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!
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.
Even if 7300GS can SLI, I don't see any point going 7300GS SLI. It's still better to stick to one faster card.
Here are my comments... 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
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.
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.
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.
No, but if I was in the target group I'd happily buy an ASUS N7300GS. Isn't Civ4 supposed to be a real hog on the graphics? Market-wise I'd rate this card as too high-end for most users. (Those that pretty much only surf the web and use office applications. To them the GeForce 4MX is sufficient.) See article at Tom's Hardware. Cheers Olle
Probably. But if I were ASUS, I would want to win additional brownie points by calling it Extreme. I would want to differentiate my product from the other GeForce 7300 GS cards. It sure doesn't hurt to give it a name with more oomph! I can barely run it on my ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 but it should be no problem for the GeForce 7300 GS. After all, the MR9700 only managed to hit 25 fps at Medium Quality in Doom 3, even after being overclocked. The GeForce 7300 GS is about twice as fast, even without overclocking. Those who only surf the web and use office applications can stick to the integrated graphics solutions found in many motherboards (aka Intel Extreme Graphics hahaha). Alternatively, cheap cards like the GeForce 2 MX would suffice. I think the GeForce 7300 GS would be great for those who need HDTV output and the ability to play 3D games at lower resolutions. It's a cheap solution. You can pick a GeForce 7300 GS card now for only about $70. This ASUS card will probably cost a bit more.
Oh yes I have! I see one in the mirror every day! It's just that those that actually expect to get one get very disappointed, unless they're happy to buy a used rig... /Olle
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! Here are the updates:- Link : ASUS Extreme N7300GS GeForce 7300 GS Graphics Card Review Rev. 1.1!
