ASUS Extreme N7300GS GeForce 7300 GS Graphics Card Review!

[Dashken]

While the focus is always on the sexy, high-end cards, the reality is that most cards being sold today are lower-end cards. Today, we will take a look at the latest entry-level card to come out of the ASUS factory - the ASUS Extreme N7300GS.

Based on the new NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS GPU, this card will be simple and affordable. But just how fast is it? Will you be able to play 3D games even using this entry-level card? Read on and find out!

Link : ASUS Extreme N7300GS GeForce 7300 GS Graphics Card Review!

[kayFX]

you didn't mention the game resolution for the benchmark comparison..

If you are not particular about high frame rates or high resolutions when you play games, this card will serve you well. But don't expect miracles from it. It's positioned as an entry-level card with a price target of only $99.

800*600 or 1024*768..

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by kayFX

you didn't mention the game resolution for the benchmark comparison..

800*600 or 1024*768..

Sorry about that. All games were tested at 1024x768, except for Doom 3 which ran at 800x600.

Just added that to the Testing Methodology page. Thanks for the heads up.

[playahata123789]

awesome review, if they go sli with this card (heres to hoping) then ill be getting this card.

[Max_87]

Even if 7300GS can SLI, I don't see any point going 7300GS SLI. It's still better to stick to one faster card.

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by Max_87

Even if 7300GS can SLI, I don't see any point going 7300GS SLI. It's still better to stick to one faster card.

That's very true.

[Olle P]

• Bad move by Asus to name this card "Extreme"!
  I know they use that name for the entire range, but still... this card isn't extreme, and it's not targeted at those that want to buy extreme.
• The framerates presented show it to be useless for playing F.E.A.R. and HL2, even at moderate settings. The sales pitch from nVidia thus proven wrong (as expected).
  Btw, what type of filtering and FSAA was used for the tests?

Given that you used high end CPU and RAM for these tests one could also asume that there will be a slight further performance decrease when running the card in a more low-to-mid range computer, as should be the norm for these cards.

It would also be nice to see how spending slightly more money to buy a card based on GeForce 6600 (with 128MB RAM) would influence the performance.

Cheers
Olle

[Chai]

FEAR is unplayable (Everything is on, except for soft shadow, even 7800 GTX struggles with that on, and medium textures of course), but HL2, I think there are issues with the benchmarking (already mentioned in the review).

Most of the games are at highest settings, including Far Cry, HL2, Doom3 (High quality, compressed textures). Only FEAR was set to medium textures because X300 wouldn't run due to lack of memory.

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by Olle P

• Bad move by Asus to name this card "Extreme"!
  I know they use that name for the entire range, but still... this card isn't extreme, and it's not targeted at those that want to buy extreme.
• The framerates presented show it to be useless for playing F.E.A.R. and HL2, even at moderate settings. The sales pitch from nVidia thus proven wrong (as expected).
  Btw, what type of filtering and FSAA was used for the tests?

Given that you used high end CPU and RAM for these tests one could also asume that there will be a slight further performance decrease when running the card in a more low-to-mid range computer, as should be the norm for these cards.

It would also be nice to see how spending slightly more money to buy a card based on GeForce 6600 (with 128MB RAM) would influence the performance.

Cheers
Olle

Actually, ASUS calls ALL of their graphics cards Extreme. It's just their brand name for their graphics cards. It doesn't make sense for them to change it just for a single card.

TBH, if I was in charge of naming graphics cards, I would call them Extreme too. It's just marketing, pure and simple.

Would you buy a card that's called the ASUS Budget N7300GS or the ASUS Low-End N7300GS?

Yes, there should be a reduction in frame rates with slower CPUs and less memory (naturally). But the reduction should not be that significant. After all, the scores are card-limited, not CPU-limited.

Yeah, for gamers, it would be best to spend a little extra (50% more) to buy a mid-range, older gen card like the GeForce 6600.

But if you only want to play Sims or Civilizations, this card should be more than enough. Heck, it even runs Doom 3 just fine.

Market-wise, you may not think it's worth buying a low-end card like this. But ATI still sells tons of X300 cards which are slower than this new card. My guess is lots of people will still buy low-end cards like this card.. or the X1300 from ATI.

[Chai]

P4 630 is not exactly a high end CPU. Any Athlon 64 can easily whoops its ass. And the ability to connect to a HDTV is something most low end cards can't offer.

I'm not a fan of low end cards, but this card still serves its purpose, like it or not.