NVIDIA kicks out low-end GeForce 9400 GT, starting price $59
By Donald Melanson 
posted August 27th 2008 11:27AM
posted August 27th 2008 11:27AM
While it likely won't cause the same clamoring for benchmarks that we see around the release of a new high-end NVIDIA card, those on a budget will no doubt nonetheless be pleased to know that the company's just bolstered it's low-end offerings a bit, with a new card that starts at just $59. That, of course, won't exactly get you a Crysis killer, but the GeForce 9400 GT does at least boast 16 processor cores, a 128-bit memory interface, dual-link DVI, DirectX 10 support and, in its standard configuration, 512MB of graphics memory (from the looks of it, 1GB versions are also available). Unlike something like a GTX 280 SLI config, this one also likely won't make a noticeable impact on your power bill.
[Via Computer Monger, thanks Ivana]
[Via Computer Monger, thanks Ivana]
I don't know if you're joking or not, but this card will be slower in any game than a 6800 (unless it's like a 6800LE or something really cut down).
This is gonna be great for a dedicated Physx processor.
Why they can't still fit two DVIs on these cheap cards :(
I don't want to pay 150€ just to be able to have two DVI monitors attached.
Just bought a Dell 530 & it only has old intel x3100 integrated graphics. this would be great... so where can I find one??
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127380
Nvidia is late to the party again. Not a fanboy of anything but ATI's HD 2400 thru 2600 series can be had for as low as $40 with HDMI and an adapter, haven't seen any performance numbers between the 2 but they've been at it for a while now. These are cards with 40 to 120 stream processors, they can also be passively cooled and perfect for HTPC applications.
I see some nice solid caps in there. Why aren't they all solid?
Define "solid"
I see only electrolytic capacitors, some are surface mount, some are through-hole. The through-hole caps tend to be a bit more durable, but they also tend to be physically larger for a given capacity, and by the nature of through-hole parts, the leads pass through every layer of the PCB which limits where they can be placed.
If by solid, you mean lacking liquid electrolyte, the only thing that comes close to the capacitance per volume of electrolytic is tantalum, and those are much more expensive and like to short out and/or burst into flame if abused.
Anyone tell me if this is faster than my Sapphire Atlantis 9200SE?
Wow, $59 for a graphics card with half a gig on it, I've been out of the loop. I must be getting old, I care more these days about the power consumption and heat output of my PC more than I do how powerful it is. Still, I'd almost consider dropping 59 bucks to get a bit of a speed boost for that once every couple of months or so I fire up a game anymore.
This is almost exactly like my NVIDIA 6200, no?
I know for a fact the fan pictured there is the noisiest fan ever to exist. You can field strip it & clean it, but it will get noisy again in a few months. Can you slap on the zalman fan to that card? That thing is super quiet.
BigTeebo's right - why does a budget card need a giant noisy fan that will burn out long before the card does?
That $50 is better spent on something like a quieter Radeon HD3650 or a passively cooled HD3450. Good for those who need a little bit more oomph (or more DVI ports) than a standard integrated chipset.
I'm just getting into HTPC stuff and am trying to build my frist media center (starting with Windows MCE, then I'll try Mythbuntu or LinuxMCE). Is this a card that I would want to put in a media center? I guess I'm looking for something that will take some strain off my CPU (for MPEG2 and encoding/decoding different formats?). I won't be using any Blue Ray at first, but it is something I would like to add in the future. Also, I have a Sony Handycam HDR-SR11 which uses the MPEG4 AVC/H.264 (I guess that requires a lot of resources to view/reencode?)
I'm not seeing where this card fits at its current price. The price difference between most entry-level 9500GT cards is minuscule, it's still full-width so it's not really targeting the HTPC crowd, and with rebates it's almost 2x last years 8600GT (2x stream processors, DDR3 memory) that would easily trump it. It's even pretty easy to grab a 9600GSO for well less than this card (though size and power draw is no longer comparable).
Something tells me this will end up being sold in volume to OEM system builders to use as their first-step-up on low-end desktop builds for folks who think they need a discrete video card but don't know enough to pick one with a good price/performance ratio.
Another teensy problem is that, at least for Linux, the NVidia driver is completely unready to support it. The graphics system will only run in generic mode, disabling hi-res and dual head installations. What c**p.
Hey is this card good,i mean can u play crysis "near smoothly" at least on it??Coz it says here it isn't exactly "a crysis killer".plz reply if any1 has any idea...