Consumption and Noise

During our testing, the entire test rig consumed about 71W in idle, and up to 158W during more intensive scenarios. GPU temperatures were at about 32 degrees Celsius in idle, and up to 60 degrees Celsius during intensive tests. We must say that the fan was pretty quiet both in idle and workload scenarios.

Conclusion

We've seen the GT 220 in action, but we can't say that it left grand impressions. After powerful and fast cards such as GTX 260 or GTX 285, we've been expecting a card that will shift the low-end and entry-level segment odds in Nvidia's favor. Judging by what we've seen today, Gainward GT 220 is a good card for those who aren't craving top performance, but it's still priced too high compared to the Geforce 9600GSO. We included the Geforce 9600 GSO in our testing, and as you can see it proves to be much faster in gaming tests.

Geforce GT 220 comes with a 40nm core and DX10.1 is another novelty as well, although less important now that DX11 cards are out. Geforce GT220 is also Nvidia's first card to feature internal HDMI 1.3a standard support, including uncompressed 7.1 channel audio. If you decide to purchase this card, you'll get a native HDMI out, dual-link DVI and VGA out.

Gainward's card should be available priced at about 60 euro. So, if you're looking for a card that consumes less and performs better than the 9500GT, and don't intend on waiting for entry-level DX11 cards, this one's for you.