Legit Video Card Reviews
ECS GeForce GT 240 512MB GDDR5 HDMI Video Card Review
| Manufacturer: | Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) |
| Product: | NGT240-512QI-F |
| Date: | Tue, Feb 02, 2010 - 12:00 AM |
| Written By: | Brian Wallace - |
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Conclusion
The ECS GeForce GT 240 is clearly a budget card aimed at anyone needing an upgrade over integrated graphics for more horsepower to drive the latest games. While DirectX 11 is the future, the ECS GeForce GT 240 can run any current video game on the market thanks to NVIDIA's first implementation of DirectX 10.1.
If your looking for a graphics card to use in an HTPC the ECS GeForce GT 240 would be ideal as the Arctic Cooling heat sink does a great job of keeping the card cool. The best part is that it's nearly silent in operation and would not be distracting at all in a quiet room. While we don't have an official statement from NVIDIA, we have it on good authority that the GeForce GT 240 will support 3D Blu-ray. The only thing keeping it from being the perfect HTPC card is the lack of bit streaming HD audio. ECS backs all of their video cards with a three year warranty on parts and two year warranty for labor. For a "budget" card, this is a great deal!
At $89.99 plus shipping, the ECS GeForce GT 240 512MB GDDR5 graphics card won't break the bank, yet will provide a decent gaming experience. ECS also offers a GeForce GT 240 1GB DDR3 graphics card for $84.99 plus shipping. At first glance the 1GB card looks better since it has twice the frame buffer, but you have to remember DDR3 memory performs slower and has less memory bandwidth than GDDR5 graphics cards. ECS sent us the GDDR5 version to review and companies usually send their faster parts out for review, so if you are going to be gaming and spending just under $100 for a graphics cards you might as well spend the extra $5 and get the card with more advanced and faster GDDR5 memory on-board. That being said the NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 still doesn't measure up in gaming performance to the ATI Radeon HD 4850, which can be found for as little as $99.99 plus shipping on Newegg and has very good gamingperformance and requires very little power.
Legit Bottom Line: The ECS GeForce GT 240 provides a surprisingly good amount of gaming performance for under $100. With the terrific Arctic Cooling heat sink, this could be just the card your looking for in your next HTPC.
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Page 1 - The ECS GeForce GT 240
Page 2 - ECS GeForce GT 240 Bundle Page 3 - Test System Page 4 - Batman Arkham Asylum Page 5 - Resident Evil 5 Page 6 - Unigine 'Heaven' DX11 Page 7 - 3DMark Vantage Page 8 - Stalker: Call of Pripyat Page 9 - Colin McRae: Dirt 2 Page 10 - Temperature Testing Page 11 - Overclocking & Power Consumption Page 12 - Conclusion |
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