GT 730 2GB GDDR5 128 Bit - could this be a legit entry level card?

[Brucealmighty]

Hello

Was browsing Amazon and found this
http://

I never saw a GT730 with 2gb gddr5 and 128bit, it is usually either gddr3 (2gb/4gb) or gddr5 64bit; so my question is, could this be something to consider if I 'm looking for a cheap entry level card to run older games (at 1080p) and watch movies in 4k (says in the description it is capable of 4k).

Also, is this a legit card? meaning, I see a lot of fake scam cards on ebay (from China), and for some reason I also found some of them on Amazon (I didn't expect this to be possible on Amazon).

 

[feelinfroggy777]

It is a legitimate card, but it is not really a "gaming" card. You will be able to watch 4k movies on it though. As for gaming, you would have to play some pretty old games to get playable performance at 1080p. You would do better at 720p.

The budget gaming cards start at the 1030 to get reasonable framerates at 1080p.

 

[Brucealmighty]

I was considering the 1030 but it is more expensive and there is no 128bit version that I know of.
Why would a 1030 2gb ddr5 64bit be better than a 730 2gb ddr5 128bit ?

 

[BFG-9000]

"192 Processor cores... Engine clock: 1048 MHz, Shader clock: 1566 MHz, Memory clock: 3200 MHz"

The specs appear to be impossible, and even the pictured box art is a bad Photoshop job. There is no GT730 with 192 shaders, and Kepler locks core and shader clocks together to be the same. Even in Fermi, shader clock is always 2x that of core clock. Tesla had independent clocks, but no 192-shader Tesla could run without a power connector and only one had 128-bit GDDR5 (the 96-shader GT340). 800MHz GDDR5 (3200MHz equivalent) is also slower than GDDR5 that was available 10 years ago in 2008 (note the actual 64-bit GDDR5 GT730 is 5000MHz equivalent and the GT1030 is 6008MHz, which are nearly fast enough to catch up to that 128-bit).

Especially given the review that complains only older drivers work, all signs point to a mislabeled older card where at least one of the specs is a lie. It's all too easy to flash a vBIOS so the card reports itself as something it's not.

The last three GT730 Kepler cards I bought were <US$5 each used, in a retail store/recycler and I consider them well worth that price. They are fine 720p cards (provided you stay away from the 128-bit DDR3 version which is a Fermi), but $69 is ridiculous as it's more than the price of a used Maxwell GTX750Ti (with 128-bit GDDR5 as that seems important to you) and most of the way to a $79-MSRP Pascal GT1030.

 

[BFG-9000]

I should also point out that 950-960-1030 can hardware accelerate H.265 movies in 4k, as well as VP9. Kepler only offers hardware assist for H.264 in 4k, so unless you have a really powerful CPU, H.265 4k videos would be a stuttery mess on a real Kepler 730. Fermi can accelerate nothing in 4k.

Maxwell 750Ti has partial assist for H.265.

 

[Brucealmighty]

Thank you, didn't understand most of what you wrote but to sum it up, the card in question is not a legit card and I should probably stay away from any gt730 unless it is a really cheap bargain price.