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EVGA e-GeForce 7300 GT 256MB DDR2 Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Thursday, 29 June 2006 |
TrustedReviews comes with a review on the EVGA e-GeForce 7300 GT 256MB DDR2 graphics card. Just recently, we took a look at the Inno3D GeForce 7300 GT and compared it to ATI's Radeon X1300. The Inno3D card was actually a non standard card with faster GDDR3 memory and a higher core speed. This slightly skewed the comparison and I didn't want everyone to run out and unwittingly buy a standard GeForce 7300 GT and then be disappointed with the performance, due to the slower DDR2 memory. Don't get me wrong, the Inno3D card is absolutely amazing value for money and is still my choice card, but I felt the comparison was incomplete without a comparison to a standard GeForce 7300 GT.
 EVGA e-GeForce 7300 GT 256MB DDR2 Review
The card comes with a 350MHz core and 667MHz DDR2 memory. This is really quite a low specification over the 500MHz core and 1400MHz GDDR3 memory of the Inno3D card and as a result I expect to see some significant performance drops. The cooler is very different from the standard GeForce 7600 GT cooler, which is made of copper. This is smaller and made of aluminium. It's quite a bit quieter than the GeForce 7600 GT cooler, so it's nice to see it isn't a change for the sake of change. Just like the Inno3D, this card uses the same PCB as the GeForce 7600 cards and also supports SLI.
Just to recap my last review, this card is based on the G73 core, which is the same as used in the GeForce 7600 GS and GT. The difference is that one of the quads is disabled giving a total of eight pixel shaders and four vertex shaders. The most important point is there are still eight pixel output engines. I was able to overclock this card quite well, relatively speaking. An increase from 350MHz core to 570MHz and an increase of 667MHz memory to 880MHz effective. As you can see in our performance results later, this gave a significant performance increase.
At these lower clock speeds, the EVGA e-GeForce 7300 GT is still faster than the Sapphire Radeon X1300. Although there are GeForce 7300 GT cards with DDR2 memory by other brands available at around £45, this particular card is pitched at around the same price as the previously reviewed GeForce 7300 GT with GDDR3 memory and comes in between £60-70. Although the EVGA comes with a lifetime warranty and the Step-Up program, I would still sooner have the extra performance of the Inno3D card.
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