 Corsair's Raptor line of quality gaming peripherals has the features you need to win at a price you'll like. Click now to learn more. Now, I get criticized a fair bit for not really criticizing products enough, I think some people feel, and for not looking at lower-end products that are more affordable a lot of the time. We tend to get really focused on the high-end, sexy stuff. So, to address both of those things, I'm going to be taking a look at the R7 240, a product that sucks and is cheap. So, we're going to go ahead and take this out of the box. To be clear, I'm not particularly criticizing MSI here. There's nothing different about their R7 240 implementation that makes it worse than anyone else's. It's just that this graphics card for $80 makes absolutely no sense, and nobody should buy it. So, let's go ahead and have a look at the card itself. It has a downward draft cooler, which I guess is what it is. It's got a heat sink that's like indicative of how much power you can expect this thing to have. And then it's also got a full-size bracket, or you can replace that with two half-size brackets so that you can install it in a low-profile case. Although you won't be having a very satisfactory gaming experience with it. Anyway, it comes with a driver disc, and that is pretty much all. So, I'd like to take a moment to talk about the concept of price to performance. Yes, this is an $80 card, but even if it was a $60 card on special promo, it still makes absolutely no sense to buy, because there are options that cost just a little bit more that deliver so much better performance. You see, guys, there is a sweet spot. Buying a $500 computer or a $400 computer is not a sweet spot experience. You are actually getting less for your money by buying something that is less expensive. Similarly, when you start to spend a fortune on GTX Titans or 780s or, you know, R9 290Xs, you are similarly getting less for your money. That is why graphics cards like these exist. These are the Radeon 7770 and the R7 260X. So, this is a last-gen product, so it will tend to be a very good deal. And the 260X is a current-gen product, so it carries a bit of a price premium right now, but you can still see that it is a much better value than this. So, low-end products. I guess, without further ado, let's get into the benchmarks. So, here's Dirt 3. We're running at 1080p, so any reasonable gaming experience is going to be at 1080p these days. We're running 4X MSAA, so that's anti-aliasing, and we're running on high or ultra. So, both of these graphics cards, this one for about $100, and this one for about $140, run this game very satisfactorily. You're having a great gaming experience on our standard test bench. This one, in spite of having the benefit of using one of the best CPUs available that is overclocked, can manage a meager 18 FPS. You will have an even worse experience on your computer. This game is not playable at high details at 1080p. Far Cry 3. This is more of a hardcore title, so we weren't really expecting this to do very well, but guys, the performance difference here, considering the price, this gets 28 FPS, this gets 9 FPS. 9 FPS. It is one-third the performance, and it costs more than half as much. That isn't reasonable. That doesn't make any sense. The sweet spot for this one is probably going to be more like the 7770, which costs just about 25% more than an R7 240 and performs more than doubly as well, delivering a very playable experience, particularly once you turn Anti-Aliasing off, even running that game at pretty high settings. Next up, we've got Tomb Raider. Fairly mainstream title, third-person adventure game, all that kind of noise. So, both of these games at Ultra without TressFX, did I say games because I meant graphics cards, deliver a playable experience here, averaging 40 to 51 FPS. This, okay, again, costs about 25% less than a 7770 and manages a meager just over one-third of the performance. This, you guys, is why I don't focus on low-end stuff, and this is why I don't generally make videos about stuff that I think is stupid, because it just makes for a video where I haven't actually told you anything useful about what to buy. I guess I have. Don't buy low-end junk, because it doesn't make sense. You're better off saving your pennies for, like, another couple weeks, another couple allowances, and getting something that delivers a much, much better value. That is all, my friends. Thank you for checking out this unboxing and cautionary tale about the R7 240. I apologize to AMD and MSI for anything that I said that might offend them about this video, but let's face it, guys, low-end cards are stupid and they make no sense, and so there you go. You should just get something a little bit better and pay a little bit more. Actually, a lot better. So deal with it. Don't forget to like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment if you have any thoughts to share with me about maybe you think that these make sense. I mean, they have HDMI, so they can carry out a, you know what, most onboard graphics that supports all that stuff, too, these days. And as always, don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.