Very recently we looked at ATI's latest 'mainstream' graphics card offering, the HD 4670, and also briefly touched on nVidia's competing circa £60 part in the same article. Putting aside, for a moment, which was actually better, the overwhelming point that took away from reviewing those cards was just how much graphical processing power you can get for £60. If only the state of PC gaming wasn't in massive decline at the moment I'd be inclined to hail this as a truly great era for the PC gamer.
I digress, though. For today I'm not here to discuss the whys and wherefores of the PC gaming industry. Instead I'm going to take a look at what spending around £40 on a graphics card will get you. Specifically I'll be picking apart ATI's new HD 4550 and nVidia's new 9400 GT.
Now both cards are actually quite difficult to buy as very few shops and e-tailers seem to be stocking them. There are, however, a few places with cards available and based on those few shops it seems the HD 4550 is the more expensive of the two, costing as it does around £45. The 9400 GT, meanwhile, can be had for as little as £35.
Of course, raw cost is not the most important figure. What's most significant is your price/performance ratio. So if the HD 4550 outperforms the 9400 GT by double then it has a higher price:performance ratio and would get our recommendation. So that's what we'll be looking at a bit later on.
Also, important to consider is the other multimedia capabilities of these cards. With HD video nearing ubiquity, you don't want to be left behind with a graphics card (and/or CPU) that can't cope with playing back HD video. This is obviously of particular importance if you're thinking of equipping your Media Center PC with one of these low cost cards but is also something to consider if you're just looking for a new card for your all-rounder desktop PC. Thankfully with the advances that both nVidia and ATI have been making recently in this area, both these cards will cope quite happily playing back all the usual HD formats, leaving your CPU free to perform other tasks - all you need to do now is buy a Blu-ray drive and a few discs to play.
The most obvious thing about this card is that it's half height so straight away should appeal to those looking to add some graphics power to their sleek low-profile Media Center box. The review sample we were given didn't include a half height backing platet but retail samples should include these in the box (we know Sapphire's version of this card does) - you might want to double check before buy one, though.
Another area where you'll likely see differences in final retail products is the Heatsink/Fan (HSF). Being such a relatively low-power card there's potential to have passively cooled versions, whereas the sample we have uses a fan assisted cooler. Thankfully noise levels from this cooler are not too bad with it emitting a fairly constant, gentle, relatively high-pitched hum that should be mostly blocked out when hidden inside a case.
It also seemed to keep the card plenty cool enough. Even during a run through of our Crysis demo, the heatsink and back of the card were only warm to the touch - as opposed to the scalding hot we've come to expect from more powerful cards.
As you might expect for such a low-power card, it doesn't require any additional power connections as it draws all its power from the PCI-Express slot. It also means you won't have to upgrade your power supply just to play the latest games.
Video connection options will vary according to the actual retail card you buy, but the sample we were given had a healthy trio of DVI, S-Video, and VGA outputs. The DVI can be used in conjunction with a DVI-to-HDMI dongle (something which, again, should be included with most retail cards) to easily connect to your TV. This HDMI connection can also be used to pass the audio signal from your computer to your TV.
The chip that lies at the heart of the HD 4550 is known as the R710. It's derived from the same chip that powers the entire HD 4x00 range so has all the same principle features including support for DirectX10.1, the aforementioned HD video decoding, and in the future will support the ever increasing number of applications that use the power of graphics cards to accelerate everyday tasks (the Adobe CS4 suite being the most high-profile example). What makes this card cost £45 and other cards cost £200 is the number of those number crunching components.
Most notably the number of stream processors (the core processing parts of the GPU) is far less than ATI's other cards, as is the number of texture processing units and ROPs. Essentially this card will let you run most games at low resolutions and, where needed, lower in-game detail settings to get a consistently playable framerate.
Whereas the HD 4550 marked itself out as being half-height, the 9400 GT does exactly the opposite. For such a low-power card we were surprised to see it utilise a full-height PCB. Not that this should be a problem for most users but anyone with a low-profile case will have to look elsewhere. Also, this is something that will vary depending on which exact card you buy. Sparkle, for one, does a low-profile version of this card.
Thankfully, the card isn't quite so big and powerful as to require extra power connections so, again, any motherboard with a PCI-Express slot will be able to handle this card.
You may notice the yellow sticker on the top edge of the board. This covers an SLI connector and has the words 'Do not tear off the sticker SLI bridge is not supported' written on it, which rather says it all. This makes it abundantly obvious the 9400 GT is using an existing PCB for a card that would normally support SLI but the chip has just been replaced with the 9400 GT. It also goes some way to explain why this particular card is full-height.
The cooler is also an indicator of the rushed approach to the design of this particular card. Like the HD 4550, the 9400 GT can be kept cool enough with just a heatsink and can do without a fan. For this version, though, the manufacturer has just tacked on a cheap HSF. In fairness, the fan isn't very noisy, though it is markedly louder than the HD4550 when under load.
Video outputs are exactly the same as the HD4550 with DVI, VGA, and S-Video all supported.
Inno3D is the maker of the card we're looking at today so we can actually make a judgement on its retail credentials. Unfortunately they don't make for great reading. As well as the issues with the size of the card and the HSF, the bundle is quite poor. There's only an S-Video to Composite cable and driver CD included in the box. No DVI-to-HDMI dongle, no DVI-to-VGA dongle, no games, nada. While the 9400 GT chip may still be worth a look, this particular version is probably best avoided.
The 9400 GT chip itself is unsurprisingly lowly when it comes to sheer grunt. With only 16 shader units (remember these aren't directly comparable with the shaders on ATI's cards) and eight ROPs. Without further ado, let's look at what those numbers mean when it comes to real world performance.
For testing we ran through our usual set of gaming tests and also measured the power draw of our test bed with each card installed. The test setup is as follows:
Common System Components
- Intel Core 2 Quad QX9770
- Asus P5E3
- 2GB Corsair TWIN3X2048-1333C9 DDR3
- 150GB Western Digital Raptor
- Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
- ATI HD 4550
- nVidia GeForce 9400GT
- Crysis
- Race Driver: GRID
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
- Call of Duty 4
- Counter-Strike: Source
It's testament to just how much work both nVidia and ATI have been putting into their drivers in the last few years that we experienced absolutely no stability problems when installing and using either of these cards. Both also managed to remain cool and quiet throughout our testing even when under extended periods of heavy work load. Obviously if you opt for one of the passively cooled versions of either of these cards you'll need to ensure there is at least a modicum of airflow to allow hot air to escape but any normal sized desktop PC should provide this.
Unfortunately, when we look at performance the reason for the low price of these cards becomes all too apparent. Both cards struggle to maintain playable framerates even at the relatively lowly resolutions we've tested at. In particular the 9400 GT really stuggled with only Counter-Strike: Source proving playable.
In fairness, in all but Crysis, we did run our tests at the maximum in-game detail settings, which won't have helped framerates. Indeed, by experimenting with resolutions and detail settings we were able to get playable framerates with both cards in all games, even if it meant dropping to 800x600. Obviously the visual experience at that sort of resolution isn't great but it's better than nothing.
As for power, it's not surprising to see that both these cards veritably sip energy. What is interesting, though, is the HD 4550 consumes less power both at idle and when under load even though it outperforms the 9400 GT.
So, it would seem there's a clear winner here today. The HD 4550 is faster and consumes less power than the 9400 GT. However, when you factor in the cost of these two cards, the decision is less clear cut. With the HD 4550 costing around £10 more than some versions of the 9400 GT, there's a good argument for getting either. Conversely, who can't spare an extra £10? I guess the choice is yours.
Verdict
All games use custom timedemos or manual run-throughs with framerates recorded by FRAPs. All games except Crysis used maximum in-game detail settings but with transparency anti-aliasing (adaptive anti-aliasing) turned off. For Crysis we turned all in-game settings to medium.
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