Graphics card manufacturers employ every trick in the book to reduce the cost of their budget graphics cards and the Gigabyte NX73G256D-RH is a good case in point. Across the box it states in large print that the graphics chip is a GeForce 7300GS and it mentions PCI-Express, DirectX 9.0c, DVI-I, HDTV and 'Windows Vista Ready'.

That's all perfectly true but, unusually, there is no mention of the graphics memory, and you know how much manufacturers love to splash '256MB' or '512MB' across the packaging.

The reason is that the 7300GS uses Nvidia's TurboCache technology so there is a small amount of memory on the graphics card (which saves money) while most of the heavy lifting is performed by your PC's system memory.

Even though a fast, modern PC uses 800MHz DDR2 memory, which is perfectly adequate for a budget graphics card, this memory is located quite some distance away, so whenever it is called into action the performance takes a severe hit. Nvidia acknowledges this by restricting the memory controller to 64-bit, whereas the GeForce 7300GT has a 128-bit controller, so there is no possibility of the Gigabyte card performing well.

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During our testing on an Intel Core 2 Duo PC the Gigabyte NX73G256D-RH had similar performance to a generic GeForce 7300GT in 3DMark05 at default settings, but as we increased the quality settings the differential grew ever wider as the Gigabyte card fell behind.

Playing an intensive game such as Far Cry is quite plausible on this graphics card, with a frame rate of 45fps on settings that are perfectly playable, however the 7300GT card achieved 68fps.

It's no surprise that the cheaper 7300GS is slower than the 7300GT, but the difference in performance is between 20 percent and 50 percent, while the difference in price is about two pints of beer, or three pints if it's the cheap stuff.

That doesn't mean the Gigabyte NX73G256D-RH is pointless. Perhaps you want to upgrade from integrated graphics and fancy running a dual monitor desktop, in which case you'll need a dedicated graphics card as no motherboard has dual monitor outputs. If that's the case then a basic graphics card such as the Gigabyte is a cheap way of achieving your aim and, as the card is passively cooled, you won't suffer any additional noise in the process.

It's also a good option if you want to watch movies and DVDs, in which case the bundled copy of CyberLink PowerDVD 6 is a handy bonus.

If you're serious about your gaming then you should stay clear of the Gigabyte NX73G256D-RH, as the budget TurboCache technology cripples performance, but we'd suggest that you avoid most budget graphics cards anyway. If you find that your integrated graphics struggle in daily use, or you want to be ready for Windows Vista, then it's a handy upgrade, but we suspect you can find better things to do with your money.