GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 2 Series Radeon R7 240 2GB DDR3 PCI Express 3.0 x8 ATX Graphics Card GV-R724OC-2GI REV2.0

Pros: Works better than I expected. Some cards will play MW2 but not Sniper Elite V2. This one had no problems. Was surprised at its performance. Very good mid level gaming.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: Switched to a GT 630 just to compare. The 240 played better.

Pros: Easy install, ran well while it lasted.
VGA, DVI, and HMDI ports.
Very quiet and didn't get too hot.

Cons: Died after a few weeks. "Input signal out of range" immediately upon turning on the PC.

Overall Review: I needed a replacement for my HD 4870 which had been giving me "screen glitter" in games that weren't very graphics intensive. I bought this as an inexpensive upgrade in the beginning of August.

It was small and easy to install compared to my cumbersome old card; I didn't even have to plug the PSU into it. It ran very well for the first few weeks. Compared to my old card, it stayed cool and didn't sound like an original xbox when running heavier games.

One day when I pulled the computer out of sleep mode the screen kept turning on and off and sometimes gave me a glitchy image. I'm using an old 1280x1024 VGA flatscreen which is several years behind this graphics card, but that shouldn't matter. I don't play any games which could have been too "intense" for it (it's way above the recommended level for the most graphics intensive game I play).

Last time I saw my display with this card, it was checkered in cyan boxes, then the display turned off, and came back on as a black and red checkerboard. I rebooted my computer and got the "input signal out of range" error. Since this has to do with the card trying to broadcast a larger picture than the monitor can handle, I used the HDMI port to plug it into my TV. Nothing. Tried a more recent TV, nothing. Tried a VGA cable on that TV, and again nothing happened. I tried other VGA and DVI monitors and nothing changed.

When I finally had a day off from work, I gave up and took the computer to get looked at. They removed the card and used a more basic card and the display showed up, confirming it was an issue with the card. I cleaned out my old card and put it back in and everything worked fine. I changed the screen resolution, updated the drivers, and swapped this card back in and got the same error.

This card is a lot cheaper than it was when I bought it, but while I'm happy with the performance of the card while it worked, I'm not too happy about it dying so close to the end of the 30 day return policy...