Asus NVIDIA GT240 is very quiet.

They make noise, too.

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micksh
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Joined: Sun May 24, 2009 9:47 pm
Location: San Jose, CA, US

Asus NVIDIA GT240 is very quiet.

Post by micksh » Tue Dec 22, 2009 1:46 am

This one:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... P-_-03ship
Sorry, I just got it today and when I was writing this post it became unavailable. It was available this morning for $80 when I checked my order.

I bought it for $80 at TigerDirect, I new it would be good but I didn't want to write about this card before I actually test it.
Unfortunately others sell it for $100 now. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... _-14121354

I can't hear it. I disconnected HDDs and case fans just for test so only CPU, PSU fans and this card make noise. My PSU is not that quiet, Corsair VX450 but it's in the bottom chamber of my Antec P182 and I covered it with pillow. I put my ear next to this card and I still could not hear it. It is very quiet.
So consider my environment and take it with a little skepticism but I think I reduced effect of my PSU a lot and CPU fan is also quiet. That's the best test I could do with my setup.
I loaded it with Furmark and temperature went up to 78C. Still was quiet. It could be heard under load but not much and it was still quieter than PSU.

Most important is that it is completely quiet at idle. Asus has a software for this card (and some other cards), Smart Doctor, where you can set up fan behavior and make it even quieter for the price of temperature increase. But for me there was no need, it was quiet out of the box.

Just one unpleasant surprise - fan is connected with 2 pin cable so there is no way to check fan speed. But there is no need since it's quiet by default.
Overall build quality is excellent. No problems at all. I'm completely satisfied.

You know the limitations of this card - it is no match for Radeon HD 57xx. It has 7.1 LPCM sound but no bitstreaming and DirectX is 10.1. It doesn't require additional power connector and it beats previous champion in this TDP range - Radeon 4670. It is 40nm but it is slower than 4770. I'm not a gamer, I'm a software developer, bought it mostly because of CUDA.

It's been a long time since we saw video card review at SPCR. I just had to guess which card would be quiet and buy it.

danimal
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Post by danimal » Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:40 pm

nice review for a potential htpc application.

david25
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Post by david25 » Thu Dec 24, 2009 3:08 am

Many thanks for the useful info, I'll look to get one now

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:47 am

Thanks, its good to see nVidia has manage to put out an interesting card. Sure its not speed champion but 9600 GT's power is quite alot. Now the power consumption is pretty darn impressive. Too bad nVidia never got this one out when Ati released HD 4670.

tropical_nut
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Post by tropical_nut » Thu Dec 24, 2009 3:07 pm

Thanks, its good to see nVidia has manage to put out an interesting card.
Yes, Nvidia is reacting quite late not only to the 4670 but also to soon to be released 56xx cards which could nail this offering from Nvidia in performance/power delivery.

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