14 DAY TRIAL // Just a few days after a Chinese website published the first pictures of a yet-unreleased Nvidia GeForce GT 520 graphics card, a new video solution based on the same GF119 core made its way online and this time the card is built by MSI.
The markings on the product box confirms the fact that this is indeed a GT 520 and also states that the card packs 1GB of DDR3 video buffer and that is DirectX 11 compliant, which means it's based on an Nvidia Fermi-series GPU.
This is actually called the GF119 and packs a meager 48 CUDA processors and 8 ROP units while the 1GB of DDR3 memory installed is linked to the GPU via a 64-bit memory bus.
Judging by the 3DMark Vantage score provided by a previous leak, the video card's performances seem to mimic its specifications as it has only managed a score of 2642 in the performance mode, which is just slightly more than what a Core i7 2600K with integrated graphics can muster in the same benchmark.
As a result, the GT 520 is much better suited to be used for HTPC systems where its media hardware acceleration engine and 3D Vision support could be considered a plus when compared with older integrated graphics solutions.
As far as MSI's version of the GeFOrce GT 520 is concerned, this doesn't seem to sport anything out of the ordinary for a low-end card.
The low-profile PCB as well as the cooling solution employed use a pretty basic design and the card packs a limited number of video outputs including an old-school D-Sub connector which is accompanied by a DVI-I port and an HDMI port.
No details regarding the launch date of the Nvidia GeForce GT 520 are available at this time, but the card is expected to go on sale in Europe for less than 50 Euros. (via ComputerBase)
