Test Setup/High Quality Performance

Now that we've talked about the card, let's look at the performance. We've included a few other budget cards for comparison to get an idea of how the 7800 GS fits into the market. Included on the graphs, we have the Radeon X1300 (450MHz/500GHz), and X300, as well as NVIDIA's 6200 TC. The games that we are testing are Halflife2 Lost Coast, Battlefield2 and Quake4, at 800X600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024 resolutions. Here is the test system that we used:

Testbed
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 2.6 GHz Processor
Memory: 1 GB OCZ 2:2:2:6 DDR400 RAM
Motherboard: NVIDIA nForce 4
Hard Drive: Seagate 7200.7 120 GB
Power Supply: OCZ 600 W PowerStream

*Note that sound was disabled for these tests.

Battlefield 2 Performance

Battlefield 2 Performance

Battlefield 2 Performance

Battlefield 2 Performance

Halflife 2 Lost Coast Performance

Halflife 2 Lost Coast Performance

Halflife 2 Lost Coast Performance

Halflife 2 Lost Coast Performance

Quake 4 Performance

Quake 4 Performance

Quake 4 Performance

Quake 4 Performance

As these graphs show, with high quality settings enabled, the framerates we see with these cards aren't quite playable for the most part over 800X600 resolution. If you don't mind playing at 800X600, then Halflife2 Lost Coast and Quake 4 will run fine on the 7300 GS at high quality, but you will have to bump down the quality settings if you want smooth game play at higher resolutions. We can see how the 7300 GS performs more similarly to the X1300 than to the 6200 TC, which confirms our suspicions and shows this card to be a good replacement to the 6200.

The Card Performance Continued (Medium Quality)
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  • agent2099 - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    Fanless heatsinks should be the standard for these budget cards.
  • Egglick - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    The 7300 is supposed to have all the same video features that the 7800 series has, so it should perform in the same way that a 7800 would to a X1900.

    The 7300GS is certainly a decent card for the price, but the X1300 is a better card. ATI has better video playback quality right now, and many of the X1300's are available with fanless heatsinks. Add to that that the X1300 has slightly better gaming performance and is available for the same price, and it's a no brainer.
  • Patrese - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    The X300 is on the top of the chart on the Quake 4 graphic ate 1024x768 High Quality... it is a mistake, isn't it?
    BTW, could you post a picture of the card? It's kinda useless, but still I'd like to see it! :)
  • Josh Venning - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    Thanks for pointing out the mistake, we're fixing it now. We've also added a picture, as per your request. :-)
  • peldor - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    The memory on the X1300 is also listed as 500GHz. I need me some of that!
  • kalaap - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    Why did you guyz take down the ASUS RD580 review?
  • cpeter38 - Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - link

    That has been HUGELY frustrating for me - both times they have taken it down WHILE I WAS READING IT!!!

    For a while, I thought I was having some weird computer issues - I actually rebooted twice. GRRRR!!!
  • brownba - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    Why test an low-end $80 video card that utilizies system ram in a high-end system with 1GB of ram?
  • Googer - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Why test an low-end $80 video card that utilizies system ram in a high-end system with 1GB of ram?


    Because that is the same test system used for all benchmarks. If you changed it then the results would not be compairable to what a faster graphics card would do. The idea is to keep all variables the same except for the one that you are working on, it's all fundimental to the scientific method.

    http://www.answers.com/scientific+method&r=67">http://www.answers.com/scientific+method&r=67
    http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/phy_labs/Appendix...">http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/phy_labs/Appendix...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
  • artifex - Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - link

    I think it should have been tested both ways: once for the database entry, where the testbed needs to be the same, but also once in a system budget gamers actually have.

    By not also testing on a lower end platform, you miss the opportunity to discover that maybe system bottlenecks make it so that all of these cards seem to have identical performance.

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