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Inno3D recently sent us their new GeForce GT 240 graphics card, which features an improved cooler designed to produce lower temperatures and quieter performance. The performance of the GeForce GT 240 is questionable, especially given the price tag, so we are interested to see if this Inno3D version has anything new in store for us… Nvidia board partners are in an unenviable position right now, with the holiday season right around the corner and nothing to sell. Actually, when we put it that way AMD board partners are pretty much in the same situation. Have you been able to buy a new Radeon HD 5850, 5870 or 5970 series graphics card yet? If you have then consider yourself lucky, as very few have been able to do so.  The problem for AMD has been that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) 40nm yields are currently around 50%, and should be at 90% or higher for such a mature process. Furthermore, it is said that they may not improve until the second quarter of next year, tough break for AMD. If this is true it means that the ongoing shortage of AMD's Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards will unfortunately continue. That said, even Nvidia's highly anticipated Fermi-based products might also be affected, as they are expected to begin volume shipments next quarter, and should hit store shelves by March 2010. TSMC admitted to manufacturing troubles in October, blaming "chamber matching issues" for the low yields, and CEO Morris Chang said things would return to normal before the end of the year. I suppose time will tell. In the meantime, Nvidia is trying to capture as much market share as they can, and they are doing so with some questionable products. In an effort to strengthen the low-end presence of the GeForce 200 series, Nvidia added the GeForce GT 220, codenamed GT216, on October 12 2009. The GeForce GT 220 started life at just over $100 US, though with Radeon HD 4670 cards selling for just $70 US at the time, things did not look good for Nvidia’s new budget graphics card. This was namely due to the fact that the Radeon HD 4670 was far superior in terms of performance. Today the GeForce GT 220 has been dropped to $70 US, where it matches the price of the Radeon HD 4670. However the fact still remains that the Radeon HD 4670 is a far superior product in terms of performance, and we feel that the GT 220 needs to be priced at around $50 US to become a viable option. Despite the GeForce GT 220’s weak reputation, Nvidia pressed forward and released the GeForce GT 240. The GeForce GT 240 looks impressive on paper, at least the GDDR5 version does anyway, featuring twice as much memory bandwidth as the GT 220. Given their lack of success with the GeForce GT 220, Nvidia launched the GT 240 at $100 US (GDDR5), which seems a more reasonable price for a product of this caliber. The question is, at $30 US more than the Radeon HD 4670, how much faster is the GeForce GT 240? Also keep in mind the Radeon HD 4770 is hovering around $110 US, while Radeon HD 5750 graphics cards can be had for as little as $145 US. Today we are checking out Inno3D’s take on the GeForce GT 240, which looks to be a little more exciting than the Nvidia reference version. |
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