UPDATE: September 2024 - This post definitely needs slight revision with faster testing platform and Geforce 7600GT DDR3 included in comparison charts. All charts below seem a little outdated by now.
There is a reason why this graphics card is quite popular for RetroPC computers. Simply because of its incredible value for the money. So what makes it so special?
This particular PALIT vga card is equipped with very fast 256MB DDR3 memory modules made by Qimonda with access time 1.4ns (in some versions 1.2ns). The default memory clock is set for 500Mhz but can be easily overclocked to 700Mhz (effective 1400Mhz). The gpu core clock can be also set much higher than default 400Mhz up to 560Mhz. That's exactly same core/mem clock values as GeForce 7600GT.
While it can't reach performance level of 7600GT because of lower amount of rendering units (TMU/ROP) in reality overclocked 7300GT easily beats any 7600GS by significant margin.
PALIT GeForce 7300GT AGP is available as Single or Dual slot solution. Dual slot version has obviously bigger heatsink. Both are equally good overclockers.
For overclocking tool I used very simple nTune applet from Nvidia. Settings can be changed within control panel of the graphics card. Super easy and problem-free.
GPU-Z default on the left, overclocked on the right
I chose 4 games for the test. Used FRAPS to measure average FPS during the same 30 second sequence of the game.
The scores are definitely bottlenecked by my relatively weak CPU. But one can expect much better scaling and bigger numbers on faster systems /Athlon 64 X2, Intel Core 2 Duo/. Unfortunately faster systems are not ready yet for testing purposes.
And how does overclocked PALIT compare to regular "classic" version of GeForce 7600GS 256MB DDR2 AGP? Here I compare to Gigabyte 7600GS. It's clocked 400/800Mhz but has more powerful pipeline engine.
Overclocked 7300GT despite having fewer texture and shader units is few % faster than 7600GS. Thanx to much higher DDR3 memory bandwidth.
What about the temperatures and noise when overclocked?
According to my date, when overclocked. temps are only 3 Celsius higher than default. And fan is doing very good job being pretty silent all the time.
Conclusion: This PALIT card is especially interesting for those who appreciate nice performance boost for reasonable price and don't afraid to overclock. Additional bonus is very quiet operation and relatively low temperatures under stress. It fits pretty nicely in quite robust WindowsXP system.
Check the current availability here: https://tinyurl.com/yrd69nsp
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