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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  • mindless1 - Monday, February 27, 2006 - link

    not in this case, we can presume with a fair bit of certainty that a low-end modern CPU (especially at the time these cards will ship in systems) would easily be more than enough to make the video card the primary bottleneck by far. Keey in mind that even an Athlon XP2000 can manage to go over 800x600 in the tested games with the right video card.
  • bwmccann - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    100% agree with this. There is no one in there right mind who would spend that kind of money on a CPU then go for a low end video card.

    Brian
  • plewis00 - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    Someone always asks something like this every time a review is posted and the answer is usually the same: that it eliminates unwanted variables in testing. Same thing goes with disabling the sound. Anyway, I personally would rather have as pure figures as possible than ones which may be affected by a CPU or RAM bottleneck, maybe that's just me.
  • bwmccann - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    If that is the case then include a realistic CPU with the review. Go with one from AMD and Intel to see the comparision of the CPUs.

    Brian
  • brownba - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    I know that's the common response,
    but it's so unrealistic.
    you wouldn't stick this card in a system with that FX55.
  • Sunrise089 - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    I 100% agree except for the fact that you're wrong. Nobody would pair a FX-55 with a 7300, but plenty of people would pair an overclocked Opteron 144 at FX-55 speeds with a 7300 if they wanted a fast PC but didn't play games.
  • rayo123 - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    Well of course someone would, many would, not everyone buys computers just to play the latest games. Given the recommended hardware for the upcoming Vista, I imagine more and more people are going to be pairing something like a 7300 with a high-end CPU.
  • rqle - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link

    base on the graph x1300 > 7300GS, and can be found at a lower price.

    i think its better to play BF and other games at 80+ FPS with a similar price x800GTO without HDR, then with this card at 20+ FPS with its 3.0.

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