Product Listing

Leadtek WinFast A7600 GT TDH (GeForce 7600 GT 256MB, AGP)

By Vincent Chang - 28 Aug 2006

AGP Still Alive and Kicking

AGP Still Alive and Kicking

If hardware manufacturers had their way, we would all be using PCI Express motherboards and graphics cards by now. After all, the previous generation of graphics cards was supposed to be the start of the PCI Express era. Those graphics processors were already on PCI Express natively and the odds of AGP surviving that transition seemed quite remote. Of course, the chipmakers had miscalculated the inertia of the general populace. There was still demand for AGP variants and subsequently, ATI and NVIDIA both implicitly acknowledged this by introducing AGP versions through their Rialto and High Speed Interconnect (HSI) bridge chips respectively.

Fast forward to the present generation, where we have all seen a jump in graphics performance and growth in dual graphics cards configurations like SLI and CrossFire. Practically all the new motherboards in the market use the PCI Express interface only. One would think that AGP would finally be gone with all these new developments but it seems that there are still users clinging on to their aging systems. So, it is perhaps inevitable that the AGP interface was soon popping up for the latest graphics chipsets, especially for the lower end and mainstream. The latest chipset to undergo this AGP makeover is none other than the respectably mid-range GeForce 7600 GT.

Unlike the low profile GeForce 7800 GS, which was a diluted GeForce 7800 GT, there have been no compromises for the AGP version of the GeForce 7600 GT. The number of pipelines remains the same, along with identical clock speeds for both core and memory. So the only difference is the presence of the High Speed Interconnect chip and hence, the AGP compatibility. Here's a look at the first such AGP GeForce 7600 GT that we have received, the Leadtek WinFast A7600 GT TDH:

There's hope for those who can't bear to ditch their AGP systems but still hankering after the latest games.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.