The GeForce 9400 GT: Now available passively-cooled and PCI

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 3:39 am

For the longest time, Tom's Hardware has had the following note on their monthly "Best Graphics Cards for the Money" article.

The Radeon HD 3850 is, frankly, a curiously powerful card for the aging AGP bus. It’s a bit too powerful, in fact, to be properly utilized on the single-core CPUs that are typically paired with this platform.

Maybe it's a sign of laziness that they haven't noticed these cards, which seem hilariously overpowered - for AGP, let alone PCI!

Passively-cooled 9X00 on PCI at a sub-$80 price point - that's the world turned upside down, right there. Maybe there's some use for energy-conscious consumers who really can't let that dual PIII machine go? Actually, given the Geforce 8X00 and 9X00 series' infamous heat problems, I'm astonished anything from those lines can be passively cooled.

Edit: GeForce 9500 too!

trivial · Post by **trivial** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 4:32 am

A dual Tualatin P/// uses 56 watts before even accounting for the chipset. A single-die dually with IMC can be more efficient even in absolute wattage, nevermind performance/watt.

I was surprised they made AGP 7600 cards; a PCI 9400 is beyond ridiculous.

BryanM · Post by **BryanM** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 5:32 am

* There was This Guy who spent over $1000 on his pentium 3 so far.

* As a primary gaming card, they're not really usable at all - Starcraft 2'll be a 3 frame a second slideshow, and that ain't no way to be gosu.

* It's bullshit that manufacturers make neutered motherboards without PCIe slots.

* I think the only thing these are usable for, for sane people, are flight simulators or guys who really need to play Warcraft 2 on nine screens.

* I like asterisks.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 7:20 am

BryanM wrote:* I think the only thing these are usable for, for sane people, are flight simulators or guys who really need to play Warcraft 2 on nine screens.

It actually should be useful for DVD decoding - of course it looks to me like you gotta buy PureVideo separate because nVidia is run by dicks. But in theory it should let you play HD content that the system itself can't handle. Might be good for somebody putting together an HTPC, I guess!

These might be okay for running an old Windows game that doesn't play nice with a newer operating system, but then you'll get into trouble with driver support - some games from the heyday of AGP were broken before this card even got its drivers.

trivial wrote:A dual Tualatin P/// uses 56 watts before even accounting for the chipset. A single-die dually with IMC can be more efficient even in absolute wattage, nevermind performance/watt.

I actually have a dual 650 MHz machine; I've never plugged it in and for that reason I'm still not especially likely to.

Performance per watt with the old systems is quite scandalous.

trivial · Post by **trivial** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 7:38 am

Ed Oscuro wrote:I actually have a dual 650 MHz machine

heh, back in 2002 I encountered a 5-gal steel pail full of Pentium Pro processors. I had to give this a good think-through before not buying:

1.) several single-cpu mobos to successively let the smoke out of with shot PPros
2.) an 8-way server board to overclock with a crystal swap, allowing its time/date stamps to stay out of sync with the world forever

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:02 am

lool, nowadays they'd be trying to sell 'em for the gold content. At least that's what all the eBay auctions say. Wonder why the sellers never tried it...

For what it's worth, I have a Proliant 6500 with just a single PPro in it.

I used to waste a lot of money on stuff I never had a use for

That's still true, but at least arcade flyers look good and don't break people's backs carrying 'em around. Proliant 6500 = 90 pounds or so.