Purchasing a novel graphic card has by no means been more complicated and bewildering than it is these days. Even though there are only two major companies in the graphics chipset manufacturing arena (nVIDIA and ATi), but the market is hectic with a variety of Graphical Processing Units (GPU) that have colossal price differences, and much related names.Manufacturers know that most computer enthusiasts are not gamers, and of those who game, only small portions are “hardcore” enough to keep buying those high-end pricy graphic cards every six months. This is the reason why most manufacturers intelligently focused on the low-to-mid end graphic card markets. With the launch of Geforce 6800 and ATI x800, low end cards are no where to be seen. Even mid range cards are being labeled low ends now.
Installing this card was hassle free. It took me just a few seconds to plug it in and I’m booting up in no time. As mentioned earlier, this card doesn’t require additional power source. Therefore the need of additional molex connectors was unnecessary. This would probably be one of the powerful cards that doesn’t require additional power source. So, there is no worry for you in changing to a better PSU when getting this card. With all this said, I’m sure you’d be eager to know how this performed right?Taking into consideration the performance of the Inno3D Tornado and since it’s a budget graphic card that retails for just US$93, I am very pleased with the results. Often the it is able to outperform of the much more lower end Winfast GeForceFX 5200 which happened to be a 128bit card.
Looking at the card you know that Inno3D means business and their Tornado GeForce and it’s easily one of the best value graphic cards I have ever used. If it’s not fast enough for you, with 2.5ns Samsung DRAM and a large copper GPU cooler you can overclock it! The test sample was able to run at 320 MHz core speed and 490 MHz memory. With some better cooling I’m sure the card can perform better!
With TV-Output capabilities, you can hook up your computer to the much larger TV when playing games or doing some Internet surfing. The software bundle is pretty insufficient with only WinDVD and 3DMark03 but that’s not startling considering the price. But the addition of a DVI to analog converter settles the score to use dual displays. Best of all, this graphics card is totally silent! With no fan installed on the heatsink, this graphics card would probably be the most silent series card out in the market.