Ab Work Outs: EVGA nVidia GeForce GT 220 1 GB DDR3 DVI/HDMI PCI-Express Video Card 01G-P3-1226-LR Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I recently purchased the GT 220 to replace an old 8800 GT that had finally died on me after being used in two seprate computers. I decided to stick with EVGA/nVidia since my old card lasted a long time and did not disappoint. So far so good on this one. First off it was an upgrade over my old 8800 GT. This computer ran WoW, Alpha Protocol and Oblivion fine on the old card. However the old card couldn't really max them out. On the GT 220 all three games either look much better or run much smoother now. One minor issue some folks may have is that this card only has one DVI connector in addition to an old VGA connector. This seemed like an odd design choice to me as most newer monitors run on DVI now. VGA to DVI adapters are also easy to get and fairly cheap if you really need one. As a result of having only one connector it's possible that this card is unable to run a duel monitor setup. I only use one monitor myself so I have no way to test this. However it's something to keep in mind just in case. On the flipside the card does have a connector for HDMI. Just be aware that if you run Windows 7 that your system might try to auto install drivers for HDMI audio and override any kind of intergrated audio chipset that may be on your motherboard. This mainly has to do with BIOS settings and is really no fault on the part of EVGA or nVidia. It's a very easy fix but you may want to have someone that knows computers handy if you aren't overly tech savvy yourself. No point in paying $50 to install/fix something that should only take about 10-15 at the most.

This card also comes with EVGA Precision (an overclocking utility). Unlike most companies EVGA has no problems with overclocking your card and will not void your warranty if you do so. Now the average user may not have a use for this. However if you know what you are doing it's a good way to squeeze even more performance out of this card. Amazingly at my current settings (735 core clock, 1490 shader clock, 825 memory clock and 90% fan speed) the card rarely goes past 55 degrees C. Even when it has it's only maxed out at about 58. On the factory settings the card normally maxes out at about 53 while playing a game so overall it's not much more strain. Plus the fan is super quiet even at nearly full speed. As always just keep in mind that results with overclocking will vary and that you do so at your own risk.

All in all you really can't go wrong with this card if you don't have much to spend. A few minor issues keeps it from being a solid five star rating. However an affordable price as well as great performance more than make up for it. If you need a good balance between performance and affordability then look no further than this card.

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Product Description:
The features of the GT 220 01G-P3-1226-LR include the GeForce GT 220 (625 MHz core clock) chipset, 1024 MB of DDR3 memory with a 1580 MHz memory clock, 128 bit memory width, 1.2 ns speed and 25.28 GB per second memory bandwidth, 1360 MHz shader clock, PCI-Express 2.0 compatibility, DVI-I, VGA and HDMI interfaces. Additional performance-enhancing features include a DVI-I output, second generation Unified Shader Architecture, NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology, NVIDIA PhysX ready, NVIDEA CUDAand Open GL 3.1 support, Windows XP and Windows Vista support. This product comes with a one year warranty with an additional year free if registered at within 30 days of purchase.

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