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A little deeper into the 7300 GT ...

It was only a couple of weeks ago when we reviewed Galaxy's impressive GeForce 7600 GS, followed shortly after that review the guys let me know that they are now releasing a couple of GeForce 7300 GT boards created in a similar idea - With impressive overclocks and, on one of the two boards, a more efficient Zalman cooler.

I say two as there are two versions of the gDDR3 7300 GT. The 128 MB model comes with standard cooler though. Also bare in mind that Galaxy is offering a gDDR2 version of the 7300 GT. Hey you get choices for sure .. but it's also confusing. Anyway, you can say that we are testing the "flagship" low-budget card here.

The 7300 GT is not based on G72 architecture like its little sister the 7300GS. The 7300GT is based on NVIDIA's G73 graphics core similar to the GeForce 7600 series, yet it has eight pixel pipelines. The chip was made on the newer 90nm fabrication process. For a low/mid-range product it has a rather large transistor count, no less than 177 million transistors can be found on this silicon.
 

So in short Galaxy uses 1.2ns DDR 3 memory for the Zalman power-driven card. There is a secind version,  and uses a default cooler. Both cards are overclocked to 500MHz core and 1400MHz memory.
Both these cards will work in SLI mode and will be factory overcooked to work at 500MHz core and 1400MHz memory all time. The non-Zalman card uses 1.4ns memory but still works at 1400MHz (1000:1.4= (714 MHZ x2) 1428 MHz)). Really impressive stuff as the default GeForce 7300 is clocked at a mere 350 on the core and 667 on the memory.

Why is all this impressive ? Three reasons .. this is the first low-end card ever that will actually allow you to play modern games quite decently.

Secondly, because you can pick these cards up for just over 100 bucks. And thirdly .. can I forget about gaming for one second ? SD & HD decoding can be done perfectly on this card . This is one mean HTPC videocard with some seriously full-fetched hardware decoding for just 100 bucks.

You just can't beat that !

Just like the 7600 GT; the 7600 GS has SLI support also. And since it's a Series 7 product you can expect dual-link DVI for extremely high resolution gaming up-to 2560x1600 (XHD as the industry would love to call that = Extreme High Definition) and all the sweetness in the form of HDR support and that finally important Shader Model 3.

Allow me to place everything in a chart to understand the technology behind the 7300 GT a tad better:

Please focus on the chart below where I cite the more important specifications. Highlighted in blue you'll notice the Galaxy products specs.

GeForce 6800 Ultra

16

6

256-bit

GDDR3/256MB

400MHz

1100MHz

GeForce 6800 GT

16

6

256-bit

GDDR3/256MB

350MHz

1000MHz

GeForce 6800

12

5

256-bit

GDDR/128MB

325MHz

700MHz

GeForce 6800 LE

8

4

256-bit

GDDR/128MB

320MHz

700MHz

As you can see Galaxy did some noteworthy things with this 7300 GT, it has much faster clocks on both memory and core which brings the product VERY close to the more expensive 7600 GS and GT, so this product is all about value.

The bundle

Now we always mention what candy you get included in the box. Obviously the card with faster core, the faster memory and the more expensive Zalman cooler you can't seriously expect much more in the box for the 100 EUR you have to pay for this card.

Notable is the fact that it has one Dual DVI output + analog VGA connector. Cool and Quiet is the name of their game as  it is a Zalman cooled graphics card. Furthermore you'll find a driver CD.

Also you'll receive a video out-to-component (3-way RCA) adaptor for HD components TV connection and an S-Video cable. It's adequate to get you connected and for the money versus this cards features absolutely nothing to be ashamed about.

No DVI to CRT/VGA converter was found though.