Fatal1ty is the pseudonym for Jonathan Wendel. Born in 1981, Wendel has been able to create a remarkable reputation for himself as a professional gamer, mainly through participating in the CyberAthlete Professional League (CPL). His reputation has grown even higher through victories in international competitions and his participation in video gaming events around the world.

Due to his popularity as a reputable gamer, the Fatal1ty brand has grown to be popular among manufacturers for representing their PC gaming hardware and equipment. The brand is driven by skillful marketing and focuses primarily on enthusiasts. Abit was first to see the potential of the name, and developed a number of high-end motherboards under the Fatal1ty brand. Recently, Zalman, Creative, and XFX have also followed suit and signed agreements with Fatal1ty hoping to attract PC gamers.

XFX has decided on developing a series of video cards, based on the NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT, marketed under the Fatal1ty brand name. These video cards are targeted at midrange PC gamers. To fit this market segment, XFX has designed its video card with different technical and aesthetic features compared to other cards based on the same GPU.

To make sure its product differs from competitors, XFX is shipping the Fatal1ty 7600GT with the GPU and memory both factory overclocked. The core is shipped at a frequency of 650 MHz, compared to the 560 MHz of NVIDIA’s default speeds. The 256 MB of memory is clocked at 1,600 MHz, 200 MHz faster than the default 1,400 MHz.

It is important to note that there is another version of the XFX Fatal1ty based on the same 7600GT GPU. This version, however, runs at the default core/memory frequencies of the NVIDIA 7600GT reference boards. The XFX website lists both cards under the same exact name, so the only way to distinguish between the two is through the product box which lists the technical specification sof the card. Be sure to check this before buying to prevent receiving the wrong version.

As an NVIDIA, partner, XFX is among the most active in overclocking its products. The overclocked Fatal1ty 7600GT comes guaranteed by XFX for correct operation at the elevated frequencies, representing an added value to the product in regards to other competing solutions. The card itself is a completely silent solution with no fan, so before trying to further overclock it, it is strongly suggested to equip it with an active cooling solution. To the least, it is essential to make sure that the video card is receiving adequate airflow.

The Card

As far as the PCB goes, the dimensions of the video card are identical to other currently available solutions based on the GeForce 7600GT. The cooling solution, however, is quite different than most other products because it is completely passive.

There are two main elements that make up the cooling solution. The first part is the black colored heatsink which is in direct contact with the GPU in addition to the memory chips, therefore cooling both the core and memory. The second part is the aluminum cooling fins. Two heatpipes connect the cooling fins to the heatsink, and from there is heat is transferred from the memory chips and GPU to the cooling fins.

An overall view of the video card shows the solid construction of the passive cooling system. The support bracket is made of aluminum and crosses the entire length of the card. There is no 6-pin PCIe Connector present on the card. In fact, the GeForce 7600 GT GPU does not require any additional power, a major reason for why it is able to provide lower power consumption than most video cards based on other GPUs.

The box comes decorated with the Fatal1ty logo. There is also a picture of the man himself in the background. A small logo tells that the cooling system used for the video card is completely silent.

The retail bundle lives up to the mid-range segment the card is targeted at. Only a driver CD comes with the bundle, and there is only one DVI to VGA adapter. An S-Video cable is provided, though, along with a guide on how to install the card and using the correct wires.

Since the main characteristic of this video card is undoubtedly its silent cooling system, we decided to tests its effectiveness in a particularly stressful situation. In order to perform this test, we ran the program “Real-Time High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting”, which performs real-time true HDR rendering. We recorded the temperatures using RivaTuner, which got the figures directly from the GPU sensors.

After 1 hour and 12 minutes of testing the GPU, its temperature raised to 80 degrees Celsius, having constantly risen from 54 degrees Celsius. The heatsink by this time is warm to the touch, however, not unbearable or scorching. A hand can be held against it for a couple of seconds before needing to pull away.

Considering that NVIDIA has designed its drivers to automatically slow down frequencies if the temperature rises to 130 degrees Celsius, 80 degrees Celsius doesn’t pose to be an extreme emergency.

The NVIDIA driver panel confirms that the threshold for the GPU is 130 degrees C. If the temperatures did reach this level, operating frequencies would automatically reduce to avoid permanently damaging the components.

For comparison, we have placed the XFX Fatal1ty 7600 GT against a reference NVIDIA 7600 GT board. In addition, we have placed it side by side against three video cards based on ATI’s competing X1650XT GPU. The analysis was performed using a Socket 939 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ provided with 2 GB of DDR400 Memory. The tests were run at resolutions of 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 paired with Anti-Aliasing levels of 4x and Anisotropic Filtering at 16x.

For our benchmark suite we chose to run Prey, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, and Serious Sam 2.

The increase in the GPU and memory clock award the XFX Fatal1ty 7600 GT as it is able to perform the best in all three video card tests. On the whole, it outperforms all three Radeon X1650XT solutions and is able to perform faster at all times.To see more indepth performance tests of the Radeon X1650XT, please refer to this article.

Thanks to the faster operating frequencies of the XFX Fatal1ty 7600 GT, it is able to outperform the reference NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT along with all three Radeon X1650XT contenders. Through Newegg, the video card is currently available for $179.99. Most Radeon X1650XT cards run for around $20 less, but the passive cooling solution of the XFX Fatal1ty 7600 GT makes it worth the 20 bucks more.

The video card is factory overclocked and is the most factory overclocked and guaranteed video card currently available. Even though it is already overclocked, we tried to increase its operating frequencies even further, but didn’t get very far compared to the factory overclock. The maximum we reached was 670 MHz for the core and 1635 MHz for memory.

The video card is a definite plus for use in HTPCs. Completely silent, it comes with NVIDIA PureVideo support and also support High Defintion videos. As we said before, it would fit perfectly into a home theater environment. The only limitation of this product, however, is that it doesn’t have any HDCP support and therefore cannot play protected high definition content at full resolution and instead only at standard definition.

XFX Product Information:
http://www.xfxforce.com
GeForce 7600 GT Fatal1ty 256MB RoHS 650 MHz - PV-T73G-U1D4