NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 220: 40nm and DX10.1 for the Low-End
by Ryan Smith on October 12, 2009 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Palit’s GT 220 Sonic Edition
As we mentioned in our introduction, for today’s launch we have a GT 220 graciously provided by Palit, in the form of their $79 GT 220 Sonic Edition. This card is ever so slightly factory overclocked, coming in at 650MHz for the core (a 4% overclock), a standard 1360MHz for the shaders, and 900MHz for its GDDR3 memory. As this is a GDDR3 card, it comes with 512MB of RAM.
As far as we know, this is as close to a reference cooler as you’re going to see for the GT 220, as we’ve seen this cooler on a couple other product brochures. It’s a rectangular single-slot height heatsink, with a fan mounted above it. This makes the entirety of the cooler wider than a single slot, and in practice this is a dual-slot card even if it’s not officially classified as such. The fan used is a simple two pin fan, so it blows at a fixed rate.
The 4 memory chips on this card are Qimonda HYB18H1G321AF-10. We haven’t been able to find the precise specs for that specific memory chip, but we believe it’s rated for 1000MHz, 100MHz over the operating speed of the card. We’re somewhat curious where Palit is getting these chips though, since Qimonda ceased production 6 months ago amidst bankruptcy. Apparently there’s a stockpile of these things somewhere.
Since it’s a low-power card, the overall design of the GT 220 Sonic Edition is rather simple compared to the complex beasts we see on the high-end. Nothing except the GT216 core itself is cooled, and we know that Palit is using solid OS-CON capacitors.
The port layout for this card is 1 HDMI port, 1 VGA port, and 1 DVI port, which appears to be the standard for the GT 220. With one of each port type, Palit’s GT220 Sonic Edition does not come with any port dongles. For that matter, the only other thing you’ll find in the box is a basic manual and driver CD (190.45).
| Form Factor | GT 220 Sonic 512MB | GT 220 1GB DDR3 | GT 220 1GB DDR2 | GT 220 512MB DDR2 |
| Stream Processors | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
| Texture Address / Filtering | 16 / 16 | 16 / 16 | 16 / 16 | 16 / 16 |
| ROPs | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Core Clock | 650MHz | 635MHz | 635MHz | 635MHz |
| Shader Clock | 1360MHz | 1360MHz | 1360MHz | 1360MHz |
| Memory Clock | 900MHz | 790MHz | 400MHz |
400MHz |
| Memory Bus Width | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Frame Buffer | 512MB | 1GB | 1GB | 512MB |
| Transistor Count | 486M | 486M | 486M | 486M |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm |
| Price Point | $79 | ? | ? | ? |
Palit will be releasing three other GT 220 cards, in the other configurations that NVIDIA is allowing. These will be two DDR2-equiped cards with 512MB or 1GB of memory running at 400MHz, and a 1GB DDR3 card with its memory running at 790MHz. We don’t have these other cards on-hand, but based on the performance data supplied by Palit, the DDR3 card should be within 10% of the Sonic Edition, and the DDR2 card will be around 60% the speed.
Finally, Palit’s cards should be available from Newegg starting on Tuesday. Palit retreated from the North American market earlier this year to reorganize, so this marks the resumption of their North American retail sales.
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chizow - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Of course, discerning consumers know better and demand new architectures! It wouldn't make any sense to accept old parts and rebadges that offer 2x the performance at a lower price!yacoub - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
er, 8800GT. fingers...poohbear - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
man i never thought i'd be saying this, but nvidia needs to get their shiat together!!! we need competition!!! they're getting trashed by AMD, what happened to em?Souleet - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Everybody know NVIDIA is downplaying until they see how well Window 7 will be. Plus ATI releasing 5800 series with DX.11(software/games not going to be compatible with it until 2011).formulav8 - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Huh? The new Radeons are compatible with every game the old radeons and geforce cards are and much better/faster.And there is a small list of games with DX11 features being released very soon that ONLY the new radeons can take advantage of.
And nVdia isn't downplaying anything. They simply DO NOT have a answer to ATI's new cards at this time. And apprently it won't be till the first part of next year that they will have their answer.
Why I keep seeing people trying to downplay nvidia's faults is beyond me?
Jason
Souleet - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Well I guess we have to wait and see. You cannot assume they do not have the answer. It is not the right time to release something at the caliber yet. I'm not bias but it seem that people are saying that ATI have won but there is no facts/comparison. Sure you can compare ATI 5800 series to the GT295/275(old graphic) but I think everybody want to see GT300 series face off with 5800 series. Remember what happen to ATI when NVIDIA came out with SLI? ATI release crossfire(not innovated) just to try and match NVIDIA instead of creating something more innovated. ATI never had a solution to defeat SLI and that is the fact.JarredWalton - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
I wouldn't say ATI has "won", but they are currently leading. NVIDIA isn't releasing Fermi right now because they can't -- they don't have the hardware ready. The card shown was a mock-up part, and you don't use a fake card if you have real product ready. All signs are Jan/Feb 2010 for the GT300 release. That gives ATI a full four months of being the ONLY DX11 GPU supplier, right at a major buying time for consumers. NVIDIA isn't out by any stretch of the imagination -- just as ATI wasn't out with the 2000 and 3000 series, and NVIDIA weathered the FX 5000 times. Short-term, though, this has to be hurting.On the other hand, I can say that NVIDIA is the way to go on virtually any gaming laptop right now. ATI has some competitive parts, yes, but I wouldn't touch them until they get reference drivers for all major parts on their site. Depending on laptop manufacturers for driver updates is a really bad idea, and NVIDIA thankfully addressed that area a while back.
brybir - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Your statement is only partially true.There are several games that have some DirectX 11 features out right now. Perhaps the more accurate thing to say is that DirectX 11 will not see feature set adoption en mass until sometime in 2011.
I think ATI somewhat admits this as they spent a good deal of time tweaking some of its driver and hardware features to boost the performance of directX 9 engine games. There was something about that on Anand a few weeks ago about that.
BenSkywalker - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
You show the 9600GSO winning the majority of the benches you decided to allow it to take part in, it is cheaper then the 4670, and the 4670 is the clear winner?Why do you bother quoting the price of the 9600GT when you refused to show benchmarks for it?
Right now on the Egg you can get a 9600GSO for $40 AR, $60 before rebate. The article may be right in terms of the parts that are launching being a bad value, but more then anything that is because of how soundly they are bested by nV's existing parts- which are already faster and cheaper then the 4670.
Ryan Smith - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
It's one of those 96SP GSOs based on G92. We include for reference only; you can't buy them any more (and the 96SP model listed on Newegg is wrong, it's a 48SP model).