Final thoughts, HEXUS.awards, HEXUS.where2buy and HEXUS.right2reply
We said at the beginning of the review that the low-end isn't all about gaming performance. There's more to be accelerated these days. However, for performance comparison, we continue to use game-based tests, as it remains the best way make a card flex its pixel pushing muscles.
MSI's NX7300GS-TD256E seems to manage just about acceptable framerates when using a resolution of 1024x768 and might even be tolerable in certain games at 1280x1024. Play around with the settings a bit, sacrifice some of the fancier rendering features and it should cope with the majority of current games.
That said, we've shown that ATI's X1300 Pro GPU is consistently quicker than the 7300 GS in our tests. The 7300 GS does improve upon the previous 6200 range, however. A quick bit of Froogling suggests that MSI's NX7300GS can be had for around the same price (£60-70) as the X1300 Pro, yet it's slower, so is it a worthwhile purchase?
When the performance battle is over, the war must be fought on other fronts, such as features and bundle. Both NVIDIA's and ATI's latest generation of budget GPUs claim video acceleration capabilities, making them suitable for media PCs. Specific to MSI's card, the features are there, but the bundle isn't. There's no component cabling for connection of the card to an HDTV and there's no DVD player software.
The bundled information and tuning features are nice and will be useful to some. MSI Vivid will be of most use in a media centre environment, whereas DOT doesn't really flourish with this card. It's just a shame these features are present on what could now be considered out of date drivers. At the time of writing we don't have any information on the warranty for this card, so we can't say whether that tips the balance at all.
Overall, MSI's NX7300GS-TD256E is a fine card, but certain omissions from its bundle mean its good points are overshadowed by a performance deficit to Radeon X1300 Pro based SKUs. It passes our HEXUS.labs testing, but we cannot give it an award.
HEXUS Where2Buy
Coming soon.
HEXUS Right2Reply
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