The EVGA 7300 GS: A New Quality Budget Card From NVIDIA
by Josh Venning on February 20, 2006 12:23 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Card
We've already taken a first look at NVIDIA's 7300 GS and you can read the article here. For this review, we will offer a brief recap of the card's features for reference, and look at some performance tests with our EVGA e-Geforce 7300 GS.
The GeForce 7300 GS was introduced by NVIDIA to take the place of the 6200 TurboCache on their budget end of graphics cards, and it does the job well, we've found. As the name implies, the 7300 GS is based on the GeForce 7 architecture, but it's been stripped down quite a bit.
There is a half-size version of the card which only has DVI and TV-out connections, but the EVGA 7300 GS that we have is full size and includes a VGA D-sub as well. The card is quite small and light, which makes sense given its budget classification. There are no external power connectors, and there is a very small fan on the GPU to keep it cool, with the EVGA logo in the center of it.
The 7300 GS also has 3 vertex and 4 pixel pipelines, the same as the 6200, but our EVGA 7300 GS has a larger memory size of 256 MB verses 16-64 MB of the 6200TC. Currently, SLI with this part is not supported, but we would be surprised if we don't see this feature enabled at some point later on. DVD decoding is another feature of this card, and it will likely include high definition video capabilities in future driver updates.
As we mentioned earlier, EVGA is a company with which we've had good experiences in the past, as their prices and warranty policy set them apart from the others. For those not familiar with their warranty policy, EVGA provides a lifetime warranty and will replace your card for any reason other than physical damage (this means damage due to things like power surges, and user-overclocking is covered). If you are looking for a 7300 GS, the EVGA version would be a good part to consider.
We've already taken a first look at NVIDIA's 7300 GS and you can read the article here. For this review, we will offer a brief recap of the card's features for reference, and look at some performance tests with our EVGA e-Geforce 7300 GS.
The GeForce 7300 GS was introduced by NVIDIA to take the place of the 6200 TurboCache on their budget end of graphics cards, and it does the job well, we've found. As the name implies, the 7300 GS is based on the GeForce 7 architecture, but it's been stripped down quite a bit.
There is a half-size version of the card which only has DVI and TV-out connections, but the EVGA 7300 GS that we have is full size and includes a VGA D-sub as well. The card is quite small and light, which makes sense given its budget classification. There are no external power connectors, and there is a very small fan on the GPU to keep it cool, with the EVGA logo in the center of it.
The 7300 GS also has 3 vertex and 4 pixel pipelines, the same as the 6200, but our EVGA 7300 GS has a larger memory size of 256 MB verses 16-64 MB of the 6200TC. Currently, SLI with this part is not supported, but we would be surprised if we don't see this feature enabled at some point later on. DVD decoding is another feature of this card, and it will likely include high definition video capabilities in future driver updates.
As we mentioned earlier, EVGA is a company with which we've had good experiences in the past, as their prices and warranty policy set them apart from the others. For those not familiar with their warranty policy, EVGA provides a lifetime warranty and will replace your card for any reason other than physical damage (this means damage due to things like power surges, and user-overclocking is covered). If you are looking for a 7300 GS, the EVGA version would be a good part to consider.
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agent2099 - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Fanless heatsinks should be the standard for these budget cards.Egglick - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
The 7300 is supposed to have all the same video features that the 7800 series has, so it should perform in the same way that a 7800 would to a X1900.The 7300GS is certainly a decent card for the price, but the X1300 is a better card. ATI has better video playback quality right now, and many of the X1300's are available with fanless heatsinks. Add to that that the X1300 has slightly better gaming performance and is available for the same price, and it's a no brainer.
Patrese - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
The X300 is on the top of the chart on the Quake 4 graphic ate 1024x768 High Quality... it is a mistake, isn't it?BTW, could you post a picture of the card? It's kinda useless, but still I'd like to see it! :)
Josh Venning - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Thanks for pointing out the mistake, we're fixing it now. We've also added a picture, as per your request. :-)peldor - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
The memory on the X1300 is also listed as 500GHz. I need me some of that!kalaap - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Why did you guyz take down the ASUS RD580 review?cpeter38 - Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - link
That has been HUGELY frustrating for me - both times they have taken it down WHILE I WAS READING IT!!!For a while, I thought I was having some weird computer issues - I actually rebooted twice. GRRRR!!!
brownba - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Why test an low-end $80 video card that utilizies system ram in a high-end system with 1GB of ram?Googer - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Because that is the same test system used for all benchmarks. If you changed it then the results would not be compairable to what a faster graphics card would do. The idea is to keep all variables the same except for the one that you are working on, it's all fundimental to the scientific method.
http://www.answers.com/scientific+method&r=67">http://www.answers.com/scientific+method&r=67
http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/phy_labs/Appendix...">http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/phy_labs/Appendix...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
artifex - Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - link
I think it should have been tested both ways: once for the database entry, where the testbed needs to be the same, but also once in a system budget gamers actually have.By not also testing on a lower end platform, you miss the opportunity to discover that maybe system bottlenecks make it so that all of these cards seem to have identical performance.