Date:
Thursday , August 10, 2006
Author:
Casey Brewer
Editor:
Brent Justice
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MSI NX7300 GS TD256E

Gaming for under $100 is possible with the latest video cards sporting DX9 features. We evaluate the MSI NX7300 GS TD256E and see how this value-end video card compares to the competition in the latest games.

Introduction

We haven’t evaluated many "value" video cards here at [H]Enthusiast in quite a while. This isn’t a category that hardcore gamers touch. With a total of 5 video card editors now on staff, we want to try and relate to a wider group of readers the gaming experience of video cards that scale from the low-end to the high-end.

It must be strictly understood that any video card under $100 is not going to perform like you are used to compared with mainstream or high-end video cards. These low price points are very appealing to many people looking for a video card for casual gaming and other activities.

The value-end video card segment in the past employed a mixed product status. GPUs of the past under $100 were stripped down in features. This practice dates back quite a while and the most famous example of this was the GeForce4 MX series which stripped the features of a programmable pixel and vertex shader that its bigger brother the GeForce4 Ti series had. Another recent example of this is the GeForce 6200 series of the last generation which stripped FP 16 HDR framebuffer support and Z compression support.

Thankfully with the latest generation of video cards today all DirectX 9 features are intact on sub-$100 video cards. This makes these video cards very capable, but does it make them fast enough to use those features? Hopefully this evaluation will give you an idea what to expect with some very affordable $70 video cards.

MSI NX7300 GX TD256E

MSI has been a major manufacturer of video cards for a while now. They have been the #1 manufacturer of NVIDIA-based graphics cards since 2001 and are an NVIDIA reference card design partner. Today we look at their NX7300 GS TD256E.

The NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS is a new GPU in the GeForce 7 family, specifically codenamed the G72 GPU which resides in the value-end sub-$100 market segment. This GPU is the replacement for last generations GeForce 6200 (NV44) GPU. It has 112 million transistors (35 million more than the GeForce 6200) and built on the very small 90 nanometer manufacturing process. Just like the GeForce 6200 the GeForce 7300 GS has 4 pixel shader processors and 3 vertex units with 2 raster operators (ROPs). What makes it different is that it is based on the GeForce 7 architecture with full support for FP16 HDR, Shader Model 3.0 and the math performance improvements associated with the GF7 architecture. It also has a bump in clock speeds over the GeForce 6200 now operating at 550 MHz GPU frequency versus 350 MHz on the GeForce 6200. On the memory side the GeForce 7300 GS supports DDR, DDR2 and GDDR3 with a 64-bit memory bus. The memory can run at add-in-board specified frequencies, some common clock speeds you will find are 350MHz (700MHz DDR) and 400 MHz (800 MHz DDR). The GeForce 7300 GS also supports TurboCache just like its GeForce 6200 predecessor.

TurboCache allows the video card to use system RAM like local video card RAM for storing data and textures. This allows for smaller dedicated RAM on the video card further reducing price. Though using system memory for texturing is slower than dedicated RAM on the video card itself. There are actually two versions of PCBs based on the GeForce 7300 GS, there is a low-profile version which can have less dedicated RAM and only one DVI port and a full-size PCB with more dedicated RAM with VGA and DVI.

MSI's NX7300 GS TD256E is their only offering of a GeForce 7300 GS GPU based video card in their lineup currently. The MSI NX7300 GS is a low-profile version. MSI is using the NVIDIA suggested core clock speed of 550 MHz and is setting their memory speed at a higher 405 MHz (810 MHz effective) for the memory. MSI is using the standard 64-bit memory bus with DDR2 type memory. Uniquely MSI has upped the dedicated framebuffer size on the video card to 256 MB. This means that with TurboCache you can have a higher combined framebuffer size up to 512 MB.

For example if you have the video card model with 256 MB of dedicated RAM, such as we do but have 256 MB or 512 MB of system RAM then you will still only have 256 MB of framebuffer space, no extra system memory is added because the dedicated RAM is already 256 MB. If however you have 1 GB of system RAM or more then 256 MB of that RAM can be used for the video card for a combined 512 MB total framebuffer space. Obviously framebuffer sizes this big will be useless for this low-end video card, in fact 256 MB even seems a bit much, but there you go.

To show you how affordable this video card is you can see here that current online price for the MSI GeForce NX7300 GS TD256E is $70.99 at Newegg. That’s a very low price for a video card capable of all the latest DirectX 9 features including Shader Model 3.0 and HDR support.

MSI NX7300 GS TD256E Pictures

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The MSI NX7300 GS TD256E comes out of the box with a quick user’s guide, quick install guide and installation CD. The retail box does include a DVI to VGA adapter which you will definitely appreciate as you will read later in this evaluation. There is also an S-Video cable for outputting the video to an S-Video component. HDTV out is supported in the hardware, but no cables are supplied for that.

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The MSI NX7300 GS TD256E is a low-profile PCI-Express video card that does not need external power. Being a low-end video card the power draw is very minimal and it takes everything it needs from the PCI-Express slot.

By now you have probably noticed the ribbon cable connected to the video card providing the VGA output. MSI provides a D-Sub and DVI-I output on this low-profile video card. To do so they have designed a bracket that provides a DVI and a VGA port through a ribbon cable. With the DVI to VGA adapter this lets you do run dual VGA monitors. No low-profile bracket is included.

The MSI NX7300 GS has a gold colored aluminum heatsink with a small fan that spins at a constant speed. The memory chips used are Hynix DDR2 2.5 ns rated at 400 MHz. This means they are very slightly overclocked by MSI at 405 MHz; because of this we don’t expect much room for overclocking, but we will see.