Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 128MB PCI-E x1
We've almost forgotten about cheap graphics cards. Well, it's not that we've really forgotten about them, since they are represented in our montly 3Digests. But these products change only a little. Performance stays very low, new drivers introduce almost nothing. You also have to sacrifice quality in games, not speaking of AA and AF, which you can just forget about. 3D works only in simple games. Of course, aesthetes may enable all options and enjoy a slide show. But that's not the point today.
Given you have a computer with integrated graphics (it especially concerns barebones) and you want to upgrade your graphics subsystem to a more-or-less modern 3D solution and you don't have a PCI-E x16 slot. What can you do? Yep, you should look for a PCI-E x1 graphics card. One of such products will be reviewed today. This 7300GT card is made and factory-overclocked by Galaxy.
Graphics card
| Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 128MB PCI-E x1 |
- GPU: GeForce 7300 GT (G73)
- Interface: PCI-Express x1
- GPU frequencies (ROPs/Shaders): 500/500 MHz (nominal - 350/350 MHz)
- Memory frequencies (physical (effective)): 500 (1000) MHz (nominal - 333 (666) MHz)
- Memory bus width: 128bit
- Vertex processors: 8
- Pixel processors: 8
- Unified processors: -
- Texture processors: 8
- ROPs: 4
- Dimensions: 170x100x15 mm (the last figure is the maximum thickness of a graphics card).
- PCB color: blue
- RAMDACs/TDMS: integrated into GPU
- Output connectors: DVI (Dual-Link), VGA, TV-Out.
- VIVO: not available
- TV-out: integrated into GPU.
- Multi-GPU operation: SLI (Software).
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| Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 128MB PCI-E x1 |
| The graphics card has 128 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM allocated in four chips on the front side of the PCB.
Samsung memory chips (GDDR3). 1.4 ns memory access time, which corresponds to 700 (1400) MHz. |
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| Comparison with the reference design, front view |
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Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 128MB PCI-E x1
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Reference card NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
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| Comparison with the reference design, back view |
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Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 128MB PCI-E x1
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Reference card NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
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The photo shows well that the card has a unique design. It's similar to the 7600 GT in the layout of memory chips. The card is rather small. It has a TV-Out with a unique jack. You will need special bundled adapters to output video to a TV-set via S-Video or RCA. You can read about the TV-Out in more detail here.
Analog monitors with d-Sub (VGA) are connected either via a VGA connector, or special DVI-to-d-Sub adapters (they are not included into the bundle). Maximum resolutions and frequencies:
- 240 Hz Max Refresh Rate
- 2048 x 1536 x 32bit x85Hz Max - analog interface
- 2560 x 1600 @ 60Hz Max - digital interface
Speaking of MPEG2 playback features (DVD-Video), we analyzed this issue in 2002. Little has changed since that time. CPU load during video playback on all modern graphics cards does not exceed 25%. What concerns HDTV and other trendy video features, we are going to sort them out as soon as possible.
Now what concerns the cooling system. There is nothing much to write about. You can see well on the photo that it's a usual round cooler with a fan in the middle. The latter has a low rotational speed, and so there is no noise. However, we cannot guarantee that such a cooler will always remain silent (there were some cases when such devices became noisy in six-twelve months).
We monitored temperatures using RivaTuner (written by A.Nikolaychuk AKA Unwinder) and obtained the following results:
Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 128MB PCI-E x1
As we can see, the temperatures are not very high, despite the increased frequencies (500 MHz versus 350 MHz).
Bundle
| Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 128MB PCI-E x1 |
The bundle is minimal: User Manual, CD with drivers, TV extension cord. There are no adapters in the bundle. |
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Box
| Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT 128MB PCI-E x1 |
A small cardboard box, almost an OEM bundle (the so-called "Light Retail").
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