just wait for after holidays for price to drop... or if you want to wait a little more until the new nvidia GPU come out prices from all other cards will plummet... november `1st had hd5850 for 259$ today you cant find one under 300$... too high demand = they raise prices..

I'm still puzzled why Nvidia still insists on releasing overpriced cards with lower performance than older cards. I mean, do they think nobody is gonna read the reviews and rush and purchase the card like it's the last card on earth? Re-branding is also another misleading thing but seems to be working in many cases. Why should I buy a 9800 series card when the GT250 is out? C'mon, when they will stop all this nonsense?
Ati already showed what the 5xxx series can do now it's time for Nvidia to come up with an ace.
Competition is good as long as either sides are not trying to deceive the customer.

the problem is that when you say you can pay $30 or $40 and get a radeon 5750 or something you usually end up paying at least $75 for a power supply that can handle the 5750 etc.

??? you can get a very high quality PSU that will run the 5750 ( and the like) for $50.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008

Actually. I think this may be the best card available for my situation. And that is a shuttle XPC that couldn't even squeeze in the 8800GT.

I'm currently using a 8600GT (I know.. I know..) which is the largest card that can fit and I'm struggling to find an upgrade. You guys should do a 'Best Compact Graphics Card' article.

I own several cards at the moment because I am building some custom rigs for a few people, among the cards I’m tinkering with now is ATI 4650 1GB DDR2, ATI 4670 1GB DDR2, ATI 3850 512 MB (256bit) DDR3, and a GT 240 1GB DDR3, I have overclocked all of them to their max capabilities the 4650 & 4670 are practically the same exact card o/c to 800MHz core 1066 MHz memory, the 3850 even though has a 256 bit bus still is 2 generations old and even in their hay day wasn’t all that good of a card. But the GT 240, i wish was the DDR5 version, still I was able to go from stock 550/1348/750 to 675/1800/925 which was an amazing overclock! At those speeds I benched and tested that card, at simply killed the 9800GT & the 4770!



System: Modified DELL Inspiron 530
CPU: Intel E3300 OC @ 3.33GHz - 1.25v
Motherboard: Foxxcon G33
Memory 2x 1GB PC2-6400 Crucial 4-4-4-12
Graphics Card: GeForce GTS 240 OC 675/1800/975
Hard Drive 3X Western Digital 7200rpm 16MB cache 320GB SATA-II/300
Sound System: Antec Lansing P401 400w 5.1 Sound
PSU: Antec Earthwatts 500w
Stock Case from DELL
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Sharp 22" 1080p TV & PC Monitor

it is a very good card considering there is not requirement for a power connection other than the pci-e lane. most of the other cards being compared to it require an other power connection. This is a good card for someone who can not get a 9600gt or a 9800gt because they cant power them.

I've an HP desktop, with a small PSU and low profile slots, Whose on board graphics need improving - It's between the DDR3 GT 240 and the HD 5570 from ATI because as far as I'm aware they are the best cards I can get in the UK as low profile and low power.

So which is better - a GT 240 or the HD 5570?

shame I've not been able to find a low profile DDR5 GT 240 in the UK?

The 240 has the performance edge , unless DX 11 is an important feature to you. however the 5570 is not really powerful enough to take advantage of DX 11 features. in short the 240 GT would suit you better.

I think "size" is the reason why nVidia came up with this model. I'm looking to buy a small computer for gaming and home theatre. Shuttle XPC looks like the only small gaming computer out there, and GT 240 is on their option list.

I hope this card is good enough for Dead Rising 2. There will be thousands of zombies on screen...

The GT 210 has 16 processor cores, the 220 has 48, the 240 has 96 and the 260 has 192 to 216. Nvidia cards support CUDA that allows the graphic processors to be used for parallel processing. Also, the 200 series come with an HDMI port for a one-cable audio and video connection to HDTV's. The GT 240 on sale is a good starter card for CUDA data processing or using with a Linux OS like Element to convert an old PC into a home theater PC (HTPC) box with an HDMI cable port.

omg you guys don't know **** about this card! i mean this is far better than the 9800GT which is a DDR3 card and the GT240 is a GDDR5 and is a lot faster! and the GT240 came 17th in the top 20 gaming cards while the 9800gt came 19th!
and benchmarks say all. i tested the 9800gt and the GT240 on the same PC and the GT240 had greater FPS and it came to my attention that the 9800gt wasn't able to run GTA 4 on max (it was but with lag) and the GT240 did just fine.

NECRO ALERT!

Before you go around telling people (and experienced people at that) that they don't know ****, perhaps you should 'learn some **** yourself.
Equipping a card with GDDR5 does not automatically make it faster than another card. there are many other considerations that make up the speed and throughput of a GPU...or any other electronic component for that matter. Like shader units,ROP's, Texture units, bus width , etc so on, and so forth.

What was the criteria for this list?, it certainly was not frame rates. The GT 240 in any form gets its *** beat by the GT 9800 across the board.

yes they do....why don't you try reading them? why...there is one right here at TS that shows the GT 240 coming in behind the GT 9800 in every single bench run.

You really should learn how to benchmark....because you are the only one to reach that conclusion.

Well aside from the fact that GTA IV is one of the most CPU dependent games in recent memory, do you live in some time bending black hole whereby electronic devices mysteriously change their properties and characteristics when they land in your hands?

Oh here is another mystery... here is the Palit GT 240, equipped with a full 1GB of blazing GDDR5, losing to a lowly GT 9800 that only has a measly 512MB of GDDR3....but how can this be!! oh the humanity!
(hint) adding an extra 512MB of memory to VGA's of this low end of the spectrum is useless in practice...it's just to make you feel good when your buddy has the 512MB version. See there?...you learned something.

and I leave you with the quoted conclusion from PC Perspective's review of both the GDDR3 and GDDR5 version of the GT 240;