Page 19
The Verdict
Blimey .. 19 pages of information on a 110 USD graphics card. Okay .. so this might be a dirt cheap low-budget card but it certainly performs like a mid-range segment positioned product. I hope you agree with me that this card deserved to be shown in every way possible. As I said on the first page of this review, many gamers are the somewhat younger fellows who cant afford high-end cards and with this card (granted at lower resolutions) they can do so perfectly fine.
What Galaxy is offering here is one of the best, if not the best GeForce 7300 solutions currently available. It offers very high operating clocks (the core is 150 MHz higher than the reference clock), and an effective cooling system (most importantly, it's hardly audible).
It is obvious that although not intended as a card for the hardcore gamer, it will still be able to play all of the latest games if you stick at 10x7. It packs all of the hottest features implemented into the Geforce 7 Series but it does not carry that hefty price tag. Because of its quiet operation, small size, low cost and its HDTV out functionality (no HDCP support though), the 7300GT would be ideal for a HTPC setup that requires occasional gaming yet excellent SD/HD decoding where the bigegst news is H.264 decoding acceleration. H.264 (MPEG4-AVC) looks to be the next big codec. H.264 is part of both the BluRay and HD-DVD's specifications. H.264 is already approved by Japan and most of Europe for use in their DTV broadcasts.
Obviously you'll not be playing games at high-resolutions but hey .. for roughly a hundred bucks you can get some really decent performance, this is one of the first low-budget cards on which you can
actually play a game decently. Combined with the blue PCB, high clocks, ramsinks, zalman cooler, good build quality and great output quality it certainly is hitting a soft spot for me.
So yeah, this card is not exactly nuclear powering your PC, but for the money this is great value.
Nice job Galaxy. And those that really can't afford expensive gaming graphics cards or need a good HTPC video accelerator .. go for it !
Galaxy 7300 GT DDR3 1.2 ns 256Mb + ZALMAN cooler
Company: Galaxy
Price: 110 USD/EUR
Info: galaxytech.com
