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
Dawn of War II
Dawn of War II is our other RTS benchmark. It’s among the more challenging games in our collection, leading to there being a definite cutoff for playability.
Dawn of War II is another game that apparently favors shader power over all else. The GDDR5 GT 240s beat the 9600 GT in all cases, particularly when we move below 1680. The Raden 4670 also handily loses here, something that’s to NVIDIA’s advantage since it can be much closer in other games.
Meanwhile for the DDR3 GT 240, this is another rough game. At 1680, the GDDR5 cards pull ahead by nearly 33%.
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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 :)