ASUS ENGT240 GDDR5 Review

As enthusiasts, we're always interested in the latest monster video cards: the expensive, high-end products that blast through benchmarks and play all your games with buttery-smooth frame rates at the highest resolutions with all the settings maxed out- and sucking a not inconsiderable amount of electricity while doing so! But these products represent only a tiny fraction of the number of video cards sold; the low-to-mid-end cards comprise the bulk of the market. Besides, a GTX285 or Radeon 5870 isn't the ideal solution for every situation: considerations from a limited budget to building a small, quiet system come into play. NVIDIA has been filling out the low-middle end of their video card product line lately, and in this article Benchmark Reviews tests the ASUS ENGT240/DI/512MD5/A video card equipped with with NVIDIA's new GeForce GT240 GPU and 512M of GDDR5 memory.

The ASUS ENGT240 is a new product only in the sense that it's now available at the retail level; a slightly higher-spec version, the GTS 240, has been available for some time as an "OEM only" part restricted to systems builders. Despite its "GT240" designation, this is not a card based on NVIDIA's newer GT200 GPU like the 260, 270, 280 and 290 series cards; it's based on the older G92 series processors previously used in NVIDIA's 8x00 and 9x00 series cards, albeit rendered in a spiffy new 40 nanometer process that keeps the die size small, yields up, and power and heat levels down. With 96 stream processors, the ASUS ENGT240 seems to slot in neatly between the 9600GT (64 processors) and the 9800GT with 112 processors, but must make do with a 128-bit memory interface while the 9600/9800 have a 256 bit interface.

The low-mid range video card market is much more crowded than the high-end market: while only a few cards exist in the $300-and-up segment, there are dozens in the sub-$200 segment, often with overlapping prices, features, and performance, and this is where the ASUS ENGT240 is competing. Read on to see how it compares and whether it's a card you should consider.

About ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

ASUS, a technology-oriented company with a global staff of more than ten thousand and blessed with one of the world's top R&D teams, is renowned for high-quality products and cutting-edge innovation. As a leading company in the new digital era, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium.

ASUS has an unyielding commitment to innovation and quality, a fact borne out by its corporate slogan-"Inspiring Innovation - Persistent Perfection"-and the numerous media, industry and governmental accolades it receives every year. In 2008, ASUS won 3,056 awards-receiving over 8 awards on average every day. The company's revenue for the same year was 8.1 billion U.S. dollars, and it topped the IT Hardware Category of the annual league table of Taiwan's Top 10 Global Brands with a brand value of 1.324 billion U.S. dollars. ASUS also ranks among the top 10 IT companies in Business Week's "InfoTech 100", and has been on the listing for 11 consecutive years.

Inspired by the diverse needs of consumers in all areas and phases of life, ASUS' foremost mission is to deliver truly innovative solutions that in turn inspire consumers to reach for greater heights of productivity and fun. By leveraging its intimate understanding of the requirements of today's digital home, digital office and digital person, ASUS has the honor of claiming many world's firsts-such as the introduction of the groundbreaking Eee PCTM, the ingenious use of renewable materials like leather and bamboo in notebooks and the incorporation of its proprietary power-saving Super Hybrid Engine technology into its notebooks and motherboards. By pioneering many new innovations, trends and technologies that have had a genuine impact on its customers' lives and the Earth at large, ASUS hopes to garner mindshare as well as market share.

To succeed in the ultra-competitive IT industry, ASUS focuses on speed-to-market, cost and service. That is why every ASUS employee strives to master the "ASUS Way of Total Quality Management" in order to fulfill the "Persistent Perfection" promise of the brand. Guided by these precepts, ASUS has developed a strong advantage in product design, technology, quality and value/cost. These advantages in turn constitute ASUS' formula for success-allowing marketing to communicate these strengths to win our consumers' hearts.

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