GeForce GT 430: The HTPC Crowd Gets Fermi On A Diet

[lurker123]

If the GT 430 came with GDDR5 memory instead of DDR3 and was priced under $60 then it would probably be a worthwhile replacement for the GT 240. IMHO, it's just not worth paying more $ with reduced performance just for DX11 and audio bitstreaming in a slightly smaller card.

 

[teknikal2]

Almost 90 Watts at Idle... That is crazy. A HTPC on 24/7 would cost >$6 (at 10c per KWh) a month just to run the graphics card.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]teknikal2[/nom]Almost 90 Watts at Idle... That is crazy. A HTPC on 24/7 would cost >$6 (at 10c per KWh) a month just to run the graphics card.[/citation]

This is total system power, not graphics card power.

Keep in mind, our test platform used a Phenom II X4 overclocked to 4.0 GHz. This is responsible for the high idle power usage. Yes, this is more than most people will use in an HTPC, but we wanted to remove as much of the CPU bottleneck from tests as possible.

 

[rooseveltdon]

This card performs like a 5550 with ddr 5 but is priced like a 5670 that is greatly better than this card. Nvidia dropped the ball with this one in my opinion.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

so, since this card is essentially no good for games, especially not 1080p (which is the most popular resolution on the market), and costs too much, you may as well just get a cheaper option that can also not play games, but does everything else. Why make cards that cost more, but still can't deliver! Seriously, throw away all these, in between, low range cards and just have 1 case model card, and let the next card up be at least capable of gaming. Less cards in the range means they could produce more of the better cards, making them cost less. I feel sorry for anyone that will buy this card.

 

[tx-jose]

im sorry but anything that is 128bit is not worth being called a "FERMI"

 

[ra3tonite]

I really appreciate the noise table. Really important to me when i make my purchasing decisions

 

[JonnyDough]

Aren't there integrated solutions with almost this much power now? 😛 I seem to think AMD has been working on something like this...

 

[liquidsnake718]

Crap not worht buying, just get a 8800gt or a 9800gt or even a gts250 with an HDMI and youve got an HTPC and a gaming system!

 

[dominatorix]

another win for a Ati card, just now I' realize how powerful is Radeon HD 5670 for 80 bucks, I' will buy one for my girlfriend.

 

[Wisecracker]

[citation][nom]fausto[/nom]isn't a special antenna needed for the over the air HD signal? are there indoor ones or outdoor one i have to install in the roof of my house? sorry for the noob questions.[/citation]

No special antenna needed -- nor does it necessarily have to be an exterior model, BUT ...

Tall objects (trees and buildings) between your location and the broadcast tower(s) can reflect signals creating 'multi-path' impacting s/n ratio. Even the location of the antenna at your house can make a huge difference -- downstairs v. upstairs, front v. rear, etc.

Depending upon your relationship to the broadcast towers, a properly located set of 'rabbit ears' can work just dandy ...

 

[tx-jose]

i have a PNY GTS250 crammed into my gaming HTPC and i love it....going to upgrade to the dual GPU GTX 495 when its released 😀

 

[tom thumb]

First off, thanks for including the noise table, it's very helpful to some people. A HTPC is a quiet PC. Your dB values are rather high - this is probably because of all the other fans on your test rig. Using a near-silent system would make these values more helpful.

As to the card itself... I agree with most people here. It's too expensive considering what you get; it looks like the price war is being fought at the high end.

This card has one of those terrible tiny 50mm fans that have plastic squares as blades. I had a fan like this on my old EN7950GT, the card overheated despite the fan being maxed out (an loud as f***). That was an ancient gpu that ate way more power, but the fan is the same, and it sucks.

If I were to be building an HTPC, I would want a card like this, but cooled passively, which is easy to do as its wattage is still relatively low.

 

[tpi2007]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Here's the thing, tpi2007: I'm not a huge fan of the HQV 2.0 benchmark. And I'm going to go into this in an in-depth review in the near future, but without spending a whole lot of time on it I'm not comfortable comparing graphics cards without digging into it and explaining a few things. I don't think the GeForce GT 430 review is the proper place to do that.To quickly state my concerns, almost all modern graphics cards now score close to perfect marks in the HQV 1.0 benchmark, and I think HQV 1.0 sets a good standard. Now that it's an attainable goal though, the goalposts have been moved. And I don't think the HQV 2.0 final scoring is reasonable based on how most people use their HTPCs, that is to say I don't feel the score accurately reflects how good of a job a graphics card does at video playback. A lot of the tests are somewhat fringe, and I think the new benchmark can spit out a fairly pessimistic score when in real-world use most folks would never see a difference.Not to mention, scoring is incredibly subjective on graphics cards because the result is heavily influenced by individual driver settings.All of this adds up to a situation where I'm not real comfy posting competing scores without an in-depth analysis to accompany it. To me, that's better journalism that spitting out competing numbers just so I can say I did, regardless of how misleading they might be.You guys will get your numbers from us, you'll just have to wait for a proper review is all.[/citation]

Cleeve, I understand the difficulties involved, but I still think it would be important to refer to the competitor's performance in this regard, or simply not mentioning the HQV 2.0 test at all, saying that, as you did, that you'll do a full article covering many cards, including this one.

As it is, and given you admitted lack of ease with this new HQV 2.0 test, I would have preferred if you would have just given the scores for the HQV 1.0, including the Radeons. It's just that we«re talking about cards that have very similar prices as you wisely noted, and we all know that sometimes a little advantage here and there might make you buy one card instead of the other. If you say the HQV 1.0 tests would me almost identical, then at least we would still have a level playing field with all the cards. Like it is, we have HQV 2.0 results on Nvidia and not on the Radeon.

Having said that, I'll wait for you article and see where GPU's can realistically (that the user will notice) improve upon with the HQV 2.0 score feedback.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]tpi2007[/nom]I would have preferred if you would have just given the scores for the HQV 1.0, including the Radeons.[/citation]

The last time I tested INTEGRATED solutions they all came up with perfect scores, or scores very close to perfect, with HQV 1.0.

IMHO --when it comes to real-world video playback quality, we already *do* have a level playing field.

In any case, I think I understand your concern although I don't necessarily share it. To me, the GeForce GT 430 review wasn't the place to dig into this. I can certainly understand wanting more, and I apologize for not giving it to you here.

I will definitely get you the information in the near future. As to whether or not the 430 review is flawed because I didn't choose to include more as part of it, we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[ctmk]

hmm, the 430 is using more power than advertised in nvidia's website.

note:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-geforce-gt-430-us.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gt_220_us.html

 

[scrumworks]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]What's really funny is that this review didn't compare GeForce GT 430 against any Radeons when it comes to video quality testing--we said we'd do that in the near future--yet somehow you read that we did...[/citation]

I think that it wouldn't have been a big effort to run one spin with a Radeon. But remember to use same drivers the as you used here later on.

 

[dimitrik]

The article (and as usual, all the brilliant comments) miss a key point of this card. Not all HTPC's run Windows Media Center (or even Media Player Classic Home Cinema).
A lot are set up to run XBMC on windows or Linux, Boxee on windows or Linux, or MythTV on Linux.

All of these offer a significantly richer media experience on much lighter hardware (like low power Athlon X2's, C2D's and Atom CPUs). Most want HTPC users eventually the features offered like automatically setting up their media collection (like iTunes) setting up cover artwork, synopsis for movies, etc.

Unfortunately DXVA with ATI cards doesn't work well with any of this software on windows (or at all on Linux) so users had to stick with older nvidia cards, which deliver either DXVA or VDPAU under linux. Newer cards were too hot/big for HTPC's leaving only the really low-end ones (GT210/220).

This is the crowd this card targets - with this you can finally set up a beefy but tiny HTPC, with ultra low power consumption, small size (mATX or mini-ITX) and still have damn near perfect picture quality. I know lots of people very happy about this card.

 

[dEAne]

Thank you tom for this article.

 

[someoneelse]

When you write the video quality article could you please include SD HQV Benchmarks as well.
SD is still the most common broadcast definition in the UK. Satelite encription is really HTPC unfriendly and you can only get two HD channels ( 4 by end of 2011) without a satelite. making SD the most relevant format for the next 2 or 3 years.


Also does the choice of playback software effect the HQV benchmark scores?

 

[Guest]

i dunno but nvidias latest drivers work absolute wonders. i just got a toshiba laptop - not exactly game breaking specs - 350M GTS - and it smokes this game in 3D at near max settings and max resolution for the machine (higher than 720P). i mean its not 60fps all the time, but it is for the most part, and dips to prob in the 30-40s when theres 20 guys on screen. best gaming experience ive had in a long time. it feels incredible when you set the depth at maximum and hop on a bike or in a car.....but when things get too close - talk about going cross eyed! ive never felt so convinced that this is the future of games. sitting up on a hill with max depth looking down at the beach. incredible stuff.

 

[Guest]

I don’t know why people are rate it soo poorly. I have this card with a i5-2400 and I’m able to play Battlefield 3 in Ultra settings at 1920×1080. The performance was just spectacular.