NVIDIA's recent introduction of 40 nm graphics processors is a wise move from the company's standpoint, as it allows the company to take baby-steps on the new silicon fabrication technology. The company started off with two entry-level GPUs in the GeForce 210 and GeForce GT 220, and has gradually upscaled them. This release marks the company's first graphics card to make use of the GDDR5 memory standard, which is twice as fast as GDDR3, clock-for-clock. To begin with, the GeForce GT 240 does come across as noteworthy, perhaps not because of its initial price, which history has shown to have little bearing on a product's performance on the shelves, but that it is able to deliver decent performance levels for the amount of power it consumes, perhaps a fruition of the 40 nm process.
The GeForce GT 240 found its arch-rival in the Radeon HD 4670. While it manages to outperform the Radeon in lower resolutions, the performance increment goes down with increase in resolution. At 1680 x 1050, the performance dips below that of its competitor, and interestingly then, increases with the resolution, although the card's performance levels then lose relevance with today's games. The GeForce GT 240 also edges past the GeForce 9600 GT, the 50% higher shader core count comes to its rescue. The GeForce 9600 GT seems to benefit from its higher number of raster operation units. In simple terms, while older games seem to perform well on the 9600 GT, newer, shader-intensive games benefit from the more powerful shader domain of the GeForce GT 240.
Thanks to the new 40 nm process, the card does not require an additional power connector. The lower power draw also translates to cooler operation. This is where MSI seems to have fumbled, with a noisy GPU cooler, which is unpleasantly loud when idling. Since the card lacks a concrete fan-speed control, the card maintains this noise-level throughout. With a reworked HDMI audio logic, the card is able to relay audio from the system's audio device without the need for any additional cable. While it makes life easier, I would still like it to be similar to AMD's GPUs, which have audio controllers integrated into the GPUs.
The MSI GeForce GT 240 would make for a decent buy for a cool, low-power graphics card that can handle games at medium-thru-low resolutions, if only it had a better price. With GeForce 9800 GT accelerators easily available around the $100 mark, the $105 price-tag simply doesn't cut it. Hopefully, the prices will come down in the near future.