NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 240: The Card That Doesn't Matter
by Ryan Smith on January 6, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Crysis: Warhead
Kicking things off, we’ll start with Crysis: Warhead. Warhead is still the single most demanding game in our arsenal, with even high-end cards continuing to struggle to put out a playable frame rate with everything turned up.
For testing these lower-end cards, we have deviated some from our normal testing. These tests were done with Mainstream graphics quality at resolutions more appropriate for these cards.
Crysis turned out to be one of our more interesting tests when it comes to differentiating the DDR3 and GDDR5 GT 240s. It’s sensitive to both memory speeds and memory sizes. In fact it’s the first test where we’ve ever explicitly encountered a problem on a 512MB card; at 1680 out Frost benchmark would crash (faulting the driver) about 2/3rds of the way through. Only after disabling Aero on Windows 7 would it run to completion.
Looking at the numbers, you’ll see that this is one of what will be many games where the 1GB DDR3 GT 240 falls behind. At 1680 (an admittedly unplayable resolution) the GDDR5 cards are 25% ahead, while even at a much more playable 1280 they’re ahead by 20%.
Compared to NVIDIA’s other cards, the GDDR5 GT 240s are a good 50% faster than the GT 220. However they fall well behind the 8800 GT, and even the 9600 GT squeezes ahead (a card that has less of everything except ROPs). Based on this and our overclocking data from later, we strongly suspect that Crysis is ROP-limited.
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BelardA - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - link
Anyone notice any lack of SLI on these cards? Of course they are soooo slow.Okay, the ATI 4670 (DX 10.1) came out over a year ago with an MSRP of $90~100. Considering the age, its about the same wattage and noise as the GT240 and in many cases, its a slower card.
Why bother even making such a card? Other than the profit sold from a $90 GT240 is much better than a $90 9800GT.... except nobody in their right mind would bother with a GT240
If the GT240 was a $65~80 part, nobody would complain.
But what happens when ATI releases their $100 5600 series cards? Since the 5700s are pretty much on par with the 4800s. I'm not expecting the 5600s to be that exciting. Other than being $100 DX11 cards that are faster than 4670s but maybe around 4830 performance.
Penti - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - link
OEMs, OEMs would.BelardA - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link
Yeah yeah, I know. OEMS love such things.Kind of sick to look at ordering forms on sites like Dell. When a basic desktop has a default price... add something like a ATI 4670 or GT240 and the price goes up $150. Apple is the WORST with their quad-SLI setup with GT120 (I think) video cards... wow, 4 slow cards at about $150 a pop! While on the same Apple order form, a single $200 ATI 4870 is available and should be faster.
aegisofrime - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - link
I might be nitpicking, but you have listed all the ASUS results as "nVidia Geforce GT 240" instead of "ASUS Geforce GT 240" in the charts. :pRyan Smith - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - link
For the performance data, that is correct. Not to slight Asus of course, but their cards are stock cards. Hence they're the reference values I'm using for the GT 240, and are listed as such.aegisofrime - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - link
Ah I see. Thanks for the clarification!lopri - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - link
Thank you Ryan for this excellent review. It's refreshing to read a sensible piece without personal drama and baseless conspiracy theories.Devo2007 - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - link
Might want to fix the power charts as they currently list an NVidia Geforce 4870 X2 card. Unless of course that is how they have decided to compete with ATI (rebranding Radeons). :)korbendallas - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - link
The load temperature graph has to be wrong - there's no way two cards with the same cooler and the same power consumption has such a difference in temperature.korbendallas - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - link
Oh, the fan is bugged out... nevermind :)