the features that the card supports, along with the games included, too. Everything inside the box is typically well packed, with the video card packed in a padded anti-static bag. The card uses an exclusive board design, which we'll come to have a look at in a minute. The box also advertises that the card is RoHS compliant, has one dual link DVI port and an 'ultra cooling fan design'.

One part of the box design that we disagree with to some extent is the mention support for HDTV. Whilst this is true to an extent - because the card features a HDTV-Out connector - the video card does not have a HDCP crypto-ROM, meaning that high definition content on either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disks cannot be played at HD resolution.

This is not necessarily a reason to not buy this card, because there are very few board partners that have actually shipped video cards with the HDCP crypto-ROM included. The only video card that is guaranteed to ship with the HDCP crypto-ROM is the GeForce 7950 GX2, as it is embedded into the reference board design. Of course, more and more video cards supporting HDCP are appearing, but we don't think that they have appeared fast enough.

Leadtek includes a similar bundle to the one that was in the Leadtek WinFast PX7950 GX2 TDH, which we reviewed on Monday - the only difference being the omission of a 6-pin PCI-Express power adapter. This is because of the low power requirements of GeForce 7600 GT. The GeForce 7600 GT's thermal design power is said to be around 65-70W, meaning that the video card can draw all of its power directly from the PCI-Express interconnect.

The software bundle includes a utility CD, Serious Sam II, TrackMania Nations - which is driving game that is freely available to download from the 'net - and a bonus software disk containing PowerDVD 6 and Muvee 3. The one thing that we feel is missing from the bundle is the second DVI-to-VGA converter. Even though this video card only costs £120, we think that it is a bit of an oversight to only include a single converter with a video card that has dual DVI on the back.

Warranty: Leadtek offers a two-year warranty covering parts and labour. During the first year in the product's life, your point of contact should be the retailer. If you're having problems getting hold of the retailer, or the retailer goes out of business, you should contact Leadtek directly. During the second year of the warranty, you should talk directly with Leadtek if you are having issues with the product.