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By now, there is no need for introductions when it
comes to the newest NVIDIA kid on the block - the
GeForce 7300 GT. We have seen the GPU blaze
through the tests with Gainward's Bliss. But before
we talk of results, we must stress that NVIDIA
designed the GeForce 7300 GT to be very flexible
in terms of core clock and memory type and clock
with their vendors’ implementation. The result: a
boom in creativity where we find NVIDIA partners
with a myriad of variants.

Inno3D has armed its GeForce 7300 GT (yes, it’s got
a boring name) with very capable hardware that's
almost the equal of the Gainward Bliss 7300 GT PCX.
Crucially, this includes 256MB of DDR3 memory
clocked at 1400MHz. This is 100MHz faster than the
Gainward and has a latency of 1.4ns, similar to those
found with 7600 GTs.  The core is clocked at the
higher end of the spectrum for a GeForce 7300 GT
at 500MHz, though still 50MHz behind the Gainward.
Another rare treat with the Inno3D is the inclusion
of two DVI outputs and that deserves two thumbs
up in our book. Targeted for the budget mainstream
market, we didn't really expect much out of this
card’s bundle, and as expected, there wasn't much
in the packaging. Users will find only a single disc,
where the graphics drivers and some rather dated

InterVideo DVD applications are located. There
weren’t any games bundled and we also found the
accessories rather skimpy but, then again, this was
a typical sight in value products.

As we predicted for 3DMark 2005, the Gainward and
Inno3D were within 2 - 4% of each other, with the
Gainward taking the lead. The ranking of the cards
remained unchanged for 3DMark06 too but
nevertheless, the Gainward maintained its slender
lead over the Inno3D.

In our game tests, there wasn't much to separate
the Gainward and Inno3D cards in the following
benchmarks involving Splinter Cell and Unreal
Tournament. Both cards had almost identical scores
and were indisputably the faster cards for these two
benchmarks. Moving on to Quake 4, again there
was hardly any difference between the top two and
the honors went equally to both the Gainward and
the Inno3D. It is interesting to note that the higher
memory clock of the Inno3D had more impact on
its performance when anti-aliasing was enabled as
we saw the Inno3D edging out the Gainward.

There is no overclocking headroom for this card. The
Inno3D even failed on even a minor 10MHz

increment in the core and memory frequencies and
it dropped out of 3DMark06 halfway through the
stress test. This observation alone shouldn’t deter
consumers from placing this card in their shortlist.

 While the Inno3D name may have a reputation for
budget quality, with a price of PhP 4,495, it’s definitely
got an edge - even a small one - over the competition
here especially since its performance closely rivals
the Gainward Bliss 7300GT and even surprises us by
including dual DVI-D.

GPU

: NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT

ASIC

: G73

Core clock

: 500MHz

Memory

: 1400MHz (1.4ns) 128-bit 256MB DDR3

Transistors

: 177 Million

Vertex pipelines

: 5

Pixel pipelines

: 8

Video output

: Dual DVI-D, mini-DIN (for video out)

Interface

: PCI Express x16

Bundle

: 1 x DVI-to-VGA adapter, 9-pin mini-DIN to Component dongle, S-Video to

Composite cable, User Manual, Quick Installation Guide, Driver CD, InterVideo WinDVD,

InterVideo WinDVD Creator

Warranty

: 1 year

Contact

: Axis Global Technologies Inc.

Tel. No.

: (632) 724-3340

Website

:www.inno3d.com

GeForce

7300GT

GPU

256MB

DDR3

Memory

Dual

DVI-D

Interfaces

PCI

Express

Bus

PhP

4,495

Price

SPECIFICATIONS

Features: 

7.5

Performance: 

9.0

Value: 

9.0

9.0

Out of 10

One of the faster

7300GTs around.

Package bunde is

slightly lacking though.

HWM’S VERDICT

HWM Testbed:

Hardware: AMD Athlon FX-55 (2.6GHz), MSI K8N Diamond Plus, Kingston 1GB DDR400 (dual channel, low latency) memory, Seagate 7200.7 SATA HDD Software: Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2, DirectX 9.0c, NVIDIA

ForceWare 91.29

>>

Reviewed

COMPUTERS  

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS  COMMUNICATIONS

Challenging

For The

Top Spot

BY LESTER CO & VINCENT CHANG

Inno3D GeForce 7300GT

Synthetic Test

Inno3D GeForce 7300 GT 256MB DDR3

Gainward Bliss 7300GT PCX 256MB DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS 256MB

1024 x 768

No FSAA/AF

4661

4789

3773

1024 x 768

4x FSAA/8x AF

3810

3870

2920

1280 x 1024

No FSAA/AF

3765

3898

3169

1280 x 1024

4x FSAA/ 8x AF

2991

3048

2321

1024 x 768

No FSAA/AF

2879

2986

2547

1280 x 1024

No FSAA/AF

2309

2401

2074

Game Test

Inno3D GeForce 7300

Gainward Bliss 7300GT

NVIDIA GeForce 7600

1024 x 768

SM3.0 HDR / 8x AF

40

42

34

1280 x 1024

SM3.0 HDR / 8x AF

29

30

25

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory 1.3

1024 x 768

4x FSAA / 8x AF

86

86

78

1280 x 1024

4x FSAA / 8x AF

83

83

72

Unreal Tournament 2004 ( AS-Convoy)

1024 x 768

HQ, No FSAA/8x AF

84

86

66

Quake 4

1280 x 1024

HQ, No FSAA/8x AF

62

64

47

1024 x 768

HQ, 4x FSAA/ 8x AF

58

57

39

1280 x 1024

HQ, 4x FSAA/ 8x AF

40

39

26

3DMark 2005 Pro

3DMark 2006

RESULTS

OCT 2006

55

Reviews: