Zotac GeForce GT 240 in my New DevBox

I updated this weekend my dev box with a brand new X58-based mobo (GIGABYTE X58 A-UD5), a small Core i7 960 (cooled by a Cooler Master V8), a kit of 6x2GB of DDR3 memory and Thermaltake TR2 RX-850 power supply unit.

Some pictures:

Devbox core overview

Motherboard: GIGABYTE X58 A-UD5

CPU: Intel Core i7 960 @ 3.2 GHz

CPU cooler: Cooler Master V8

Memory: Corsair Dominator DDR3 CM3X2G1600C9D6

PSU: Thermaltake TR2 RX 850 Watts

The GIGABYTE X580 mobo is cool because it has a feature I really need: onboard power switch and reset buttons:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE X58 A-UD5

Since I don’t use a case because I frequently need to change graphics cards, these buttons are really useful!

For the graphics card, I’m testting a little GeForce GT 240 from Zotac (in waiting for some GTX 4×0…). This card is nice because it has 96 shader cores (then I can do all 3D I need and if my code run well on such a card, it will run nicely on recent high end cards!), the vga cooler is quiet (even with this small fan) and it doesn’t requires external power supply connectors (TDP: 69W). Low power consumption is important for a card that runs around 12 hours a day…

Graphics card: Zotac GT 240

Zotac GeForce GT 240 – GPU Caps Viewer

Here is a quick overview of Zotac GT 240 raw performance. For that, I used FurMark with the following settings:
– res: 1280×1024
– no MSAA
– fullscreen
– duration: 60sec
– FurMark 1.8.0: Displacement mapping enabled

I used a Core2 E8400 based test bench (Win7 64-bit), with ForceWare 197.15 for GeForce and Catalyst 10.3 for Radeon.

FurMark 1.7.0 scores:

• Zotac GeForce GT 240: 1714 points
• EVGA GeForce GTX 280: 5425 points
• MSI R5770 Hawk: 4331 points
• ATI Radeon HD 5870 (ref. board): 8130 points

FurMark 1.8.0 scores:

• Zotac GeForce GT 240: 919 points
• EVGA GeForce GTX 280: 2985 points
• MSI R5770 Hawk: 2359 points
• ATI Radeon HD 5870 (ref. board): 4523 points

In stability test mode, the GPU temperature reached a max value of 63°C. And even under heavy load, the VGA cooler of the Zotac GT 240 remains quiet.