NVIDIA's board partners have jumped all over the 7600 series, offering flavors that mix higher clock speeds with new cooler designs, VIVO capabilities, lifetime warranties, and attractive software bundles. But which GeForce 7600 is the sweetest? TechReport have rounded up five cards from BFG, Gigabyte, MSI, and XFX:

Moving to the more affordable end of the spectrum, XFX's Xtreme Edition makes a pretty good case for the GeForce 7600 GS. The card sells for less than $120 online, so it's a good $45 cheaper than the least expensive GeForce 7600 GT in the comparison. The XFX 7600 GS is also one of the most affordable dual-DVI cards we've ever seen. Performance is pretty respectable, likely in part thanks to XFX's aggressive factory "overclocking." Unfortunately, those clock speeds look to be a little too much for the card's passive cooler. We observed GPU temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Celsius under load, and although that doesn't set off the temperature alarms embedded in NVIDIA's graphics driver, it still gives us the willies.

The GeForce 7600 GS may ultimately be better suited to home theater PC and silent desktop applications, but the Xtreme Edition doesn't fit into either mold all that well. This card lacks the high-definition output dongle you'd want for a home theater PC, and it has relatively high power consumption and heat output.

Regular gamers would be better off spending a little extra cash on BFG's GeForce 7600 GT OC, which is selling for only $165. That makes the BFG card the most affordable GeForce 7600 GT in the round-up by far, and with a lifetime warranty and free 24/7 telephone tech support, it's also one of the most appealing. But it just misses out on our Editor's Choice.