Manufacturer: Price: $ US Author: Steve Date: 11/09/2009

[ Conclusion ]

The GeForce GT 220 has done very little to mix things up in the low-end market segment, as it fails to offer anything new at its price point of $70 US. Yes, it is an affordable 40nm graphics card, but that bandwagon will only get Nvidia so far. The GeForce GT 220 was superior to the 14 month old Radeon HD 4670 in terms of power consumption and operating temperature when under load. However having said that, consuming 27% less power is not going to earn Nvidia any bragging rights, as they were consistently over 27% slower than the Radeon HD 4670. So all things being even, we feel that there is really very little difference between the operating efficiency of the Radeon HD 4670 and GeForce GT 220 graphics cards. In terms of performance the Radeon HD 4670 easily outclasses the GeForce GT 220, and again it delivered considerably more performance in five of the seven games tested. Furthermore, out of the seven games tested the Radeon HD 4670 was superior in every single one of them at all three tested resolutions. Looking at the pricing on line we found that the average price of a GeForce GT 220 graphics card was $70 US, while the Radeon HD 4670 was slightly cheaper at $65 US. Furthermore, the Radeon HD 4650, which was able to match the performance of the GeForce GT 220 in five of the seven games, weighs in at just $50 US, making it almost 30% cheaper. The much newer GeForce GT 220 fails to deliver any new features that are not present on the Radeon HD 4670, and both products support DirectX 10.1, though having said that neither would be powerful enough to take advantage of DX11 anyway. Therefore, in short your best option within an $80 US graphics card budget is without a doubt still the Radeon HD 4670. Reviewed By Steven Walton

<- Previous Page Table of Contents Introduction Test System Specs & 3Dmark Vantage Test: Batman Arkham Asylum, Company of Heroes Test: Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead Test: Street Fighter IV, S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky Test: Wolfenstein Power Consumption & Temperatures >>> Conclusion <<<

Jason Saggers

Posted on: 02/18/2010 02:26 AM Wouldn't it make better sense to benchmark these cards with more budget CPU's, the CPU you are using would not be used by the end user that would be buying one of these budget cards.

Steve Posts: 76 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 02/18/2010 05:30 AM No not at all. When benchmarking GPU’s you want a fast CPU to remove any potential bottlenecks. Say in an extreme case we used a slow processor that created a system bottleneck, the GPUs would all be limited and possibly deliver the same performance. What would be the point of that? You will find this common practice amongst hardware sites.

IFLATLINEI

Posted on: 03/06/2010 09:23 PM I understand why testers do this but it does nothing for those looking to see how these cards work with their pc's I dont see this card bottle necking much at all. So I think this is just a way to make it easier on your the tester or serving your own agenda rather than helping a consumer choose the right card for them.

ProX

Posted on: 03/06/2010 10:24 PM IFLATLINEI seriously what are you talking about? Okay lets say they should use a slower processors, lets just for a moment assume that this makes sense (which it doesn't). What processor should they use? A $50 processor? Nah that's too cheap, well not for that guy but maybe for you. $100 processor? Yeah you can afford that so maybe a $150 processor then. Better yet lets use a processor that limits performance by 5 - 10fps and makes both graphics cards look the same. Yeah that's looking after the buyer, then they can spend more on a graphics card that is slower. I think what you guys are after is a budget buying guide which is a little different. That compares the value and performance of entire platforms and not just a single component. When testing components you cannot have any limitations. Its like testing two cars, a Nissan 370Z and a Ferrari 599 but limiting them to 30mph. In just about every test they would perform about the same so you could conclude that in terms of engineering the 370Z is better right? Take the limitations away and the Ferrari 599 would make the Nissan 370Z look silly.

Steve Posts: 76 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 03/07/2010 01:31 AM Posted by IFLATLINEI on 03/06/2010 10:23 PM I understand why testers do this but it does nothing for those looking to see how these cards work with their pc's I dont see this card bottle necking much at all. So I think this is just a way to make it easier on your the tester or serving your own agenda rather than helping a consumer choose the right card for them. I can certainly understand how you might draw that conclusion but it is not the best way to test a graphics card. I like how you say “I dont see this card bottle necking much at all.” How much is not much at all and what experience are you basing this assumption on? Testing with the Core i7 processor is in no way easier for me, I have almost every processor currently being sold and there is no agenda here other than to display each graphics card in the best light. ProX is correct if you are after system articles please check the articles section where we have reviewed entire budget platforms.