Palit, Yuan, Daytona, XpertVision, Gainward… I’m not sure if this list is complete. What does it mean? I guess experienced users who are interested in PC hardware should know that Palit Corporation is today a major graphics card manufacturer and owns all those trademarks. There’s no unanimous opinion about one company having so many brands. On one hand, the user is offered a larger choice, especially since Palit has always offered an appealing price/performance ratio (note that I don’t mention quality here). On the other hand, a carefree user may be enticed into buying a cut-down version of some full-featured model. Such a version may have slower memory, a narrower bus, a simplified PCB, fewer graphics pipelines, etc.

Today, I am going to test a Palit GeForce 7600 GT Sonic graphics card. We’ve already written about the 7600 GT on the pages of our site, but it is such a wonderful product that we just can’t stop admiring it. Its excellent performance comes at a lower price, now that the initial excitement has subsided. Graphics card makers are not confined to the reference design with this card, so there have appeared a number of original designs from several companies. The card to be discussed in this review uses a non-reference design of the PCB, too.

Palit GeForce 7600 GT Sonic: Overview

The Palit GeForce 7600 GT Sonic comes in a large and glossy cardboard box embellished with the traditional emblem of that manufacturer, a fairy Chinese girl. She is a lucid indication of the place of origin of the product.

The box is filled with a porous material to protect the card during transportation. A manufacturer’s attention to such small things is always praiseworthy.

The box contains:

• Palit GeForce 7600 GT Sonic graphics card
• DVI – D-Sub adapter
• Component video cable
• CD with drivers
• CD with CyberLink PowerDVD 5
• DVD with Conflict: Desert Storm
• User manual

The accessories are up to the class of the product, including a good software bundle besides the necessities. Here’s the graphics card:

Its PCB is red, which is typical of Palit, and non-standard. I’ll talk about it in the next section.