Another Silent GeForce 7600 GT

As we have noted before, the flurry of GeForce 7 series cards are coming in fast and furious to our labs, with the GeForce 7600 GT unsurprisingly the most popular of the lot. Disparate cards of various PCB colors and clock speeds have all met with our scrutiny and highlight the intense competition between the vendors over this mid-range graphics chipset. Already, prices of the GeForce 7600 GT have fallen as more stocks and suppliers enter the market, which of course only spells good news for consumers as the product variety o increases (but also spells more decision headaches).

So it was only a matter of time before another vendor jumped into the fray with another passively cooled GeForce 7600 GT. Not that Gigabyte is a new upstart hoping to crash the scene. The company has been offering silent versions for a number of chipsets, ranging from the older GeForce 6600 GT to the low-end Radeon X1300 PRO. In fact, its line of passive coolers for graphics is into its second iteration with improvements that on its latest Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH (GeForce 7600 GT) claims to be significantly better than other competing GeForce 7600 GT heat pipe solutions.

While we are not sure which particular competing heat pipe product that Gigabyte had in mind with the marketing blurb on its product packaging, we did recently look at a direct rival in the form of the passively cooled GeForce 7600 GT from ASUS. Hence, it should be interesting to say the least to find out which heat pipe solution comes out on top in the crucial temperature tests. Without further ado, here's a quick look at the Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH and its technical specifications:

Gigabyte's familiar purple packaging for its recent graphics products stands out from its competitors with its portrait rather than landscape orientation.