7300GT - Budget GPU or Not? - Game Performance and Conclusion

For these tests we used some popular games that I've enjoyed playing and tested them out on an entry-level card to see if it can handle the task for the occasional gamer.  Let's face it, 3DMarks don't tell the whole story.  Games are where it's at in the real world.  The games we feature in this review are Call Of Duty 2, Quake 4, and Serious Sam 2.

This will probably be the last time we use canned timedemos to evaluate gameplay performance.  Timedemos are useful when comparing one GPU with another, but they don't take into account other factors that affect gameplay, such as AI.  For this review we do compare the cards using timedemos as it is a direct comparison of what the GPU is capable of as the rest of the system is static across the board.

Call of Duty 2 is up first, and we have taken it to the wall by running some pretty high resolutions - well at least for a mid-to-low card such as the 7300GT.  We used a custom Timedemo to recreate and compare the 6600GT and 7600GT CO against the 7300GT.  This benchmark was run at least 3 times to get some results that we could average.  We ran at 1280x1024 with 2x AA, and 4x AF at High Quality settings.  Check out the results below.

Next up is a little Quake 4 Deathmatch.  This game runs much faster on all cards tested.

Even at 1280x1024, Deathmatch is actually playable on a $130 card.  This is remarkable as it smokes the 6600GT by 35% at 1280x1024.  Not bad at all.

Lastly, we take a look at three Serious Sam 2 maps at two different resolutions.  The results pretty much speak for themselves.

1280x1024 is a bit of a stretch for the 7300GT, but at 1024x768 it is very playable in all the maps we tested.  Greendale is a bit laggy, but it is still playable, whereas on the 6600GT you cannot play with an average FPS of 26.  If you drop off AA, you'd see better performance especially with the 6600GT and the 7300GT.

Conclusion:

The Inno3D 7300GT DDR3 is a tremendous card for any entry-level or even low-budget system.  It supports PureVideo and all of the other GeForce 7x00 goodies that we've come to expect.  Priced just above the $100 mark really gives this card a position all by itself.  It is downright speedy for the money.  If you spend another $100 you could grab another 7300GT and pull some sweet SLI action that looks like it would blow the 7600GT out of the water.  Give it some thought, and look online for an Inno3D retailer so you can pick up this card for anyone who wants to game and still wants to be able to pay rent.

Pros:

• Excellent Performance / Price Ratio.
• Fan runs quiet, even in 3D Mode.
• Decent software bundle for budget card.

Cons:

• Overclocking is not available on our sample.

Here's the full breakdown: