Bought a GT240 to replace my 8600GT, stupid move?

[Noobtastic]

I went to my local best buy today and picked up a GT240 for $85. It was between that and a 9800GT.

I had a talk with the "expert" and he said the GT240 was faster.

after doing a little bit of searching I'm kind of regretting the purchase.

I don't do super gaming, but I do plan on buying Bad Company 2 at some point and am regular half life 2/l4d2 player.

Is the GT240 a decent replacement after owning an 8600GT for 2 years? My 8600GT just burned out a couple days ago and I was in a hurry to replace it.

I just want some assurance I didn't totally fuck myself here..

 

[Sylvanas]

The 9800GT is consistently a faster card than a GT240. Unfortunately what the 'expert' told you was rubbish. Thats why you come to AT first before buying . However a GT240 should be enough for Source games at 1920x1200 and below anyway.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

You totally got fucked. How someone would think a 240 is faster than an 8800gt is beyond me. Less SP's, half the memory bus, slower clocks.

Thank nVidia for their fucked up rebranding schemes.

 

[toyota]

I hope you at least got the gddr5 version for that price.

 

[Noobtastic]

I hope you at least got the gddr5 version for that price.

yeah it's the gddr5.

I was pretty bent on buying the 9800 but the guy was persuasive. He even went on his little computer and tried to prove it to me.

there is no way I'm returning it. I spent way too long setting up the card and switching off from the VGA adapter. Took more than 2 hours to correct.

long story anyways.

performance wise, am I set for a few years? again - i dont do heavy duty gaming - just L4D, halo, HL, etc.

is the gt240 at least better than the 8600GT?

 

[bossqueen]

I think getting a GTS250 is better than a GT240
GT240 is OK, but as my humble opinion, GTS 250 is more appropriate for your need.

 

[Cookie Monster]

A GT240 is way faster than the 8600GT. It has 3 times the ALU power of the latter (96SP vs 32SP). This card should be fine for any old games.

I guess the 9800GT could have been the better buy IF it was cheaper. But a GT240 GDDR5 is still a substantial upgrade over your 8600GT.

 

[Quiksilver]

A GT240 is way faster than the 8600GT. It has 3 times the ALU power of the latter (96SP vs 32SP). This card should be fine for any old games.

I guess the 9800GT could have been the better buy IF it was cheaper. But a GT240 GDDR5 is still a substantial upgrade over your 8600GT.

This is correct.

 

[MarcVenice]

This is correct.

+1

But in Bad Company 2 it's going to struggle at 1920x1200, perhaps at 1680x1050 too.

 

[Herr Kutz]

I went to my local best buy today and picked up a GT240 for $85. It was between that and a 9800GT.

I had a talk with the "expert" and he said the GT240 was faster.

after doing a little bit of searching I'm kind of regretting the purchase.

I don't do super gaming, but I do plan on buying Bad Company 2 at some point and am regular half life 2/l4d2 player.

Is the GT240 a decent replacement after owning an 8600GT for 2 years? My 8600GT just burned out a couple days ago and I was in a hurry to replace it.

I just want some assurance I didn't totally fuck myself here..

The only experts best buy has are experts as screwing customers over.

 

[hans007]

a gt240 is probably faster than say a 9600GSO. slower than an 8800GT though. maybe its as fast as the 8800GTS 320mb, the original one, not the g92.

 

[VirtualLarry]

a gt240 is probably faster than say a 9600GSO. slower than an 8800GT though. maybe its as fast as the 8800GTS 320mb, the original one, not the g92.

I was of the opinion that the GT240 was roughly equal to the 9600GSO.

 

[railven]

there is no way I'm returning it. I spent way too long setting up the card and switching off from the VGA adapter. Took more than 2 hours to correct.

No way dude, I know its an inconvinience but you can't let them get away with that.

I remember when I was in the aisle over and the sales clerk was trying to sell a lady a P4 Laptop @ 2.4ghz and he said it was faster than the Core 2 Duo 2.0 ghz laptop based on clock speeds.

If I were you I'd storm in there, ask for the same "expert" and then slap a bench in his face and ask "how is this faster?" If you make enough ruckus might even get a freebie out of it.

So tired of these "experts" screwing over customers.

 

[BenSkywalker]

The 9800GT is certainly faster, but if you take an objective look it really isn't that big of a difference. While I absolutely would get the 9800GT at the same price point every time, it isn't like it will make a game playable that isn't going to be on the 240, it's just going to be a bit faster.

 

[JAG87]

I'm gonna go against the flow and say that inadvertently the salesman, in the midst of his stupidity, recommended a better card to you, for your needs.

Since you are not a heavy gamer, the GT240 is a better choice than the 9800GT under many aspects: it has the lowest heat and power consumption of almost all gaming suitable cards, it supports Purevideo feature set C, which gives you full gpu decoding of H264, VC1 and MPEG2, all of it while being faster than your 8600GT.

And a 9800GT is not that much faster. If you wanted a real upgrade for gaming needs, then you need to look at a GTX 260 or an HD5770.

That's my opinion.

 

[Qbah]

Looking at this summary the 512MB 9800GT is roughly 25-30% faster compared to the 512MB DDR5 version of GT240. So you got something worse for the same money spent.

It is still an upgrade over your old 8600GT, but the 9800GT would be quite a bit better imo.

EDIT: The 1GB model tested here fares better. A 9800GT is "only" 20% faster now. However this tested model is factory OC'ed. You would most definitely get a better experience if you went with your gut and got the 9800GT

 

[SlowSpyder]

Another 8600 bites the dust...

The GT240 will be a good upgrade over an 8600GT. I don't know that it'll last two years for you, but then again, if you are still using an 8600GT at this point than maybe the GT240 will be fine for you for a couple of years.

 

[-Slacker-]

@ JAG87 : Pretty sensible assessment.

BUT, you still gotta go over there and raise hell in my opinion - the guy duped you with his snake oil tactics.

 

[happy medium]

Try overclocking the gt240, it overclocks like a beast. Should get you near 9800gt performance.

A stock gt240 is = to a 9600gt which should play those games.

 

[HumblePie]

The only experts best buy has are experts as screwing customers over.

LOL I used to work for Bestbuy many years ago. I knew what I was talking about back then as I do now. But yah, the real pros are few and far between at retail stores. As a general rule, take what they say with a grain of salt.

Management when I worked at BB, CompUSA, and CC back in the day hated and loved me. Hated because I would rarely "push" the crap they wanted me to push because I didn't believe in screwing over customers. They loved me because I sold more than anyone else because I didn't screw customers over so they came back more.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Please, for the love of god, return that card. For 15 more dollars (after mir)you could have a 4850.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131163

 

[HumblePie]

Please, for the love of god, return that card. For 15 more dollars (after mir)you could have a 4850.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131163

And if you are going to get a 4850 DO NOT GET THAT CARD! There are no heatsinks on the RAM. I've dealt with that shitty card and the other one made by Sapphire. The ram burns up every time. So unless you want to spend $15 more on some ram sinks you have to attach yourself, do not get that one. Actually, most of them lately are not putting on ram sinks. I'd try to find a reference card with a reference heatsink design if I was you.

 

[konakona]

And if you are going to get a 4850 DO NOT GET THAT CARD! There are no heatsinks on the RAM. I've dealt with that shitty card and the other one made by Sapphire. The ram burns up every time. So unless you want to spend $15 more on some ram sinks you have to attach yourself, do not get that one. Actually, most of them lately are not putting on ram sinks. I'd try to find a reference card with a reference heatsink design if I was you.

Good catch. As for myself, I ended up picking up a S1 rev2 from ewiz with the mother's day discount. I have used TTPro ealier, very quiet and cooler temps at a reasonable price (for that S1 that is, TTPro was for a bit more but still far less that the competitors)

 

[Bill Brasky]

And if you are going to get a 4850 DO NOT GET THAT CARD! There are no heatsinks on the RAM. I've dealt with that shitty card and the other one made by Sapphire. The ram burns up every time. So unless you want to spend $15 more on some ram sinks you have to attach yourself, do not get that one. Actually, most of them lately are not putting on ram sinks. I'd try to find a reference card with a reference heatsink design if I was you.

Thanks for the correction. I should have stated that I was just suggesting better buys are easily available.

 

[HumblePie]

Yah, I'm RMAing one of those cards right now. I didn't realize the ram sinks were not there until it arrived. When I opened it up I thought to myself, "This isn't good, I wonder if they are all this way." So I went to newegg the images of the pictures show the card without ramsinks.

I previously had a Visiontek 4850 with the reference cooler on it that covered the whole card. I originally bought an Accelero aftermarket cooler for it and it worked great at first. However, it came with individual ramsinks I had to attach. I had one of those pop off after about 2 months of use and killed the card when it burned up.

So, when I opened that new 4850 and saw it without ramsinks... I was skeptical to say the least. Took a couple days but it burned up. It started displaying memory problems like big gigantic bands of color across the screen and locking up right before it died. I was not happy about that and am now returning it to newegg for my money back.

I originally thought to just swap it out for another 4850, but pretty much all of them from newegg right now do not come with ram sinks as you can see in the picture. I have no clue why they are doing that because I know for a fact that they will crash and burn that way every time. So if you are looking for something good and cheap and only a couple bucks more than the GTS 240, grab a 5750.