NVIDIA's GeForce GT 430: The Next HTPC King?
by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on October 11, 2010 9:00 AM ESTThe Test
Although NVIDIA is not promoting the card as a competitive gaming card, we’ve gone ahead and run our full benchmark suite. For the sake of comparison with other cards we have run 1680x1050, however the GT 430 isn’t meant for that resolution. For the GT 430 and similar budget cards we have run separate results at 1280x1024 with appropriate quality settings.
For simplicity’s sake we’re only listing the DDR3 versions of the Radeon 5570 and GT 240; there’s really not much to say once we look at performance as even the DDR3 versions paint a clear picture. Conversely we’re using a DDR3 version of the GT 220 as it’s what we had on hand, although today you’re more likely to find the DDR2 version than you are the DDR3 version.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz |
| Motherboard: | Asus Rampage II Extreme |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1015 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | OCZ Summit (120GB) |
| Memory: | Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3 x 2GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 5850 AMD Radeon HD 5770 AMD Radeon HD 5750 AMD Radeon HD 5670 AMD Radeon HD 5570 DDR3 AMD Radeon HD 4870 1GB AMD Radeon HD 4850 AMD Radeon HD 3870 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 DDR3 Asus ENGT430 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 197.13 NVIDIA ForceWare 257.15 Beta NVIDIA ForceWare 260.62 NVIDIA ForceWare 260.77 Beta AMD Catalyst 10.3a AMD Catalyst 10.8b |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
120 Comments
View All Comments
dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
That was word for word per ATI's instructions, if I wasn't clear enough.If I hadn't followed their instructions, then it would all have been my fault, right?
mr_datawolf - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
You were on an ALL In WONDER! What did you expect? Talk about niche!Look, I totally agree ATI has done many horrible things with their drivers in the past. But for most of the AIW's life it was the only real tv card out there, in the consumer market. The feature set was WAY beyond everyone else anywhere near that price point.
Also I used an NVIDIA card that competed with the AIW and it was just as annoying in driver.
dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
Among others.I don't agree it's such a niche product, they've sold quite a few – it's not like a combination of hardware.
I agree that they had the best feature set, they just kept crashing my systems.
I can't recall a single time that I left it to record a show unattended and it actually did.
dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
And btw, I did also try driver sweeper with no luck.heflys - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
Good question. I find it odd how all the ATI cards somehow failed every time, yet the Nvidia cards worked flawlessly. Yet, for my first ATI purchase in 8-9 years, the card works flawlessly. No driver issues what-so-ever. Lets say that I'm a little bit skeptical.SilthDraeth - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
I would say that one reason would be you.I have used AMD cards exclusively for the last 10 years, and never had a single issue. I have also worked on peoples computers with NVIDIA and never had a single issue.
I am not sure what you were doing, and it very well could have been a driver issue, or bad part, but being that most computer issues are user error, that is where I am going to place my money.
dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
Then you'll loose your money. I'm in no way novice and installed tons of hardware with no issues. There's really no place for me to go wrong installing a graphics card in a brand new install of windows.Again, I call ATI to investigate. Be my guest.
heflys - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
Can you elaborate on the errors that you encountered, which cards (exact model if possible) you owned; the manufacture of said card and your system specs? Thanks.I must say though, I'm not sure why you kept buying ATI if each one failed in some manner.
dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
That would be a lot to recall, search for old gear and receipts and detail just to look more reliable here. AMD also seem to have deleted my old ATI service account with nearly all correspondences. I will do it if I know it goes someplace useful.The errors varied with card, driver version, MMC version and windows version. Each card came with its own full long story. There's just too much to list from probably over a decade.
PCs, Windows, cards were from all of that time range and from different manufacturers (except windows...). Cards by ATI, sapphire, hercules? oem by mic? (that's what the sticker here says) I was mostly bugged by bsods and other forms of crashes and freezes with all cards. One ended up dying, another deteriorated rapidly and if installed would probably die soon too. But there are many lesser bugs too. Change driver/Windows/MMC version and you get more/less crashes and some strange new bugs.
I didn't buy them all one after the other. Time passed and I was thinking - it's working for other people, got nice reviews, it's a different card than what I previously had, a different card maker, a different PC, different Windows version, so why shouldn't it work? A couple I got preinstalled, without much choice. And with the first ATI card or two ...well I wasn't aware yet.
Now I'm accused of giving them too much credit.
heflys - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
Interesting......Seems you just have bad luck with ATI for some reason. I'd chalk it up to crappy side manufacturers. I think it's telling when companies like "Hercules GPU' " are no longer around. Also, at the time, ATI and 3dfx (now owned by Nvidia) were lending out their tech to every fool with the potential to manufacture cards. There were a number of crap products during those times, I wouldn't be surprised if you experienced some issues. What was your problem with the 5xxx series though?