This Zotac GeForce GT 220 powered with 1GB memory is a new graphics board targeted towards the low-end market. It has a customized cooling system and it should satisfy most consumers looking for a video card with good high definition capabilities. In July of last year NVIDIA began the transition 40nm manufacturing technology with two new models destined for the low-end market, the GeForce GT 210 and also the faster GeForce GT 220. They were actually never destined to be sold as full retail cards but as the market has developed, NVIDIA now has full retail version of both of them. The full story behind might simply be that they had to start selling something new before they bring out the big guns. - TestSeek

Zotac GeForce GT 220 1GB Graphics Version Preview

The GeForce GT 220 reference card is based upon the GT216 graphics chipset which has 48 cores and a 128-bit interface. The model runs at 625MHz core and 1580MHz memory clock speed. It sells at around $60-80 and it replaces the old GeForce 9600 GT graphics cards. The first impression we had of this board was that it clearly looks like a low-end edition. The cooling solution is a rather small single slot cooler with a tiny fan. The cooler has the capacity to be self regulated, meaning that it adapts its rotation speed automatically depending on the load on the card. And the cooler is also in contact with the memory chips.

We had great expectations for the overclocking features of these Zotac GeForce GT 220's. The main reason was the fact that this is the first 40nm powered card from NVIDIA, and we did hear other oveclockers who had gotten great results. It was with a bitter sweet taste that we just had to conclude that the maximum overclocking we could squeeze out of this video card wasn't that good. We gotten stuck quite fast, which ended with a core clock speed of 662MHz. On the other hand, their cooling solution worked quite well and ran just quiet as we somehow expected due to being a rather large heatsink with a small fan.

Clearly the Zotac GeForce GT 220 is not a card for serious gamers. We wouldn't even say that it's a video card for any kind of gamers. Of course at the price level around $60-80 one should not expect anything else than a low-end to average performance. But this doesn't mean that the card sucks. If you are building a home theater PC and you are a very occasional gamer, this card can just be an excellent option. Also the card is cool and silent, and of small dimensions. So for media building purposes we have to say that this is an excellent card.