Sparkle 9400 GT 1024 MB Review
Submitted By Steven on Jul 29 2009 at 1:55 PM
Card Features
The 6.5 inch 9400 GT is hardly a striking piece of hardware. The tiny PCB barely extends beyond the PCI Express X16 connection and its layout, by today's standards, is not very complex at all. This version of the card features a full-height PCB (there are some versions which utilize a half-height PCB, which makes them easier to manage in low-profile systems). The face of the card is largely dominated by the passive cooling system that covers the G96 GPU. This cooling assembly is quite simple and does not make any contact with the eight memory modules. Given that this GPU should be very easy to keep cool, a passive cooling system should be more than capable of handling it. As most cards of this class utilize tiny 40mm cooling fans, which often grow noisy as wear and tear take their toll, the welcomed addition of the passive cooling system to the 9400 GT will keep the card silent throughout its lifespan.
The 9400 GT's display output options, provided by the “SFPX94GT1024U2,” are essentially the industry standard. Included is a single 15-pin VGA D-SUB connection, an 8-pin HDTV/S-Video connection -adaptable to a number of potential uses- and a single dual-link DVI connection. The HDCP compliant DVI connection can be adapted to provide HDMI output. The optional S/PDIF cable allows for 8-channel audio to be processed through the HDMI connection. This can prove quite handy given that the 9400 GT is Nvidia PureVideo HD ready; which makes offloading HD decoding an easy task for media junkies. The simplicity of the 9400 GT carries over onto the rear of the card, in that this angle is largely featureless. The 9400 GT has a rated maximum power consumption of 50 watts and is solely powered through the PCI Express X16 expansion slot.
The heatsink used to cool the G96 graphics processor is simply a large chunk of aluminum, riddled with cooling fins. Secured via four spring-loaded push pins, the little heatsink is fastened to the card. There are two small rubber pads at either end of the heatsink to ensure that it does not shake or wobble when attached to the graphics card. Although the design could not be any more simple, Sparkle has to be commended on how wonderful a job the heatsink does in keeping the 9400 GT cool and quiet. During our extensive torture testing, the SFPX94GT1024U2 managed to reach a peak temperature of 64° Celsius. For a passively cooled graphics card, this temperature is not bad at all; especially for one operating under more strenuous conditions than anything an average user would likely submit it to.
Pictured above is the Nvidia G96 graphics processing unit. This small 144 mm2 die is built upon the 64 nm manufacturing technology by TSMC. And contains 314 million transistors. Although jamming 314 million transistors into such a small package is no small feat, it is somewhat humbled by the high-end offerings, such as the 55nm GT200, which can pack a mind blowing 1.4 billion transistors into a 487 mm2 die. As previously stated, the G96 used in the 9400 GT features 16 shader processors, 8 ROPs, and 8 TMUs and is clocked at 550 MHz core and 1400 MHz shader. Pictured to the right is two of the eight Elixir N2TU1G16DG-AC DDR2 SDRAM rated at 400 MHz (800 MHz effective) and operating at 1.8v.
