14 DAY TRIAL // Recently, end-users that keep track of the news on the hardware market had their eyes repeatedly bombarded with avatars of pure might, such as six-core CPUs, 2500MHz+ memory products and, of course, high-end DirectX 11-capable graphics adapters. Even with all these beasts running rampant, the market is still not ready to completely give up on previous-generation parts. Of this Sparkle is well aware, which is why it did not shy away from unveiling a fresh entry-level card.
The newest model that Sparkle has prepared is a very unique-looking GeForce GT 220 board. Powered by the 40nm GT216 graphics processing unit, this card seeks to have both a low price point and power consumption. As such, it is equipped with a solid passive cooling solution (fanless, in other words) while still retaining sufficient capabilities that let it handle multimedia files and even some games.
This GT220 is not meant for HTPCs, being a full-PCB graphics card with a cooler too large for it to fit inside small form factor cases. With a GPU clock of 625MHz, the controller features 48 Cores and 1GB of DDR2 VRAM, which has an interface of 128-bits to work with. The processing core frequency is of 1,360MHz. As for the heatsink itself, it is placed on the back of the adapter and receives the GPU's heat through a copper heatpipe. Finally, for connectivity, Sparkle integrated both DVI and HDMI outputs.
Like all products revealed over the past month, the Sparkle GT220 with 1GB of memory should show its face at Computex, alongside all the other components that it, and all other participants, intend to show off. The price point will supposedly be 60 Euro and, though it is not completely clear when shipments will start, the date may very well be sometime next month, like that of many other recently previewed electronics.