In the past couple of years we have all witnessed how fast the GPU line up from both ATI and Nvidia is updating. We still remember the time when every new GPU had a good 6 months to dominate before its newer, faster version would come out. Things have changed since then, nowadays we see a newer GPU being launched almost quarterly.
A Graphic card is a such a component that it is not a necessity unlike other essentials like CPU, motherboard, RAM etc. So it is not feasible for most of the users to upgrade as and when newer cards are launched.
Not everyone can afford the high end cards and almost 90% of the users purchase mid end cards which suffice their needs perfectly. So whenever a new mid end card is launched, the respective company pins a lot of hope on it since the mid end cards sell the most.
So lets check out this new mid end card from Nvidia and see whether it proves to be a worthy successor or not.
Few days back we reviewed Nvidia Geforce GT220 from Palit. Yesterday Nvidia introduced a new mid end card named Geforce GT240.
Today we have with us here Palit’s offering based on the GT240. The unique thing about this particular card is that it is that it’s a Sonic edition i.e. factory oced, 585MHz on the core compared to 550MHz for the stock and one of the few cards to sport 1GB GDDR5 memory. This card is supposed to replace Nvidia Geforce 9600GT.
So without wasting any more time lets get on with checking out this card we have today.
About Palit
Established in 1988, Palit Microsystems Ltd is well-known for manufacturing stable, excellent, and innovative graphics accelerators and motherboards. As one of the top PC components manufacturers, Palit continues to provide industry-leading graphics cards and motherboards with reliable and excellent quality. With branch offices in America, Europe, and Asia, Palit has developed a worldwide sales network which cooperates closely with our customers.
Palit is well positioned to maintain an industry leadership due to the vast array of ATI™ and NVIDIA® products and on-going development efforts. Palit’s worldwide facilities are ISO 9001 certified. All the Palit PC graphics accelerators and motherboards are with WHQL certification to ensure full compatibility.
[BREAK=Packaging]
The familiar frog that is Palit’s logo adorns the front along with a list of feature of the card
This 1GB GDDR5 model is the top end model for GT240 based cards from Palit.
HDMI Interface is becoming is common thing on almost all current generation cards, very useful for HTPC users.
The card is wrapped in a plastic bubble wrap bag and firmly secured in the box. Box too is sufficiently big enough compared to the size of the card.
The usual bundle that comes with almost all Nvidia cards these days. Card, Manual, and Driver CD.
Now that we have gone through the bundle and package, let’s take a closer look at the card.
[BREAK=A closer look at the card]
This small card does not require external power. We think this along with the 40nm fabrication technology used for this card, it should consume lesser power and run much cooler compared to its predecessors.
The card uses Samsung GDDR5 memory ICs rated to run at 2000MHz which is more than the cards stock speed of 1890MHz, this means the card has quite some headroom when it comes to overclocking.
We were surprised to find a dual slot retention plate for installing the card. There is no need for the grill which is usually found on higher end cards where the coolers have a shroud/duct to throw out the hot air from this grill.
The cooler could have been a bit slimmer and with some more mass.
DVI, HDMI, D-Sub connectors onboard.
Onboard HDMI port, a boon for HTPC users. ATI should take some clues from this and include onboard HDMI port instead of providing a convertor.
[BREAK=Specifications and Test setup]
The GT240 brings DX10.1 and OpenGL 3.2 compatibility to low end Nvidia cards. Honestly specs wise, it is nothing extra ordinary but don't be fooled by that. Let the benchmarks do the talking for us.
Test setup –
Intel Xeon W3570 CPU
EVGA X58 Classified Motherboard
1GB x 6 Crucial Value DDR3 1333MHz CL9 Memory
500GB Seagate SATA II Hard Drive
Corsair HX1000 PSU
Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme cooler + 2 x 120mm Fans
Gigabyte Nvidia Gefore 9600GSO 384MB GDDR3
Galaxy Nvidia Gefore 9800GT 512MB GDDR3
Galaxy Nvidia Gefore GTS250 512MB GDDR3
Testing Methodology –
We included a few synthetic and some gaming benchmarks. Windows 7 Ultimate X64 version was used for OS. Nvidia Forceware Ver. 191.07 WHQL was used. Most of the benchmarks were run at 1280x1024 & 1680x1050 resolution.
Synthetic Benchmarks –
1) 3DMark 2006
2) 3DMark Vantage
3) Nvidia Badaboom
4) Fluidmark 1.1.1
5) Furmark 1.7.0
Gaming Benchmarks –
1) Anno 1404
2) Devil May Cry 4
3) FarCry 2
4) Resident Evil 5
5) Stalker – Clear Sky
6) Streetfighter IV
7) World In Conflict
[BREAK=Synthetic Benchmarks]
Respectable performance in 3DMark2006, we were expecting slightly better performance but that is not the case. Maybe with future drivers, the performance will improve.
Here we see that the GT240 has beaten 9600GSO which was not the case in 3DMark 2006. It should be noted that the GT240 is just 250-275 points off 9800GT which is commendable considering it has lesser number of shaders and has a 128bit memory interface.
Nvidia’s Badaboom is a useful utility for video encoding where the GPU is used for encoding instead of the CPU. Here we see that the improved GPU in this card is starting to show the gains in performance.
FluidMark is a small graphics benchmark, using NVIDIA's PhysX technology.
Slight improvement in performance compared to 9600GSO.
Similar results to what we have already seen in Fluidmark, marginal improvement over 9600GSO.
[BREAK=Gaming Benchmarks]
The GT240 has comprehensively beaten the 9600GSO. Now we are beginning to see the improvements in this refreshed architecture on 40nm technology. Impressive!
DMC 4 is an older game and so the picture seems to have changed here; the GT240 is neck to neck with the 9600GSO.
We would have loved to see slightly better performance from the GT240 here. Acceptable but could have been better.
Slightly better performance compared to 9600GSO. Resident Evil 5 is currently a favorite gaming benchmark since it is pretty taxing on most graphic cards. ~50 FPS at 1680 x 1050 is not bad for a cheap card like the GT240.
This is another game which has some really impressive graphics and can be merciless towards graphic cards. Here also the scenario is repeated once again, the GT240 is neck to neck with the 9600GSO.
Here too we again see that the GT240 has comprehensively beaten the 9600GSO. ~ 18 FPS off 9800GT isn’t bad at all.
It’s been some time now since World In Conflict was launched and even today it manages to make current generations cards crawl. Hence we decided to throw this benchmark at this card to see how it performed.
We have some interesting results here; the GT240 is marginally slower than 9800GT which also means that it has once again beaten the 9600GSO comprehensively.
[BREAK=Power Consumption and Temperatures]
Power Consumption
We have calculated the total system power consumption with different cards which would give us a rough idea as to how much difference is there in terms of power draw for each card.
As expected the power consumption is substantially low for GT240 compared to 9600GSO. It should also be noted that GDDR5 also consumes lesser power compared to GDDR3.Although it doesn't make a huge difference but yes it does contribute in reducing the overall power consumption.
Temperatures
Load temperatures are not very impressive. One of the reasons could be the smaller cooler with a lesser powerful fan to go with it.
A better cooler with a slightly powerful fan should take care of this.
Palit should introduce a better cooler even if at a small premium. This would allow better overclocking headroom and hence better performance.
[BREAK=Conclusion & Overclocked Results]
The card overclocked pretty well even with the small cooler.
We managed a stable overclock of 700/2200/1704
A jump of ~ 150MHz is worth taking notice of. Even the Samsung GDDR5 memory which was 1890MHz at stock clocked right up to 2200MHz which is impressive.
Let’s see whether this overclocking translates into improved performance.
Here we have both the synthetic 3D benchmarks and we see a substantial increase in the overall scores. An increase of ~ 2000 points in 3DMark 2006 just with the card being overclocked is very impressive. We would also like to mention here that after overclocking it equals 9800GT in terms of performance.
We also ran a few gaming benchmarks to see whether overclocking the card really helped in games. As the graph shows, there is good enough improvement. Usually we do not see the kind of boost we see in synthetic benchmarks. So just by overclocking if we see an increase of even 6-8 FPS it is good enough since this is a lower end card and not a super expensive fire breathing monster of a card to give insane performance.
Conclusion -
From the gaming benchmarks we observe that in most of the games the GT240 is on par with the 9600GSO and in some cases it comprehensively beats the 9600GSO. We will have to also take into consideration that this card has been launched recently whereas the other cards in this review have been in the market for quite some time so obviously the driver support is much superior in the case of older cards. We are sure that future driver revisions will definitely improve the performance of this card.
One of the unique features about this new card is that the GPU is made using 40nm fabrication technology which means that there should be considerable saving in terms of power consumption.
We have a mixed opinion about this card. On one hand it offers good value for money with decent performance, lower power consumption and on the other hand the puny cooler hampers the overclocking potential of this card. There is potential in this card in terms of overclocking which can be exploited with a better cooler.
Pros –
1) 40nm fabrication technology
2) Lower power consumption
3) Decent performance for the price
4) Native HDMI audio support, no separate cable required.
Cons –
1) Cooler could have been better
2) Price, which is around $110. The 9800GT retails for cheaper and despite being an older gen card still manages to beat the GT240.
Scorecard -
Features : 7/10
Performance : 7/10
Value For Money : 5/10
Overall : 6.5/10
Thanks to Palit for the review sample
Digg this review here - Palit GT 240 Sonic
A Graphic card is a such a component that it is not a necessity unlike other essentials like CPU, motherboard, RAM etc. So it is not feasible for most of the users to upgrade as and when newer cards are launched.
Not everyone can afford the high end cards and almost 90% of the users purchase mid end cards which suffice their needs perfectly. So whenever a new mid end card is launched, the respective company pins a lot of hope on it since the mid end cards sell the most.
So lets check out this new mid end card from Nvidia and see whether it proves to be a worthy successor or not.
Few days back we reviewed Nvidia Geforce GT220 from Palit. Yesterday Nvidia introduced a new mid end card named Geforce GT240.
Today we have with us here Palit’s offering based on the GT240. The unique thing about this particular card is that it is that it’s a Sonic edition i.e. factory oced, 585MHz on the core compared to 550MHz for the stock and one of the few cards to sport 1GB GDDR5 memory. This card is supposed to replace Nvidia Geforce 9600GT.
So without wasting any more time lets get on with checking out this card we have today.
About Palit
Established in 1988, Palit Microsystems Ltd is well-known for manufacturing stable, excellent, and innovative graphics accelerators and motherboards. As one of the top PC components manufacturers, Palit continues to provide industry-leading graphics cards and motherboards with reliable and excellent quality. With branch offices in America, Europe, and Asia, Palit has developed a worldwide sales network which cooperates closely with our customers.
Palit is well positioned to maintain an industry leadership due to the vast array of ATI™ and NVIDIA® products and on-going development efforts. Palit’s worldwide facilities are ISO 9001 certified. All the Palit PC graphics accelerators and motherboards are with WHQL certification to ensure full compatibility.
[BREAK=Packaging]
The familiar frog that is Palit’s logo adorns the front along with a list of feature of the card
This 1GB GDDR5 model is the top end model for GT240 based cards from Palit.
HDMI Interface is becoming is common thing on almost all current generation cards, very useful for HTPC users.
The card is wrapped in a plastic bubble wrap bag and firmly secured in the box. Box too is sufficiently big enough compared to the size of the card.
The usual bundle that comes with almost all Nvidia cards these days. Card, Manual, and Driver CD.
Now that we have gone through the bundle and package, let’s take a closer look at the card.
[BREAK=A closer look at the card]
This small card does not require external power. We think this along with the 40nm fabrication technology used for this card, it should consume lesser power and run much cooler compared to its predecessors.
The card uses Samsung GDDR5 memory ICs rated to run at 2000MHz which is more than the cards stock speed of 1890MHz, this means the card has quite some headroom when it comes to overclocking.
We were surprised to find a dual slot retention plate for installing the card. There is no need for the grill which is usually found on higher end cards where the coolers have a shroud/duct to throw out the hot air from this grill.
The cooler could have been a bit slimmer and with some more mass.
DVI, HDMI, D-Sub connectors onboard.
Onboard HDMI port, a boon for HTPC users. ATI should take some clues from this and include onboard HDMI port instead of providing a convertor.
[BREAK=Specifications and Test setup]
Specifications
The GT240 brings DX10.1 and OpenGL 3.2 compatibility to low end Nvidia cards. Honestly specs wise, it is nothing extra ordinary but don't be fooled by that. Let the benchmarks do the talking for us.
Test setup –
Intel Xeon W3570 CPU
EVGA X58 Classified Motherboard
1GB x 6 Crucial Value DDR3 1333MHz CL9 Memory
500GB Seagate SATA II Hard Drive
Corsair HX1000 PSU
Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme cooler + 2 x 120mm Fans
Gigabyte Nvidia Gefore 9600GSO 384MB GDDR3
Galaxy Nvidia Gefore 9800GT 512MB GDDR3
Galaxy Nvidia Gefore GTS250 512MB GDDR3
Testing Methodology –
We included a few synthetic and some gaming benchmarks. Windows 7 Ultimate X64 version was used for OS. Nvidia Forceware Ver. 191.07 WHQL was used. Most of the benchmarks were run at 1280x1024 & 1680x1050 resolution.
Synthetic Benchmarks –
1) 3DMark 2006
2) 3DMark Vantage
3) Nvidia Badaboom
4) Fluidmark 1.1.1
5) Furmark 1.7.0
Gaming Benchmarks –
1) Anno 1404
2) Devil May Cry 4
3) FarCry 2
4) Resident Evil 5
5) Stalker – Clear Sky
6) Streetfighter IV
7) World In Conflict
[BREAK=Synthetic Benchmarks]
Respectable performance in 3DMark2006, we were expecting slightly better performance but that is not the case. Maybe with future drivers, the performance will improve.
Here we see that the GT240 has beaten 9600GSO which was not the case in 3DMark 2006. It should be noted that the GT240 is just 250-275 points off 9800GT which is commendable considering it has lesser number of shaders and has a 128bit memory interface.
Nvidia’s Badaboom is a useful utility for video encoding where the GPU is used for encoding instead of the CPU. Here we see that the improved GPU in this card is starting to show the gains in performance.
FluidMark is a small graphics benchmark, using NVIDIA's PhysX technology.
Slight improvement in performance compared to 9600GSO.
Similar results to what we have already seen in Fluidmark, marginal improvement over 9600GSO.
The GT240 has comprehensively beaten the 9600GSO. Now we are beginning to see the improvements in this refreshed architecture on 40nm technology. Impressive!
DMC 4 is an older game and so the picture seems to have changed here; the GT240 is neck to neck with the 9600GSO.
We would have loved to see slightly better performance from the GT240 here. Acceptable but could have been better.
Slightly better performance compared to 9600GSO. Resident Evil 5 is currently a favorite gaming benchmark since it is pretty taxing on most graphic cards. ~50 FPS at 1680 x 1050 is not bad for a cheap card like the GT240.
This is another game which has some really impressive graphics and can be merciless towards graphic cards. Here also the scenario is repeated once again, the GT240 is neck to neck with the 9600GSO.
Here too we again see that the GT240 has comprehensively beaten the 9600GSO. ~ 18 FPS off 9800GT isn’t bad at all.
It’s been some time now since World In Conflict was launched and even today it manages to make current generations cards crawl. Hence we decided to throw this benchmark at this card to see how it performed.
We have some interesting results here; the GT240 is marginally slower than 9800GT which also means that it has once again beaten the 9600GSO comprehensively.
[BREAK=Power Consumption and Temperatures]
Power Consumption
We have calculated the total system power consumption with different cards which would give us a rough idea as to how much difference is there in terms of power draw for each card.
As expected the power consumption is substantially low for GT240 compared to 9600GSO. It should also be noted that GDDR5 also consumes lesser power compared to GDDR3.Although it doesn't make a huge difference but yes it does contribute in reducing the overall power consumption.
Temperatures
Load temperatures are not very impressive. One of the reasons could be the smaller cooler with a lesser powerful fan to go with it.
A better cooler with a slightly powerful fan should take care of this.
Palit should introduce a better cooler even if at a small premium. This would allow better overclocking headroom and hence better performance.
[BREAK=Conclusion & Overclocked Results]
The card overclocked pretty well even with the small cooler.
We managed a stable overclock of 700/2200/1704
A jump of ~ 150MHz is worth taking notice of. Even the Samsung GDDR5 memory which was 1890MHz at stock clocked right up to 2200MHz which is impressive.
Let’s see whether this overclocking translates into improved performance.
Here we have both the synthetic 3D benchmarks and we see a substantial increase in the overall scores. An increase of ~ 2000 points in 3DMark 2006 just with the card being overclocked is very impressive. We would also like to mention here that after overclocking it equals 9800GT in terms of performance.
We also ran a few gaming benchmarks to see whether overclocking the card really helped in games. As the graph shows, there is good enough improvement. Usually we do not see the kind of boost we see in synthetic benchmarks. So just by overclocking if we see an increase of even 6-8 FPS it is good enough since this is a lower end card and not a super expensive fire breathing monster of a card to give insane performance.
Conclusion -
From the gaming benchmarks we observe that in most of the games the GT240 is on par with the 9600GSO and in some cases it comprehensively beats the 9600GSO. We will have to also take into consideration that this card has been launched recently whereas the other cards in this review have been in the market for quite some time so obviously the driver support is much superior in the case of older cards. We are sure that future driver revisions will definitely improve the performance of this card.
One of the unique features about this new card is that the GPU is made using 40nm fabrication technology which means that there should be considerable saving in terms of power consumption.
We have a mixed opinion about this card. On one hand it offers good value for money with decent performance, lower power consumption and on the other hand the puny cooler hampers the overclocking potential of this card. There is potential in this card in terms of overclocking which can be exploited with a better cooler.
Pros –
1) 40nm fabrication technology
2) Lower power consumption
3) Decent performance for the price
4) Native HDMI audio support, no separate cable required.
Cons –
1) Cooler could have been better
2) Price, which is around $110. The 9800GT retails for cheaper and despite being an older gen card still manages to beat the GT240.
Scorecard -
Features : 7/10
Performance : 7/10
Value For Money : 5/10
Overall : 6.5/10
Thanks to Palit for the review sample
Digg this review here - Palit GT 240 Sonic
. Lovely read
