Question 1

How does this fit in a low profile case? Do you change out the back plate?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it comes with a low profile back plate (as well as the full length back plate pictured). The profile backplate is actually two backplates. One for for the HDMI and DVI connections and one for the VGA connector. So it will actually take up two spaces when using the low profile backplate. Alternatively, if you don't need the VGA connection, you can use just one low profile backplate and leave the VGA connector hanging in you case.

Question 2

I have read that directX 12 is not compatible with Windows 7. What effect would this have on this card using it with a Windows 7 machine? Would it just run a different directx version?

Accepted Answer

I have MSI Radeon R7 240 DirectX12 on my Windows 7 machine since mid-November 2016.  It works fine.  However, my system has reboot with pop-up dialog box in the notification area, "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered," twice while the system is idle.  The other day, whole screen turns pink.  Reboot the system and back to normal.

I'm not sure what causes all these.  It seems to happen after the, "Patch Tuesday."

Question 3

will this work with a 32-bit operating system?

Accepted Answer

Yes it works, but this (or any card with 1GB of VRAM or more) is a bad choice for 32-bit Windows, since your available memory will be reduced by the amount of onboard RAM.  The card's video memory gets mapped into the address space below 4GB, along with system ROM and other things.   I found that after installing this card in a machine with 4GB of RAM (2.85GB available) my available memory under Windows dropped to 1.92GB available.

Question 4

Does this card need a connector from the power supply or can  I just plug it into the motherboard? I am trying to replace an older 1 GB DDR2 Radeon 4000 series and way back then with us dinosaurs video cards did not need connectors from the power supply.

Accepted Answer

Does this card need a connector from the power supply -- NO

can I just plug it into the motherboard -- YES

That is why I bought this card so I can just plug it into the motherboard.

Question 5

does it have hdmi port ? is it windows 10 compatible  and will it fit in a Lenovo m58

Accepted Answer

Yes, the R7 240 has one HDMI port.   It also has TWO DVI ports.  
It is absolutely Win10 compatible.
As far as the M58; not sure, but the R7 requires a PCI Express 16 slot and I am fairly certain the M58 has at least one?
Good video card; at least for everything I do (no gaming).

Question 6

Does it pass audio as well over HDMI?

Accepted Answer

Yep.  I use it for my entertainment center PC and it passes audio/video to my surround sound through hdmi.

Question 7

Will a PCI express 3.0 x 16 video card work properly on a mother board with a pci express 16 slot or do I have to find a pci express 16 video card?

Accepted Answer

What are the limitations of PCI Express 2.0 at x16?
 What are the limitations of PCI Express 3.0 at x16?

Base Clock Speed: PCIe 3.0 = 8.0GHz, PCIe 2.0 = 5.0GHz, PCIe 1.1 = 2.5GHz
 Data Rate: PCIe 3.0 = 1000MB/s, PCIe 2.0 = 500MB/s, PCIe 1.1 = 250MB/s
 Total Bandwidth: (x16 link): PCIe 3.0 = 32GB/s, PCIe 2.0 = 16GB/s, PCIe 1.1 = 8GB/s
 Data Transfer Rate: PCIe 3.0 = 8.0GT/s, PCIe 2.0= 5.0GT/s, PCIe 1.1 = 2.5GT/s

Performance will degrade from PCI 3.0 to 2.0 to 1.1 as shown above otherwise the video card will work.

Question 8

will this product fit into a Dell Optiplex 755? Was told i need a Single Width PCI Express graphics card

Accepted Answer

No this card will not fit. The Fan/heatsink shroud would not fit because of the CPU heatsink/shroud and the positioning of the of the motherboard. (The card itself occupies only one backplate on the case, but the shroud takes up another slot)

Hope this helps.

Question 9

How watts does this need?

Accepted Answer

300 watts will be fine; however, if your power supply only peaks to 300 watts, you may run into slower performance issues due to insufficient wattage. 400w is best, but 325-350w would be safe enough.

Question 10

does it have hdmi port ? is it windows 10 compatible

Accepted Answer

Yes... it has an HDMI port.  For Newbies, just make sure you install to your monitor and to this cards HDMI port. You may have to adjust your settings in bios setup, to use this PCI card and not the motherboard graphics. But sometimes the board may allow both. Check your motherboard manual.  I also have installed it on 2 Windows 10 computer builds and is working fine.

Questions & Answers