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Inno3D GeForce 7300 GT 256MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Saturday, 22 July 2006 |
AusFX brings us a review on the Inno3D GeForce 7300 GT 256MB PCIe video card. Inno3D's product line delivers high performance graphics, innovative features, and undeniable quality all at an affordable price. NVIDIA's GeForce 7300 GT cards come in many flavours, with manufacturers not being as restrained as they have been in the past when it comes to core clocks, memory clocks and types of memory. A GeForce 7300 GT may come equipped with 128MB DDR2 and with core/memory clocks of 350/667MHz respectively. There is also the option of equipping this GPU with some speedy GDDR3 and core/memory clocks at 575/1500MHz respectively. And that's pretty much what Inno3D has done.
 Inno3D GeForce 7300 GT 256MB PCI-E Review
The samples received were two Inno3D GeForce 7300 GT cards with 256MB of GDDR3 memory, core clock speed at a decent 550MHz and memory at a similarly conservative speed of 1400MHz. The GDDR3 version of the GeForce 7300 GT has stirred a bit of interest since it offers excellent performance at such a reasonable price. Since the likes of the GeForce 7600 GT are priced at about $225 plus, it's no wonder that attention has turned to this card. The GDDR3 version is intended to go up against ATI's Radeon X1600 XT, while the DDR2 versions are supposed to compete against the Radeon X1300 range of cards.
Importantly, NVIDIA have considered Windows Vista with the GeForce 7300 GT and as such it's completely Vista compatible. These cards do support the SLI techonology and are priced rather competitively at around $150, which sits them perfectly in the price range of a budget PC builder. The GeForce 7300 GT chipset is a very nicely specced GPU indeed, though coming from the same G73 architecture as the GeForce 7600 series, you'd expect it to have potential. Since it has the same architecture as the GeForce 7600's, there is some interest of unlocking the extra four pipelines. Well, NVIDIA has ensured you can't do so.
When the first GeForce 7800's hit the market, it was clear that NVIDIA would be releasing another sweet spot card. Many would argue that this card is in fact the GeForce 7900 GT, however the cheapest GeForce 7900 GT you'll find is around $350, and that's hardly within many small gaming computer budgets. Then the GeForce 7600 GT came out, and once again, it was proclaimed the successor of the GeForce 6600 GT throne. While it may occupy the same spot in the product line up, it does not offer the same price. So the sweet spot that we are looking for was not yet reached, although very close.
Now, the GeForce 7300 GT has been released, and with offering performance up to that of some high end previous generation cards for that sweet price of around $150, we think NVIDIA have released that sweet spot card once more. Don't let the GeForce 7300 name fool you, it's nothing like the GeForce 7300 GS variant. It literally smashed it clean out of the water, in many cases doubling its performance and in some cases, tripling. When paired up, two GeForce 7300 GT's make for excellent performing graphics cards, and is competitive with higher cards of today's market.
It copes very well with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering sliders at maximum setting, which reflects the fact that a lot of users are now turning to removing the jaggies from their games to increase aesthetic appeal and even playability. With excellent HDR and Shader Model 3.0 support, the GeForce 7300 GT will no doubt be a contender in future game markets, and at such a low price, it's rather hard to go past. Our only major gripe with it would be the cooling solution used, however it didn't pose any problems within normal everyday usage. It's hard to find anything else to complain about.
The GeForce 7300 GT with GDDR3 performs excellently for its price and while it won't play everything at maximum settings with maximum AA and AF, you'll get away with conservative AA and AF and still have everything playable. Just be sure you're getting the GDDR3 version. An excellent card, at an excellent price, with Windows Vista support too. NVIDIA have done it again.
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