NVIDIA GeForce GT 520

[Panix]

turn on tearfree, problem solved.

Or even better, ATI/AMD can fix their drivers.... why should you need a 'tearfree' setting anyway?

Pathetic...

[deanjo]

It uses more power than than the 6570 while delivering 1/2-1/3 the performance and being hot. Mmhm.

Something is weird with those temp readings. That is an evga card with active cooling and the GT 520s that I have in htpcs are fully passive (Asus) and I can't get them to over 40 c. It's almost like the monitor was reading a Fahrenheit reading or something like the hsf wasn't making good contact.

[Qaridarium]

Seems as if AMD graphic cards are more efficient per Watt then their nVidia counterparts. I guess people considering low power usage should use ati cards?

sure! amd do have many design wins...

VLIW+SIMD is more effective per watt and per mm² silitium consuming than nvidias risc shaders...

but amd pay a high price for that because VLIW is hard to handle as a dev...

but if the driver is ready and polished nvidia can not get any penny.

[ltcommander.data]

Thanks for the review. As some people in this forum are pondering whether to pair their SandyBridge setup with such a low-end graphics card, could you include in future tests a comparison against SandyBridge?

Exactly. At this point the question for any low-end GPU is how does it stack against the modern IGPs in Sandy Bridge and Llano?

[timmydog]

This card has a passively cooled variant from Asus (see Asus ENGT520 SILENT). I have it in my HTPC with the cheapest dual-core Celeron I could find in my area, and using VDPAU the combination can play anything I throw at it, including 1080p with various encodings or HD flash content.

I'm looking at this card (or maybe a 530 when it eventually gets released as a non-OEM card) for the same usage but there has been some questions raised about its ability to do advanced de-interlacing in MythTV.

Have you tried advanced de-interlacing and did it work?

Thanks,

Tim

[ultimA]

I'm looking at this card (or maybe a 530 when it eventually gets released as a non-OEM card) for the same usage but there has been some questions raised about its ability to do advanced de-interlacing in MythTV.

I do not have interlaced movies so I don't know how that works on my setup. I also do not use MythTV, my software is XBMC, SmPlayer, Firefox+Flash.

[scjet]

So, I stick in my brand new pny 520 GT 1 Gig ddr3 card thinking, atleast this will be a nice replacement for my "aging" Silent/Fanless Asus Nvidia 8600GT card (with 512 Meg). ?
well, the 520 GT was such a piece of slow crap, that I put my 8600GT back in and immediately found out just how powerful that old 8600GT was ?! -One of my best investments was that old card.
Ok, i'm thinkin wtf !?
Wait a minute, I bought my fanless 8600GT way back in 2008?, or maybe it was 2009. I honestly don't remeber.
But the brand new 520GT (which still comes with a FAN) couldn't even come close to matching my so-called "old" Fanless 8600GT.

Well, now i finally know how ATI user's used to feel way back in the nvidia 8800GT days when ATI didn't have an answer for it.
WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY this 520 GT piece of caca really is.

Well, for the bang-fer-your-buck, the tables have completely turned. AMD/ATI today, have all the answers, whereas nvidia, still seems to be dickin' around with their not-so-vaunted Fermi stuff ....?
ya, whatever.
If it wasn't for the simple fact that Nvidia's "LINUX/BSD" Drivers are still so much better than ATI"s, I would just stick with ATI for sure. But for Windows, and even MacOSX, AMD/ATI rules. Simple as that.
wow, what a complete joke and let down this nvidia 520 is.
The ATI 56**, 57**, 6*** are just so much more bang for your buck these days, that in essence, other than nvidia's 460, and 580, nvidia really doesn't have much of anything anymore. ?
geez nvidia -how the mighty have fallen.
I think nvidia would have a great market if they would just bring back those 8600's, 8800's, 9800's,... and make them all Fanless kick-butt little powerhouses. between $50 <-> $100 they would regain that market.
LMAO, seriously, I'm crying over this now.

[Kano]

First of all budget cards have got usally only a 64 bit memory bus, your card has 128 bit. It would be really easy to google for benchmarks first before you buy it. As upgrade only 460/560+ chips are usefull as they are really faster than older ones.

[DanL]

But the brand new 520GT (which still comes with a FAN) couldn't even come close to matching my so-called "old" Fanless 8600GT.

Apples and oranges..
The 520GT comes in fanless variants and is okay for an inexpensive VDPAU-capable card if you need one right now (since the g3d vdpau tracker isn't ready yet). If you're looking to use it for any kind of demanding game, then look elsewhere.

[scjet]

Like I said, If it wasn't for the fact that the 520 GT works better(due to nvidia drivers) in Linux. I wouldn't bother.
It's ok for a nice Linux desktop install.
It's just that I remeber paying $89.00 for my old 8600GT back in 08, btw this is not the gts which was much more expensive version of that 8600 series.
I paid $69 for this 520 GT last week here (prices in Canada are generally higher than States side). now, as I found out, a couple Comp stores up here will not even carry the 520 GT, for the same reason that ATI's are better in that same price range.

Anyway, this was all my fault becaue I didn't "read" this review, and others, before I bought it.
http://forums.cnet.com/7726-7591_102-5130882.html

Most other things in in the PC world get smaller, faster and cheap, except for this piece o' junk from nvidia.
I expected a bit more, and got a lot less -my fault.

So ya, go ahead, stick in your HTPC and have fun with it. Lol