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Whereas the HD 4550 marked itself out as being half-height, the 9400 GT does exactly the opposite. For such a low-power card we were surprised to see it utilise a full-height PCB. Not that this should be a problem for most users but anyone with a low-profile case will have to look elsewhere. Also, this is something that will vary depending on which exact card you buy. Sparkle, for one, does a low-profile version of this card.

Thankfully, the card isn't quite so big and powerful as to require extra power connections so, again, any motherboard with a PCI-Express slot will be able to handle this card.

You may notice the yellow sticker on the top edge of the board. This covers an SLI connector and has the words 'Do not tear off the sticker SLI bridge is not supported' written on it, which rather says it all. This makes it abundantly obvious the 9400 GT is using an existing PCB for a card that would normally support SLI but the chip has just been replaced with the 9400 GT. It also goes some way to explain why this particular card is full-height.

The cooler is also an indicator of the rushed approach to the design of this particular card. Like the HD 4550, the 9400 GT can be kept cool enough with just a heatsink and can do without a fan. For this version, though, the manufacturer has just tacked on a cheap HSF. In fairness, the fan isn't very noisy, though it is markedly louder than the HD4550 when under load.

Video outputs are exactly the same as the HD4550 with DVI, VGA, and S-Video all supported.

Inno3D is the maker of the card we're looking at today so we can actually make a judgement on its retail credentials. Unfortunately they don't make for great reading. As well as the issues with the size of the card and the HSF, the bundle is quite poor. There's only an S-Video to Composite cable and driver CD included in the box. No DVI-to-HDMI dongle, no DVI-to-VGA dongle, no games, nada. While the 9400 GT chip may still be worth a look, this particular version is probably best avoided.

The 9400 GT chip itself is unsurprisingly lowly when it comes to sheer grunt. With only 16 shader units (remember these aren't directly comparable with the shaders on ATI's cards) and eight ROPs. Without further ado, let's look at what those numbers mean when it comes to real world performance.

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