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[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
Zogis is the newest player in the VGA market and they teamed up with NVIDIA. We’ve got an overclocked GeForce 7300 GT for reviewing, and we will compare this video card with the regular GeForce 7300 GT and other entry-level models, such as GeForce 6200, Radeon X1300 Pro and also with some mid-range chips (GeForce 6600 and GeForce 6600 GT) to see how is the performance of this video card from Zogis.
Figure 1: Zogis overclocked GeForce 7300 GT.
GeForce 7300 GT is the fastest entry-level graphics chip from NVIDIA. Its standard specs include a core clock of 350 MHz and a memory clock of 666 MHz, accessed at 128-bit rate. It has eight pixel shader engines, against four on other entry-level graphics chips like GeForce 6200 and other members of GeForce 7300 family. With this number of engines, it sounds more like an entry mid-range chip, as it has the same amount found on GeForce 6600 and GeForce 6600 GT. GeForce 7300 GT runs at a higher clock rate than GeForce 6600, but at a lower one compared to GeForce 6600 GT. So we expect the performance of GeForce 7300 GT to be between GeForce 6600 and GeForce 6600 GT. Keep in mind that the latest mid-range family from NVIDIA, GeForce 7600, has 12 pixel shader engines and not eight like GeForce 6600 family.
As mentioned, this model from Zogis – also known as ZO73GT-D – comes overclocked, running at 400 MHz and accessing its 256 MB memory at 800 MHz.
For a full comparison between this video card and other NVIDIA chips, read our “NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table” tutorial, and to compare it with competing chips from ATI, read our “ATI Chips Comparison Table” tutorial.
We ran PowerStrip and the graphics chip was running at 400 MHz and the memory was running at 800 MHz, as mentioned.
As you can see in Figure 1, this VGA supports SLI.
Let’s take a closer look at this overclocked GeForce 7300 GT from Zogis.
[nextpage title=”Overclocked GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB from Zogis”]
You can see the overclocked GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB from Zogis on Figures 2 and 3.
Figure 2: Zogis overclocked GeForce 7300 GT.
Figure 3: Zogis overclocked GeForce 7300 GT, back view.
This video card uses eight GDDR2 256-Mbit chips from Infineon (HYB18T256169AF), making its 256 MB video memory (256 Mbits x 8 = 256 MB). The funny thing is that we couldn’t find this model on Infineon’s website (Infineon’s memory division is now called Qimonda) and on the memory chips no speed information is given, which is rather odd.
Figure 4: GDDR2 memory chips used by Zogis overclocked GeForce 7300 GT.
In Figure 5, you can see GeForce 7300 GT graphics chip. It is internally called G73-VZ.
Figure 5: GeForce 7300 GT.
This board also comes only with one S-Video cable.
[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]
- Graphics chip: GeForce 7300 GT running at 400 MHz.
- Memory: 128-bit 256 MB GDDR2 memory from Infineon (HYB18T256169AF), running at 800 MHz.
- Bus type: PCI Express x16.
- Connectors: One VGA, one DVI and one mini-DIN for S-Video and component video output.
- Number of CDs that come with this board: 1.
- Games that come with this board: None.
- Programs that come with this board: None.
- More Information: https://www.zogis.com
- Maximum Suggested Price in the US: USD 80.00
[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]
During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only variable was the video card being tested.
Hardware Configuration
- Motherboard: Intel D915GEV
- CPU: Pentium 4 3.4 GHz LGA 775
- Memory: Two 512 MB DDR2-533 CM2X512-4200 CL4 from Corsair memory modules
- Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus (40 GB, ATA-133)
- Power Supply: Antec Neo HE 550
- Screen resolution: [email protected] Hz
Software Configuration
- Windows XP Professional installed using NTFS
- Service Pack 2
- Direct X 9.0c
- Intel inf driver version: 7.2.2.1006
- ATI video driver version: 5.11
- ATI video driver version: 6.5 (HIS Radeon X1300 Pro)
- NVIDIA video driver version: 81.95
- NVIDIA video driver version: 91.47 (GeForce 7300 GT)
- Intel video driver version: 14.17
- XGI video driver version: 3.01.130.D (6.14.1.3010)
Used Software
We adopted a 3% error margin; thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.
[nextpage title=”3DMark2001 SE”]
3DMark2001 SE measures video card performance simulating DirectX 8.1 games. It is very effective software for evaluating the performance from previous-generation games, programmed using DirectX 8. In this software we ran two tests, both at 1024x768x32. Since we were evaluating low-end video cards, we decided to not run our tests in higher resolutions, since rarely a user that buys a video card from this level will push resolutions above 1024×768 in 3D games.
We ran this software first without antialising and with no frame buffer, and then we put the antialising at 4 samples and the frame buffer at triple-buffering. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them. Also, some very low-end video chips (Volari 8300 and Intel i915G) don’t have antialising feature, so we were not able to benchmark them using this configuration.
You may be asking yourself why we added an old program in a review of a latest generation video card. To us, it is as important to know the performance of a video card with the latest games as it is to know its performance in an older game. That’s why we kept this software in our methodology.
For the record, Albatron GeForce 6600 included in our comparison ran at 300 MHz and accessed its memory at 500 MHz.
| 3DMark2001 SE – 1024×768 | Score | Difference |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 17266 | |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 16068 | 7.46% |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 15410 | 12.04% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 13476 | 28.12% |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 13085 | 31.95% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 12564 | 37.42% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 9279 | 86.08% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 7463 | 131.35% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 7458 | 131.51% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 7154 | 141.35% |
| i915G (Intel D915GEV) | 6077 | 184.12% |
| Volari 8300 128 MB (XGI) | 5636 | 206.35% |
| 3DMark2001 SE – 1024×768 – Aax4, FBx3 | Score | Difference |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 13582 | |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 12364 | 9.85% |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 11739 | 15.70% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 8354 | 62.58% |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 7636 | 77.87% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 5548 | 144.81% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 4088 | 232.24% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 4070 | 233.71% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 2626 | 417.21% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 706 | 1823.80% |
[nextpage title=”3DMark03″]
3DMark03 measures performance by simulating games written to DirectX 9, which are contemporary games. In this software we ran two tests, both at 1024x768x32. Since we were evaluating low-end video cards, we decided to not run our tests in higher resolutions, since rarely a user that buys a video card from this level will push resolutions above 1024×768 in 3D games.
We ran this software first without antialising and with no anisotropic filtering, and then we put the antialising at 4 samples and anisotropic filtering at 4 samples. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them. Also, some very low-end video chips (Volari 8300 and Intel i915G) don’t have antialising feature, so we were not able to benchmark them using this configuration.
For the record, Albatron GeForce 6600 included in our comparison ran at 300 MHz and accessed its memory at 500 MHz.
| 3DMark03 – 1024×768 | Score | Difference |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 8681 | 8.11% |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 8030 | |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 6921 | 16.02% |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 5992 | 34.01% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 5350 | 50.09% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 4118 | 95.00% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 2639 | 204.28% |
| Volari 8300 128 MB (XGI) | 2327 | 245.08% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 2139 | 275.41% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 1940 | 313.92% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 1940 | 313.92% |
| i915G (Intel D915GEV) | 1510 | 431.79% |
| 3DMark03 – 1024×768 – AAx4, Aniso x4 | Score | Difference |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 4662 | 4.51% |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 4461 | |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 3759 | 18.68% |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 3257 | 36.97% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 2585 | 72.57% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 1796 | 148.39% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 865 | 415.72% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 850 | 424.82% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 848 | 426.06% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 483 | 823.60% |
[nextpage title=”3DMark05″]
3DMark05 measures performance by simulating DirectX 9.0c games, i.e., using the new Shader 3.0 model. This programming model is used by Far Cry game and other games to be launched in the future. This new programming model is used by GeForce 6 and 7 series from NVIDIA and Radeon X1000 series from ATI.
In this software we ran two tests, both at 1024x768x32. Since we were evaluating low-end video cards, we decided to not run our tests in higher resolutions, since rarely a user that buys a video card from this level will push resolutions above 1024×768 in 3D games.
We ran this software first without antialising and with no anisotropic filtering, and then we put the antialising at 4 samples and anisotropic filtering at 4 samples. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them. Also, some very low-end video chips (Volari 8300 and Intel i915G) don’t have antialising feature, so we were not able to benchmark them using this configuration.
For the record, Albatron GeForce 6600 included in our comparison ran at 300 MHz and accessed its memory at 500 MHz.
| 3DMark05 | Score | Difference |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 3584 | 6.10% |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 3378 | |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 2928 | 15.37% |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 2763 | 22.26% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 2105 | 60.48% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 1542 | 119.07% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 1331 | 153.79% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 1114 | 203.23% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 1110 | 204.32% |
| Volari 8300 128 MB (XGI) | 1010 | 234.46% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 974 | 246.82% |
| i915G (Intel D915GEV) | 346 | 876.30% |
| 3DMark05 – AAx4, Aniso x4 | Score | Difference |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 2707 | |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 2591 | 4.48% |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 2487 | 8.85% |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 2253 | 20.15% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 1579 | 71.44% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 1162 | 132.96% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 792 | 241.79% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 726 | 272.87% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 722 | 274.93% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 543 | 398.53% |
[nextpage title=”Doom 3″]
Doom 3 is one of the heaviest games available today. As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions: 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and high. We ran demo1 four times and wrote the obtained number of frames per second. The first result we discarded at once, since it is far inferior than the other results. This happens because at the first time we run the demo the game must load all textures to video memory, fact that doesn’t happen from the second time we run the demo on. From the three results left, we consider as our official result the middle result, i.e., we discard the highest and the lowest values. Curiously almost all times the values obtained at the second round on were the same.
A very important detail that we must mention is that Doom 3 has an internal FPS lock: it is only capable of generating 60 frames per second, even if your board is able to produce more frames per second than that. This is done in order to make the game to have the same “playability” sensation independently from the video card installed on the PC. This lock, however, is disabled in the game benchmarking mode.
For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Doom 3, read our tutorial on this subject.
For the record, Albatron GeForce 6600 included in our comparison ran at 300 MHz and accessed its memory at 500 MHz.
| Doom 3 – low | Score | Difference |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 73.4 | 3.67% |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 70.8 | |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 66.8 | 5.99% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 55.9 | 26.65% |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 46.8 | 51.28% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 43.2 | 63.89% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 19.9 | 255.78% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 14.8 | 378.38% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 14.0 | 405.71% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 14.0 | 405.71% |
| Volari 8300 128 MB (XGI) | 9.0 | 686.67% |
| Doom 3 – high | Score | Difference |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 71.9 | 0.14% |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 71.8 | |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 65.0 | 10.46% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 52.4 | 37.02% |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 43.5 | 65.06% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 40.4 | 77.72% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 18.5 | 288.11% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 14.1 | 409.22% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 13.4 | 435.82% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 13.4 | 435.82% |
| Volari 8300 128 MB (XGI) | 7.6 | 844.74% |
[nextpage title=”Far Cry”]
Far Cry is a game based on the new Shader 3.0 (DirectX 9.0c) model, which is used by GeForce 6 and 7 series from NVIDIA and Radeon X1000 series from ATI.
As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game only at 1024×768. Since we were evaluating low-end video cards, we decided to not run our tests in higher resolutions, since rarely a user that buys a video card from this level will push resolutions above 1024×768 in 3D games.
This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels: low and very high. To measure the performance we used the demo created by German magazine PC Games Hardware (PCGH), available at https://www.3dcenter.org/downloads/farcry-pcgh-vga.php. We ran this demo four times and made an arithmetical average with the obtained results. This average is the result presented in our graphs.
This game has a very important detail in its image quality configuration. Antialising, instead of being configured by numbers (1x. 2x. 4x or 6x), is configured as low, medium or high. The problem is that on NVIDIA chips both medium and high mean 4x, while on ATI chips medium means 2x and high means 6x, making the comparison between ATI and NVIDIA chips completely unfair. Because of that we configured antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering at 8x manually at the video driver control panel. Some very low-end video chips (Volari 8300 and Intel i915G) don’t have antialising feature, so we were not able to benchmark them using this configuration.
For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Far Cry, read our tutorial on this subject.
For the record, Albatron GeForce 6600 included in our comparison ran at 300 MHz and accessed its memory at 500 MHz.
| Far Cry – low | Score | Difference |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 137.94 | 7.21% |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 128.66 | |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 128.35 | 0.24% |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 128.32 | 0.26% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 124.62 | 3.24% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 98.68 | 30.38% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 63.20 | 103.58% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 59.20 | 117.33% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 58.78 | 118.88% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 48.61 | 164.68% |
| Volari 8300 128 MB (XGI) | 40.00 | 221.65% |
| Far Cry – very high | Score | Difference |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit OC (Zogis) | 49.26 | |
| GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA) | 48.61 | 1.34% |
| GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB 128-bit (NVIDIA) | 41.16 | 19.68% |
| Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (HIS) | 35.37 | 39.27% |
| GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron) | 26.32 | 87.16% |
| GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek) | 19.09 | 158.04% |
| Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit (PowerColor) | 9.94 | 395.57% |
| Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI) | 9.91 | 397.07% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) | 9.26 | 431.97% |
| GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit (Leadtek) | 3.28 | 1401.83% |
[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]
We were absolutely stunned by this video card. By its specs we expected that it would reach a performance between GeForce 6600 and GeForce 6600 GT, however it achieve a performance very close to GeForce 6600 GT. Thus calling this video card “entry-level” is completely unfair.
Since it was released, GeForce 6600 GT is one of our preferred video cards, and we don’t get tired of recommending it to users that want a video card with a performance better than entry-level models but not willing to buy expensive models. Reasonable priced, it delivers a great performance for its price tag. This model from Zogis, however, provides an even better cost/benefit ratio: its maximum suggested price for the North American market is only USD 80, while GeForce 6600 GT will cost you at least USD 120 for the 128 MB model (and the reviewed card had 256 MB). GeForce 6600 GT price has been dropping a lot because of new cheaper video cards like this one, though.
Unfortunately we didn’t have the latest “entry-level” card from ATI, Radeon X1300 XT, for comparison but the reviewed card was far faster than Radeon X1300 Pro, which we have already though to be a terrific video card and gave high praises for it. You know what? Forget about Radeon X1300 Pro!
There is a catch, however. Our review is entirely based on 1024×768 resolution, which is considered a low resolution by today’s standards. However we believe this product is targeted to entry-level gamers, people that want to play during the weekend with a performance better than the one provided by entry-level cards. Of course if you want to play at 1600×1200 or even above that, you will probably want to buy a mid-range card. But for the average user, this card will do the job.
We were impressed by Zogis, a newcomer that provides a video card that has everything Average Joe wants: great price and great performance, plus it comes factory-overclocked, thus providing a performance better than competing models from other manufacturers. In our review, this overclocked model from Zogis was up to 20% faster than standard NVIDIA model (the performance difference was more visible when we enabled image quality enhancements).
We don’t know what else to say. Just buy it!