GT240 DDR5 the best Quiet, sub-$100 card?

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arrfep

arrfep

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2006
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I know the title's a handful. I'm looking for a card for my new rig that will be used mainly for Photoshop/Lightroom, typing papers for school, and occasional gaming/Blu-Ray viewing.

It will be run with an i5 750 system, outputting to a 20.1" LCD, and possibly an LCD TV. I don't game regularly, but pick something up once in awhile. The last game I played was F.E.A.R :) And I was happy playing that with an X850XT. What killed me about that card was how LOUD it was.

So, most important feature of this card will be that it will need to be quiet. However, I don't want to sacrifice all video abilities in the name of silence, so while I looked at passively-cooled 4350's, I'd like some more power. I came across this article which brought me to the GT240 http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3709&p=14

Figured I'd get some more opinions before pulling the trigger on it, though. Thanks.
 
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blanketyblank

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2007
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You know they have made up to 5750s passive. I'm not sure about pricing or where you can get them, but there are a lot of cards faster than the GT240 that are passively cooled. Look at the 4770 and 9800GT which should be cheaper now.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...te-presents-passive-HD-4770-and-9800-GT/News/

The question is what games and what settings do you foresee using. The 240 isn't really a great card for gaming, and is overpriced in my opinion relative to its performance(then again I don't know what price you are planning to get it for). Even a 9600GT is a faster card in terms of gaming performance so it is lacking a lot in terms of speed. 9600s, 9800, ATI 4770 and 4850 can all be had for under $100 and will provide much faster performance.

The question of sound is a much more tricky question since it is based on your ears and preferences. Do you care if the card is quiet most of the time and only loud during gaming? If so a 4850 would work well for you. A 4850 is very quiet on idle, but at load it can get loud. Not as loud as some cards, but fairly audible. Those benchmarks you linked to should give some idea, but you should understand new cards will be a lot quieter than your old 850 so idle noise probably won't even make a difference. There is a bigger difference in load though so if that is important to you the 240 maybe the way to go.
Keep in mind many different third party coolers manufacturers use on cards so it's very difficult to say one is quieter than another.

Of course you can always pick up a passively cooled card, or get a stock card and change the cooler yourself. These cards still however require your case to have adequate cooling and they maybe big. Most manufacturers also use fans so passively cooled cards are harder to get and may cost more. Changing the cooler yourself on the other hand would also add to your costs and may void your warranty depending on the card manufacturer's policy.
 
crisium

crisium

Platinum Member
Aug 19, 2001
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9600GT is equal to GT 240 performance in terms of gaming performance, so it's inaccurate to say the 9600 is faster.

The 5670 is faster than the GT 240, and neither have passive solutions in GDDR5 on newegg (DDR3 GT 240 passive exists though). So either get the passive DDR3 GT 240:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-138-_-Product

Or get a fan cooled 5670 that offers much faster performance. But even a DDR3 GT 240 should still outperform an X1900XTX, let alone a X850XT.
 
arrfep

arrfep

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2006
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happy medium said:
Why not a 5670? 20% faster,low power consumption ,and quiet. Under 100$ shipped.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...on%20HD%205670

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3720&p=13
Click to expand...

Thanks. A 5670 is definitely on my list now.


blanketyblank said:
You know they have made up to 5750s passive. I'm not sure about pricing or where you can get them, but there are a lot of cards faster than the GT240 that are passively cooled. Look at the 4770 and 9800GT which should be cheaper now.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...te-presents-passive-HD-4770-and-9800-GT/News/

The question is what games and what settings do you foresee using. The 240 isn't really a great card for gaming, and is overpriced in my opinion relative to its performance(then again I don't know what price you are planning to get it for). Even a 9600GT is a faster card in terms of gaming performance so it is lacking a lot in terms of speed. 9600s, 9800, ATI 4770 and 4850 can all be had for under $100 and will provide much faster performance.

The question of sound is a much more tricky question since it is based on your ears and preferences. Do you care if the card is quiet most of the time and only loud during gaming? If so a 4850 would work well for you. A 4850 is very quiet on idle, but at load it can get loud. Not as loud as some cards, but fairly audible. Those benchmarks you linked to should give some idea, but you should understand new cards will be a lot quieter than your old 850 so idle noise probably won't even make a difference. There is a bigger difference in load though so if that is important to you the 240 maybe the way to go.
Keep in mind many different third party coolers manufacturers use on cards so it's very difficult to say one is quieter than another.
.
Click to expand...

Couple thoughts:

I guess I may have overstated how important gaming is. I look at it more like this: I need a video card, and I want a semi-decent one since Photoshop CS4 can take advantage of the GPU. I'm willing to shell out up to $100 for a card, so if I can play an occasional game on it, then that's a plus.

Like I said, last game I played was released 5 years ago, and when I played through it in December, I was still entertained by it. I'm interested in gaming only enough to get the best card for $100, but not enough to stretch my budget to $150 to get a few fps.

But, I'd still like the noise level to be a deciding factor. I guess I realized I don't need something as dead silent as a passively-cooled GPU. I don't need it absolutely silent at all times. But, since I'll be running an SSD and will need to be using the computer during times I'm trying to concentrate, I'd rather it be as noiseless as possible.

Thanks for the response. I'll look into the 4850's as well.
 
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blanketyblank

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2007
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crisium said:
9600GT is equal to GT 240 performance in terms of gaming performance, so it's inaccurate to say the 9600 is faster.

The 5670 is faster than the GT 240, and neither have passive solutions in GDDR5 on newegg (DDR3 GT 240 passive exists though). So either get the passive DDR3 GT 240:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-138-_-Product

Or get a fan cooled 5670 that offers much faster performance. But even a DDR3 GT 240 should still outperform an X1900XTX, let alone a X850XT.
Click to expand...

Why do you say it's inaccurate? The 9600GT is faster by 1-5 fps than the superclocked GT 240 DDR 5 in every game benchmarked the OP linked to. The DDR5 superclocked DDR5 model is the fastest 240 so my statement is true especially for the slower DDR3 variant.

Here's a review that compares an MSI GT 240 DDR 5 against a lot of cards in several different games. Across all games the 9600GT is about 12% faster. The 4850 is 55% faster.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GT_240/30.html
 
cbn

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
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I would avoid gt240.

hd4770 (40nm) and hd5670 (40nm) are both better choices.

P.S. It might be gt240's 8 ROPs is holding back its otherwise decent specs. Or maybe something else is going on with that card? In any event it seems to be a poor performer.
 
L

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
6
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arrfep said:
Thanks. A 5670 is definitely on my list now.




Couple thoughts:

I guess I may have overstated how important gaming is. I look at it more like this: I need a video card, and I want a semi-decent one since Photoshop CS4 can take advantage of the GPU. I'm willing to shell out up to $100 for a card, so if I can play an occasional game on it, then that's a plus.

Like I said, last game I played was released 5 years ago, and when I played through it in December, I was still entertained by it. I'm interested in gaming only enough to get the best card for $100, but not enough to stretch my budget to $150 to get a few fps.

But, I'd still like the noise level to be a deciding factor. I guess I realized I don't need something as dead silent as a passively-cooled GPU. I don't need it absolutely silent at all times. But, since I'll be running an SSD and will need to be using the computer during times I'm trying to concentrate, I'd rather it be as noiseless as possible.

Thanks for the response. I'll look into the 4850's as well.
Click to expand...

The HD4850 can get quite noisy and runs pretty hot, so you might not want to spend too much time looking at it.
I think some people do passive 9800's but I'm not sure about the price on them.
 
Keysplayr

Keysplayr

Elite Member
Jan 16, 2003
21,219
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91
Noiseless/passively cooled GT240 96 shader 1GB GDDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814500138

Big, slow moving fan 9800GT 112 shader 1GB GDDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130534

Passively cooled 9800GT 112 shader 1GB GDDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125282

If total quiet is more important than gaming for your price range, I'd recommend the first.
If You don't mind a small bit of fan noise and much more gaming power, choose the second.
If you want the best of both worlds, go for number 3. It is 134.00 though.

I didn't mention any AMD cards because you mentioned wanting GPU acceleration in CS4.
 
M

mm2587

Member
Nov 2, 2006
76
0
0
Since for whatever reason adobe decided to go with cuda instead of opencl for CS5 (cs4 should still support ati cards) it really is a better plan at this point to go with an nvidia card. The gt240 is crap (although that one for $50 is almost worth it) If you really want to ever game a passive 9800 is an excellent choice. Should be good for a few more years of low resolution/quality settings gaming. Heres one a good bit cheaper then the one Keysplayr listed

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-BFG-nVidia-...IC&otn=10&po=&ps=63&clkid=8164087746371072166
 
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nosfe

Senior member
Aug 8, 2007
424
0
0
That's only for the video applications, Photoshop CS5 will most likely remain OpenGL only. They have to rewrite everything for Photoshop CS5 to be able to add 64bit support for macs so i doubt they'll have time to implement either OpenCL or CUDA this time around. Also, the only reason why they went with CUDA instead of OpenCL for Premiere was that when they started working on CS5 neither nvidia nor ati had an OpenCL SDK on the market.
 
bryanW1995

bryanW1995

Lifer
May 22, 2007
11,144
32
91
I'd just drop the $50 on a gt240. With your limited objectives that one sounds like it will do the best job for and keep you from breaking the bank. There isn't really a "good" card in the $100 price range now that meets your requirements. You could find one that was marginally better than a gt240, but not enough to warrant another $40-50.
 
arrfep

arrfep

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2006
2,314
16
81
Once again, thanks for all the replies. I came across a review of the 4770 on SPRC last night, and decided to grab one of those. Seems to be relatively quiet, and powerful enough to do a decent amount of gaming. If I keep looking, I know I'm going to end up justifying a 5800 series card, which I know I don't need.

But then again, that's how my build went from a modest Athlon II X4, 4GB rig to i5, 8GB, x-25 SSD, etc. :)
 
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