Point of View GeForce 9400 GT 1024 MB Wall-E Edition

[W1zzard]

NVIDIA's new GeForce 9400 GT Series is based on the same G96 GPU that is also used on the 9500 GT. The 9400 GT has half the shaders however, which seriously limits the uses of the card in a gaming PC. On the other hand this greatly reduces the heat output which allows a completely passive solution. Point of View differentiates their card by using 1 GB of video memory and bundling a full version of the Wall-E game.

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[newtekie1]

This card is in no way worth even considering. I'm sorry to say it. The slow ass DDR2 cuts the performance, despite having twice the amount. 1024MB is useless on a card of this class.

At $79, even with the game, this card isn't worth it. $79 is up in the 9600GSO range, and the 9600GSO eats this card for lunch. In fact newegg has an eVGA 9600GSO for $89.99 with a $10 MIR that brings the price down to $79.99. And I've already seen the Wall-E game in the bargin bin at my local Circuit City for $5, and it can be had for $20 regularly, so it doesn't really add a whole lot of value to the card.

Very nice review though W1z, I'm truly am thankful for you reviews. They are the most detailed and indepth I have come across.

 

[Sasqui]

Ditto - great review(s), thorough and consistent.

Yea, the 1GB of memory appears to have little, if any effect, even at 1920x1200. Was just looking at a 3650 on Newegg, pay less ($59 AR) and get more power than this.

 

[btarunr]

Being part of the Wall-E franchise, it will sell. People would pick one of the toystore rack (if it makes it there).

 

[Dark_Webster]

At least you could bench the card with the included game .

 

[Darkrealms]

At least you could bench the card with the included game .

Thats exactly what I thought when I read the title : )

Sadly this one is FAIL. Not that I've ever heard of the brand but you can pickup a 9600GT by KFA2 for that price after rebate http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162007. And other brands that I trust for under the $100 mark.

btarunr, I think you are 100% right on that, people just don't pay attention to details : (

 

[W1zzard]

At least you could bench the card with the included game .

the game has no benchmark mode afaik. is not really demanding and i am too lazy to bench 20 cards with it to get all the comparison numbers

 

[OnBoard]

Palit uses a big passive cooler without fan. Its large surface area dissipates the little heat that is generated by the G96 GPU easily, even without much air flow around the VGA card.

Page 4. Should be Point of View.

No PhysX tests, was hoping to see some as these could be good for it (and just it).

 

[W1zzard]

fixed the palit<->pov confusion.

afaik physx just works. there is no slow or fast physx. also it only works on nvidia

 

[OnBoard]

fixed the palit<->pov confusion.

afaik physx just works. there is no slow or fast physx. also it only works on nvidia

I keep reading this kind of posts, so it would be nice to know for certain:

i have experience in using the following cards as physx card:

8400gs just TO LOW AND WEAK TO HANDLE IT
8600gt faster that the 8400gs but kinda low
xfxf 9600gt xxx edition (Amazing increase in performance)

He was playing UT3 physx maps with 9800GTX as main card.

Now for old ageia physx games every supported nvidia card should be enough, but is that how future physx games are going to be. Did they just add whole punch of physx to those UT3 maps to demonstrate it and no physx game coming is going to be so demanding.

Maybe they'll add low, medium and high physx settings to future games. IMO it just loses it's point if a cheap passive card isn't enough, no way I'm keeping my 8800GT as a physx card

Warmonger works perfectly fine with just my 8800GT doing graphics+physics and it's UT3 based. Maybe the UT3 PhysX Mod is just bugged, we need more games to know better.

 

[Mussels]

'relative performance' is a great addition to the 'performance per watt' and 'performance per $'

seriously, do not ever stop doing those.


The problem with physx atm, is that it seems based on a 'percentage' of the cards power.
Lets say it uses 10% of the GPU power, that might be more than enough from a 9600GT - but 10% of a 9400GT isnt going to cut it.
Nvidia just needs updated drivers designed to support cards that use 100% of available power for physics as an add on, and it'll be fine.

 

[OnBoard]

The problem with physx atm, is that it seems based on a 'percentage' of the cards power.
Lets say it uses 10% of the GPU power, that might be more than enough from a 9600GT - but 10% of a 9400GT isnt going to cut it.
Nvidia just needs updated drivers designed to support cards that use 100% of available power for physics as an add on, and it'll be fine.

That makes sense if it's true. Might just be that there is only one setting of how much GPU power to use for PhysX and that is used for single, dual and add-on card setups. Hope that's the case and better drivers follow.

 

[Mussels]

i guessed thats what was happening based on the fluidmark bench tests and in game testing, where people had higher FPS in SLi W/ physx than one card doing each - one doing each resulted in a lot slower physx power overall.