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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mindless1 - Monday, February 27, 2006 - link
not in this case, we can presume with a fair bit of certainty that a low-end modern CPU (especially at the time these cards will ship in systems) would easily be more than enough to make the video card the primary bottleneck by far. Keey in mind that even an Athlon XP2000 can manage to go over 800x600 in the tested games with the right video card.bwmccann - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
100% agree with this. There is no one in there right mind who would spend that kind of money on a CPU then go for a low end video card.Brian
plewis00 - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Someone always asks something like this every time a review is posted and the answer is usually the same: that it eliminates unwanted variables in testing. Same thing goes with disabling the sound. Anyway, I personally would rather have as pure figures as possible than ones which may be affected by a CPU or RAM bottleneck, maybe that's just me.bwmccann - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
If that is the case then include a realistic CPU with the review. Go with one from AMD and Intel to see the comparision of the CPUs.Brian
brownba - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
I know that's the common response,but it's so unrealistic.
you wouldn't stick this card in a system with that FX55.
Sunrise089 - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
I 100% agree except for the fact that you're wrong. Nobody would pair a FX-55 with a 7300, but plenty of people would pair an overclocked Opteron 144 at FX-55 speeds with a 7300 if they wanted a fast PC but didn't play games.rayo123 - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Well of course someone would, many would, not everyone buys computers just to play the latest games. Given the recommended hardware for the upcoming Vista, I imagine more and more people are going to be pairing something like a 7300 with a high-end CPU.rqle - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
base on the graph x1300 > 7300GS, and can be found at a lower price.i think its better to play BF and other games at 80+ FPS with a similar price x800GTO without HDR, then with this card at 20+ FPS with its 3.0.