Performance Continued (Medium Quality)

Because the performance that we saw on these games at high quality settings were so low, we ran a second set of benchmarks with the graphic settings at medium for each of these games at the same resolutions. This should give us a better idea of performance, as these games can still be enjoyable with certain effects like full dynamic range (in HL2LC) disabled. For Battlefield 2 and Quake 4, we simply used the overall medium graphics setting that these games both provide, and with Halflife 2 Lost Coast, we simply turned model and texture detail to medium, and set the shadow detail to low. We also set the HDR effects to "bloom" only and water reflections to "simple".

Battlefield 2 Performance (medium quality)

Battlefield 2 Performance (Medium Quality)

Battlefield 2 Performance (Medium Quality)

Battlefield 2 Performance (Medium Quality)

Halflife 2 Lost Coast Performance (medium quality)

Halflife 2 Lost Coast Performance (Medium Quality)

Halflife 2 Lost Coast Performance (Medium Quality)

Halflife 2 Lost Coast Performance (Medium Quality)

Quake 4 Performance (medium quality)

Quake 4 Performance (Medium Quality)

Quake 4 Performance (Medium Quality)

Quake 4 Performance (Medium Quality)

We can see that while these cards generally get much better framerates, the cards still tend to slow down quite a bit when they get up to 1280x1024. This makes sense though, given that all of these cards have very limited memory. We see that in Battlefield 2, the 7300 GS does much better at medium quality, as high quality isn't really playable at any of these resolutions. Overall, these cards perform adequately in these games at lower resolutions and with low or medium quality settings, which is not quite ideal, but also not surprising given the nature of the cards. The 7300 GS does, however, perform admirably among them, and given that it's a little cheaper than an X1300, it looks to be a good competitor to this and the other cards here.


Test Setup/High Quality Performance Final Words
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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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