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NVIDIA Ships Decent DX10 Graphics Card For Under $100
MojoKid writes "NVIDIA is launching a new mainstream graphics card today, aimed at consumers in the market for a relatively low-cost upgrade from an integrated graphics solution or older entry-level GPU. The new GeForce GT 240 features a GPU with 96 processor cores, 8 ROP units, and 32 texture filtering units. The GPU is manufactured using a 40nm process, features a GDDR5 memory controller (that's also compatible with GDDR3), and unlike NVIDIA's current high-end GPUs, the GT 240 is DirectX 10.1 compatible. For $100 or less, what's perhaps most interesting is that this graphics card actually puts up respectable frame rates with AA turned on and no external power needed beyond what a standard PCIe slot provides."
How does the GT240 compare to a 9400M?
Finally time for a standard PCI-E graphics solution? Death to integrated graphics!
I prefer the performance graphs/comparisons at Tom's Hardware.
Now can we have it in low profile please?
While I understand that there is a psychological influence of the whole "under $100" mark, is it really that much different than the standard price reductions and increasing power of graphics cards over time?
Will it fit in the motherboard? Does it take up two slots? The trend with graphics boards is to make them way too big and bulky. It's ridiculous.
I use linux, but I tried both an AMD and Nvidia card from the recent generation, both of which were pains to install and still barely fit. Both eat a regular PCI slot when installed. And both take up two slots on the back of the tower.
It's just not worth it for the meager performance you get on linux with a decent card (in the case of AMD, if the drivers work). I would think that more lower-end, lower-power and smaller cards would be coming around. It looks like Nvidia is giving that a shot.
why can more Integrated have there own ram? ati does why not intel? nvidia?
Intel is crap and I hope apple does not go back to them with the corei3 cpu.
If a device can display video at 1080p 24+ frames per second, what's the point of more?
Displaying a video and rendering a 3d scene are two entirely different things. With a video you don't need textures, bump mapping, or dynamic lighting, you just play the frames.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
how do ati cards at the same price do next to this?
Iono, maybe because your eyes are closer to that "smaller screen"?
Surprisingly, it almost can
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
this is the best NVidia can do to try to answer the Radeon 5970 announcement tomorrow?
Screen Real Estate
"I just karma whore to everyone." -garcia (6573)
Proof that all Apple fanboys are hapless toddlers whose fanaticism for brands is exceeded only by their ignorance of the English language.
It's not about displaying video, it's about rendering 3D scenes. Any old suck card can do 1080p24 (or 1080p60 for that matter). It takes a lot of horsepower to handle realtime rendering at high resolution.
As for why the higher resolution, it's because you're sitting closer and the more details the better. Even in the video domain 3840x2160, if shot natively, would look better on a 60"+ TV than 1080p. Not amazingly better, and of course there is a point of diminishing returns, but...
ATI really doesn't have a card at this price point, which is probably why nVidia came up with this guy, to try to snap up the marketshare on people who have $100 to spend on a video card. Their old product at this price point was discontinued, but the replacement should be out in a couple of months or so.
I read the internet for the articles.
Displaying a video and rendering a 3d scene are two entirely different things. With rendering you don't need IDCTs, motion compensation (with sub-pixel precision, too), or deblocking filters, you just render the frames.
these graphics cards, in addition to today's or the future's implementation of Grand Central Dispatch, are really going to be powerful for processing arbitrary data.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
ATI's Radeon HD4770 would be this card's analogue (mainstream DX10 hardware around $100) - widely available at around $110 on Newegg, and according to this review:
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,699611/Geforce-GT-240-Nvidias-fastest-DirectX-101-graphics-card-reviewed/Reviews/
Handily beats this GT240 across the board. I'd say it's worth more than the extra $10.
Moreover, I think it's a shame this is so far the only review I've found comparing the GT240 to the HD4770. The above review pits it against the HD5750 and HD5770, which are in a completely different league, being DX11 hardware.
Nice chip. I'm waiting until you make a 40nm GPU that beats the 9800GT. 40mn is required because heat and noise are crucial to me. All of your fast 2xx series stuff is hot and power hungry, so I haven't moved.
Listen carefully: My magic price point is $200 or less. TPD must be no more than approximately 100W, ah la the 9800GT. I want 1GB (but I'll settle for 768) because 512MB is too small now. I have never cared about SLI and I won't start anytime soon. I *DO* care about heat and noise, so make these damn card builders use good cooling, which I define as "can tolerate less than perfect airflow (because fan filled holes = noise) using 1 large, quiet fan, at FULL load."
Do that and I'll upgrade. Don't and I'll look very hard at Larrabee...
- Loyal NVidia buyer
The level of idiocy you exhibit with the "logic" in your statement astounds me.
Some day, ATI will have better drivers than Nvidia, and they'll even be open source. But today, Radeons don't have video acceleration at all, and certainly nothing nearly in the same league as VDPAU.
And video acceleration is the main reason someone would have a 9400M.
You're telling people to upgrade from something that works, to something that doesn't work. The original poster was probably asking if 9400M to GT240 would be an upgrade from something that works, to something that works better.
Anyway, to answer the question: with the GT240, you get MPEG4 acceleration. My dual-core Atom can already play MPEG4 with CPU, but it does sometimes tear, unlike MPEG2, h.264, etc. Doing that with dedicated hardware (which a top-of-the-line most-expensive Radeon that money can buy, is unable to do) would be pretty sweet.
Does it come with a free software driver, or at least include specs so you can write your own? If not, why does it deserve a Slashdot front page headline? There are plenty of Windows gaming sites for those who want that kind of thing.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The 4850 has been at the $100 mark (on sale) for months now. The 4770 would qualify too but it never really was pushed out in huge supply. Both equal or best the 9800GTX in sheer power. So what's the big deal?
Anyone know how this compares to a GTS 250-based card? As those are also DX10-compliant and can be easily found for around $120, I'm not sure what the value of this new model is... beyond the psychological impact of hitting the magic $99 price point, of course.
Read my blog.
Unless you put video on a texture.
Can this card render HD 1080p@30FPS? What's the puniest Pentium that can deliver that HD data to it fast enough from a SATA drive?
And is there a Linux driver?
--
make install -not war
Mainstream ATI competitor is the 4650, which is in current production and available for less then $80. That's what Nvidia is competing against. Specs are a DX10.1, 1GB of DDR3 and no external power needed. Very nice and I'm looking at one as an upgrade from a 7300GT, which is a meager DX9 card with only 256 onboard.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Come on, nVidia... Stop with the re-branding already.
This is just a die-shrunk 9800 GT, which was just a die-shrunk 8800 GT.
Yes, it's a great card for $100. But stop misleading people into thinking it's the same tech as the GTX 260-285.
(They did the same with the "GTS 250", which is just a re-badged 9800 GTX, which was just a re-badged 8800 GTS.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
...actually no: No random piece of crap will be able to handle 1080p h264.
This is what separates an ION from an Atom (with the i945).
It's 3D rendering that's relatively mundane in this context.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I paid 76 dollars for my 9600 GT, fanless, and it' is direct x 10 compatible.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The vast majority of Slashdot readers do not write graphics drivers. A great many people here probably do not even use Linux.
I would even hazard a guess that there are far more people here who play computer games than there are people who would be able to do anything even if they did have the full hardware specs of an Nvidia card.
I dont read
The've been doing it for ages.
A geforce 4 mx was based on the geforce 2 chip set. So it was not only weaker then the other geforce 4 cards, it was also weaker then the previous, third generation. The reason that they keep doing this is quite simple, they sold even if every magazine listed is as a must avoid:
"Despite harsh criticism by gaming enthusiasts, the GeForce4 MX was a market success. Priced about 30% above the GeForce 2 MX, it provided better performance, the ability to play a number of popular games that the GeForce 2 could not run well—above all else—to the average non-specialist it sounded as if it were a "real" GeForce4—i.e., a GeForce4 Ti. Although it was frequently out-performed by the older and more expensive GeForce 3, many buyers were unaware, particularly as Nvidia was quick not to let the GeForce 3 remain on the market. GeForce 4 MX was particularly successful in the PC OEM market, and rapidly replaced the GeForce 2 MX as the best-selling GPU.".
Does it come with a free software driver, or at least include specs so you can write your own? If not, why does it deserve a Slashdot front page headline? There are plenty of Windows gaming sites for those who want that kind of thing.
There are gamers and home video enthusiasts more than willing to download and install the fully functional proprietary driver. The binary blob. Particularly between now and December 25th. Not so many equipted to write the open source driver, even if they had the time and the specs.
why can more Integrated have there own ram? ati does why not intel?
Note, just in case you go laptop shopping: THIS IS NO LONGER TRUE.
Revise it to 'ati sometimes does and sometimes does not' and you'll not wind up having to pay a restocking fee...
For me, the main potential benefit for such "low power" GFX chips is their low power draw, which might give total silence with passive cooling or near silence with large, slow & quiet fan.
But practically all cheap cards come with small and whining cooling fans nowadays... (and no, finding an aftermarket solution for such card if no passive ones are readily available (nvm that they are often...a bit more expensive) is not exactly a viable option due to large, comparativelly, additional cost)
Integrated GFX at least comes with a passive cooling as a standard feature... (c'mon, they can do it with almost microscopic heatsinks on integrated GFX, they can't with such cards?...)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Come on, nVidia... Stop with the re-branding already.
This is just a die-shrunk 9800 GT
and somehow its slower than my 8800GS 384MB
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I couldn't care less about DirectWhatever. But the fact that it's a graphics card for those of us who aren't GPU-melting gameheads makes it relevant for Slashdot, not just a gaming site. The fact that its ability to run without an external power supply is noteworthy... is itself noteworthy.
Dear Ed,
It's news for nerds, not news for Ed.
Regards,
Nerds
FYI: we've had sufficient hardware to play video for about the past 60 years or so.
Surely you're not trying to suggest that playing a video, even a 1080p video, even approaches the level of processing required to render a 3D scene with the aspects I've mentioned. We could also throw in pixel shading, anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, and dynamic shadows if you want.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
"NVIDIA is launching a new mainstream graphics card today, aimed at consumers in the market for a relatively low-cost upgrade from an integrated graphics solution or older entry-level GPU." Wtf no AGP? Some of us are still in the stoneage.... (/*_*)/ ================= PCIe
Visit my Forums?
This is one generation old (not two) and more than adequate for the casual gamer. It's also under $100. It's also available in AGP, which is why I own one.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I hope you meant 4670, around $70 on newegg.. less then $100 you can get a 4830..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161260&cm_re=radeon_4830-_-14-161-260-_-Product
I'm playing WoW (which is far from cutting-edge as far as graphics are concerned) on a 1900x1200 monitor with an ATI 4750. I have to put all details at the lowest setting when raiding, otherwise the game becomes unplayable.
I do agree that very high frame rates are useless. In games though, frame rates tend to vary wildly... in WoW for exemple, I can go from 160+ when alone in the wilderness to 4 in a boss fight with lots of AOE spells. So as a gamer I need a large FPS margin from my video card.
The other issue is monitor size... I wanted a big one, so I got an Asus 26" 1900x1200 (excellent monitor, BTW). Moving all those pixels around requires much more power than for my old 1280x1024 CRT.
I'm kinda hoping resolutions and screen sizes will stabilize (frankly, my 26" is too big for computer work, I'd have been better off with 2x22" for the same price), and that IGPs will offer reasonable performance for MMOs and casual games. They already do for video.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Yes, earlier ATI units had a tesselator, but the tesselator isn't DX11 compliant at all. In addition, none of the other DX11 features-esp. notable here are Shader Model 5 and Compute Shaders-have hardware support in ATI units below the 5xxx series.
Nvidia just released a slower card at the same price point than a card that ATI has had out for months. This is huge and amazing and stuff.
Untrue. You're thinking of video decoding. You'd be hard pressed to find a video card that can't drive a 1920x1080 display at 60Hz playing e.g. raw video. Furthermore, if you've got enough CPU power you could certainly play 1080p60 bluray video on any old video display, even crappy integrated graphics.
... In games though, frame rates tend to vary wildly... in WoW for exemple, I can go from 160+ when alone in the wilderness to 4 in a boss fight with lots of AOE spells.
/console SpellEffectLevel is your friend. :) I run it at /console SpellEffectLevel 100 when I'm soloing, but bring it down for groups. I believe the default is 25, but you can go even lower if you need to.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Sure, but I have a crappy computer with a paltry 300 watt power supply I can't be assed to upgrade so this card still appeals to me.
If you flame them, they will come.
Some announcements have even been repeated. Is slashdot becoming the mouthpiece of Nvidia?
That Zotac card looks excellent, but I can't for the life of me find anywhere to buy it. Is it not out yet or something?
This doesn't look like a "re-badged" 9800GT at all. Let's REALLY compare the 9800GT to that of the new GT 240, to see if what you're saying is even remotely correct. I own both a 9800GT and a 9600GT.
Fab process: 9800GT = 65 or 55nm, GT 240 = 40nm
Clock (core): 9800GT = 600MHz, GT 240 = 550MHz
Clock (shader): 9800GT = 1500MHz, GT 240 = 1340MHz
Clock (memory): 9800GT = 1800MHz, GT 240 = 3400MHz
Pixels per sec: 9800GT = 9.6b, GT 240 = 8.8b
Memory bandwidth: 9800GT = 57.6GB/sec, GT 240 = 54.4GB/sec
Bus width: 9800GT = 256 bit, GT 240 = 128 bit
Stream processors: 9800GT = 112, GT 240 = not directly comparable, but we'll say 96 just to keep it simple
Memory type: 9800GT = GDDR3, GT 240 = GDDR5
Temperatures: 9800GT = mid-to-high 70s (Celsius) during load, GT 240 = mid-to-high 50s (Celsius) during load
Power consumption: 9800GT = ~105-120W, GT 240 = ~62-75W
External PCIe power connector required: 9800GT = yes (sans a few BFG cards), GT 240 = no
Cost: 9800GT = US$130-140, GT 240 = sub-$100
The card is physically smaller than a 8800GTS as well, since you had to go and bring up the famous "the 9800GT is just a re-badged 8800GT" argument (pretty sure you meant 8800GT and not 8800GTS, since the 8800GTS is no where near identical to the 8800GT).
The only thing "hurting" the GT 240 is the 128-bit bus width. I'm sure nVidia will be rolling out a different card that offers 256-bit in the future.
Anyway, yup, definitely looks like a "re-badged" product to me. Totally the same thing. Definitely. No doubt about it. 100% certain. Lower power usage, lower noise, newer technology... for a lower cost. Looks like a definite loser to me -- but only if you're a kr4d-l33t g4m3r d00dzz!@!1@!!!!1!
Gamers... just completely out of their league as far as technological advancement goes, yet we keep catering to them because they're a cash cow.
This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
First off, DX 10 and 10.1 have a lot more in common than DX 10.1 and 11, hence the version numbers. DX 10.1 was largely a more strict version of the DX 10 standard, for example requiring 4x FSAA filtering and 32-bit FP rendering. Well all DX 10 hardware supports that anyhow so no big deal. Still there were differences that required new hardware to fully support 10.1.
Now DX 11 has some new stuff and DX 10.1 cards are NOT compatible. Tessellation is one of those and yes earlier ATi cards do have a tessellator, but it's not DX11 compatible. However that's now all that's new. Another big one would be Shader Model 5.0. This adds various features such as double precision support and a new compute shader "basically a way of addressing the shader hardware for GPGPU stuff).
So older cards are NOT DX 11 capable. A notable absence in the ATi 4 series would be double precision support.
I should note that this doesn't mean that they can't use the DX 11 library, it just means they don't support DX 11 features. The break between 9 and 10 (where old hardware couldn't support 10 at all) appears to be the last for awhile. DX 10 hardware can use DX 10.1 and DX 11 APIs, but it doesn't support the new features.
However when someone calls something a "DX 11 card" what they mean is "A card that supports the full DX 11 feature set." Currently the only cards on the market meeting that designation are the ATi 5000 series. The ATi 4000 series are DX 10.1 cards.
For more info on what's new in DX 11 see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee417843(VS.85).aspx#Full that's MS's page on it which will get as highly technical as you'd like.
You're quite wrong here. I think you're confusing the GT240 with the GTS240, which is a OEM-only deal and indeed pretty much a rebadged 9800GT (I won't disagree though naming is silly). GT240 is based on a entirely new chip (GT215 based on 40nm process) instead of the old and trusted G92(b) (65/55nm) which was used in 8800GT/9800GTX/GTS250 (and more). It can also do DX10.1 - something neither G92 based cards nor GT200 based ones (GTX260 and friends) can do.
Guess that depends on what you mean by "just a die-shrink". For one, it isn't as though you "just" take the same mask and shrink it down on a new process. There is a good deal of work to be done.
However that aside, you are incorrect about the tech. This is not the same tech as an 8800. Main thing that shows that is DX 10.1 support, which you'll not the 8800 doesn't have (nor do the 260/280s). It also has a GDDR5 memory controller, again something the other cards listed lack (they are all GDDR3 only).
While I'm not a big fan of their recent name changes, you need to stop pretending like there's nothing new they are doing, or that there is some requirement with regards to versions. In the past major versions were a new thousand, however major version doesn't mean totally new tech. Often it was a sort of tick-tock system reminiscent of Intel's. For example the 6000 series was new Shader Model 3.0 stuff, nothing prior supported that. However the 7000 series was the same thing. The cards got faster, smaller, more parallel and so on, but they were still DX 9.0c cards like the 6000s. The 8000s were then DX10 cards, almost a completely new architecture.
This card here actually offers some features their high end cards don't, it just isn't near as fast. However saying it is the "same tech" as the 8800 is rather silly.
You've pretty much always been able to have a good gaming experience on lower end hardware. Most people do not upgrade their system all the time, and even many that do don't upgrade to the highest end hardware. Game makers know that, and want to be able to sell their product to a large number of people. So most games do fine on moderate hardware.
The problem only starts when you have people that demand to have everything cranked up all the way, on older hardware. That doesn't happen. However you don't need everything turned up to enjoy a well made game. Yes, some games have problems where anything but the max detail makes for playability issues, but that is real rare. Mostly it seems to be people who want the best experience but don't want to pay for it.
Lately, as you note, things have gotten even better. Midrange hardware is extremely solid these days, especially if your monitor isn't super high rez.
This is one of the very few reasonably performance cards that doesn't require an additional power connector. There are plenty of systems out there, especially cheaper ones, that don't have much in the way of a PSU. Adding in a graphics card that needs more power can be a problem. This one? No problem, it is entirely motherboard powered.
It's not a die shrink - the GT 240 supports DirectX 10.1, while the GTS 250 only supports 10.0. Not to mention the GT 240 can also do GDDR 5. And the GT240 is about half the power. And despite the GT240 having a 25% slower graphics clock, 27% slower processor clock, AND 25% fewer cores, it manages about 25% less performance. If it were the same chip, those effects should roughly stack so it'd be about .75*.75=.5625 or 44% less performance. Looks to me like it's something new and different, and not just a re-brand.
Now where's the -1 Wrong mod when you need one? Or at least a -0 Wrong mod - you can keep the points and the visibility, but there oughtta be a tag for those cases where a +5 comment just ain't right.
1.7% yields of Fermi GPUs in first batch.
Wooden screws used in the non-working Fermi prototype card which Nvidia claimed was working.
Q2 2010 release date now for consumer Fermi GPUs instead of the promised Q4 2009 release.
20% clock miss on Fermi architecture.
And now they're releasing re-badged crap yet again.
When will it end?
Right now Nvidia sucks, but I'm thinking about getting one for physx support.
But since Nvidia is acting all emo and disabling this feature, I don't think I'll buy any of their product for the moment being.
But we need a strong Nvidia or ATI will stop delivering cheap and good video cards.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
There are far more people here who wipe their butt than write graphics drivers, but a new brand of toilet paper offering 96 rolls for only $9.99 is not headline-worthy.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Does it come with a free software driver,
Yes. It doesn't come with a Free software driver, though. If you're going to be a tiresome pedant, at least be accurate.
If not, why does it deserve a Slashdot front page headline?
Are you going to say something relevant? If not, why do you deserve a slashdot account?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...of course I am talking about video decoding.
The key thing about video decoding is it's not something that can be dynamically "tuned down" to accomodate crappy old cards like 3D games can.
"Enough CPU power" for HD video decoding is more than anyone is likely to have. OTOH you can get a cheap old card like an nv8400 and have fully accelerated VC1 decoding.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Don't forget the 4670 series which is a step up from that, but are shipping with 1GB DDR3 and are in the $80 range with no external power needed. I just finished dumping my 8600GT for one which died a horrible pixelated death as the memory on it died and MSI has yet to get back to me on a RMA.
Om, nomnomnom...
It competes pretty directly with the ancient HD4670 in features and power consumption, except being ancient, the 4670 is typically cheaper.
Nah. You can decode full resolution HD video on a mid to high end modern CPU, especially with a well written codec implementation.
It's not so much the stress on the GPU as the stress on the CPU. GPUs came along to do things faster than a PC can do them.
Since HD came along, one of those things is video. You need a pretty decent dual core PC to play high end HD video (1080/60p, for example) using 100% of both CPUs. Throw a decent GPU doing video acceleration in there, and that'll drop, maybe to 50%, maybe lower. Sure, that same GPU might do the 3D pipeline 25x faster than that same CPU, but that doesn't negate the value of GPU video acceleration.
GPUs are also starting to help out in video rendering. This is a place where a 25x improvement over the CPU (rather than the maybe 2x improvement you're seeing now, with the best rendering accelerators so far) would be considered "a nice start". So don't think gaming is the only value here (well, ok, gaming and mechanical CAD, if you have a high-end enough GPU to do a properly accurate OpenGL).
-Dave Haynie
Very incorrect.
9600 GT: compute model 1.1, 8192 registers per multiprocessor
240 GT: compute model 1.2, 16384 registers per multiprocessor
complete redesign, memory GDDR5 interface.
Call that a die shrink once more, and I'll bitchslap you.
You need a pretty decent dual core PC to play high end HD video (1080/60p, for example) using 100% of both CPUs.
No you don't, you need a $100 HD-DVD player from Toshiba, that will play the video just fine.
I realize that there are processor demands on HD video, but decoding and playing a video doesn't really compare to rendering every detail in a 3D scene, it's just entirely different technology.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
and in the meanwhile, informed consumer could get the same feature packaged as an 8800 gt for much less