Guys, what the heck?

[aisle9]

So I bought a GeForce 210 off of CeX because $8.00, but what came to me has me perplexed. Here's the GPU-Z readout:

 

 

Looks good, right? I took apart the GPU and saw that it has a GT218-325-B1 chip under there. Here's the thing:

 

 

This is very clearly a PCI card.

 

After digging around, I found virtually nothing about a PCI GeForce 210. I know they're out there, and I found specs for one using DDR2, but not a DDR3 card. eBay, where I hope this one finds itself in fairly short order, also had nothing to show in terms of PCI GeForce 210's. Looks like it's an OEM card, so there should be something out there somewhere.

 

Any idea where to go to learn more about this card and see if it's worth the $8 I'm into it for?

[Jumper118]

It sucks 

[aisle9]

2 minutes ago, Jumper118 said:

It sucks 

Well, yeah, duh, but some PCI cards are randomly really expensive. A PCI GT 610 can go for $150+ because stupid.

[Jumper118]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

Well, yeah, duh, but some PCI cards are randomly really expensive. A PCI GT 610 can go for $150+ because stupid.

Stick it on ebay at $100 and you'll soon find out

[vanished]

Is this real?  Do they exist?  Or is it some knock off fake card that they've hacked the BIOS on to show up as a 210 since anyone buying one of those isn't expecting much performance anyway?

[Himommies]

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1286656&gclid=Cj0KEQiAw_DEBRChnYiQ_562gsEBEiQA4LcssoRACMIFRpmYcWiUUYoLK54FX8dymIh1vf58a4f77WEaAqEv8P8HAQ&is=REG&c3api=1876%2C65681218442%2C%2C&Q=&A=details&pcur=CAD

 

I dodn't understand half of what you said cut understood the geforce 210 ddr3 and pci part

[Schubaltz]

Overclock the crap out of it and give us a before and after of the Fire Strike scores, I'd honestly love to see that. 

[aisle9]

2 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Is this real?  Do they exist?  Or is it some knock off fake card that they've hacked the BIOS on to show up as a 210 since anyone buying one of those isn't expecting much performance anyway?

I thought about that, so I took the heatsink off to check. It's an NVIDIA GT218 chip. If someone did fake this card, they did such a great job that they accidentally turned it into a real 210.

1 minute ago, Himommies said:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1286656&gclid=Cj0KEQiAw_DEBRChnYiQ_562gsEBEiQA4LcssoRACMIFRpmYcWiUUYoLK54FX8dymIh1vf58a4f77WEaAqEv8P8HAQ&is=REG&c3api=1876%2C65681218442%2C%2C&Q=&A=details&pcur=CAD

 

I dodn't understand half of what you said cut understood the geforce 210 ddr3 and pci part

That's a PCIe card.

[aisle9]

Just now, Schubaltz said:

Overclock the crap out of it and give us a before and after of the Fire Strike scores, I'd honestly love to see that. 

FireStrike won't load.  I think I can give you the projected results, though.

 

Before OC: -12

After OC: -3, but the room's on fire

[vanished]

The real question here is why do any motherboards in 2017 still ship with original PCI non-express slots - and some of them with more than 1!?

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

The real question here is why do any motherboards in 2017 still ship with original PCI non-express slots - and some of them with more than 1!?

In PCI defense I still use the single PCI of my motherboard for one of these:

[m0k]

@aisle9 @Ryan_Vickers

its a real gpu - i have the mobile variant in my old Gateway Laptop, but it seems to run on PCIe 2.0 

 

[aisle9]

4 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

The real question here is why do any motherboards in 2017 still ship with original PCI non-express slots - and some of them with more than 1!?

Because they're kicking it old school.

[vanished]

1 minute ago, Princess Cadence said:

In PCI defense I still use the single PCI of my motherboard for one of these:

 

I feel like for a while, motherboard makers continued to hold on, providing the port long after everyone should have had no use for it, just to be nice, and then it got to the point where card makers are like "well, these are still being made so we're gonna start making new PCI cards"  

[flibberdipper]

7 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

The real question here is why do any motherboards in 2017 still ship with original PCI non-express slots - and some of them with more than 1!?

I faningled my SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Digital and another incredibly nice Riptide card to work, but after a while the drivers finally gave me the finger.

[m0k]

because mine runs on PCIe 2.0 @ x16 it shows mine have more bandwidth than yours

Back when my laptop was brand new i was able to run Source engine games and COD MW at 60fps with no issues

idk whats happened since but the same games only run at 30ish fps now (probably a win10 thing)

[aisle9]

14 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I feel like for a while, motherboard makers continued to hold on, providing the port long after everyone should have had no use for it, just to be nice, and then it got to the point where card makers are like "well, these are still being made so we're gonna start making new PCI cards"  

When one deals in older equipment, PCI cards are always welcome.

 

Now, if I order another "PCI Express" card from CeX and a freaking AGP card falls out of the box, I'll be annoyed. Or not, if it's one of the ultra-rare ones that crack $100, but not too many cards from a dead interface hit that dollar figure.

 

Meanwhile, this 210 just gave me a heart attack because the PC wouldn't boot to Windows with it installed. Fortunately, that was a BIOS thing, not a "way to go, stupid, you bricked it" thing.

[aisle9]

Whelp, somehow in the process of getting this GPU to work, I killed the hard drive.

 

No, I don't understand either. The system just went black while reinstalling drivers for the 210, and when I rebooted, I was greeted with a lovely INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE bsod, then upon rebooting, the DST short test failed with a message of "Warning No Drive Detected".

 

I'm going to go drink something. If that's the HDD I think it is, it's about 3 years old, far too young to die.