NVIDIA's GeForce GT 430: The Next HTPC King?
by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on October 11, 2010 9:00 AM ESTFinal Words
We opened up this article talking about how NVIDIA is foregoing performance in the name of digital media and HTPCs with the GT 430. Whether it’s by NVIDIA’s design or matters out of their hands, GT 430 simply isn’t competitive with AMD’s 5570 and 5670 in gaming performance, with the latter cleaning the GT 430’s clock every single time. NVIDIA isn’t pushing the GT 430 as a gaming performance card so we aren’t going to recommend it as one. If you need budget gaming, then the only choice to make is to go AMD.
With that out of the way we can get in to the meat of the issue: HTPCs. Asus is rightly pitching the ENGT430 at HTPC users, as this is the scenario most enthusiasts are even going to look at this card. So whether we can recommend the GT 430 at all is going to hinge on the GT 430’s capabilities in an HTPC environment.
Rarely are we afforded the opportunity to give a straightforward answer, and this is not one of those opportunities. NVIDIA does some things well here while stumbling in other areas. So let’s start where they stumble: image quality. In the quest for the more perfect HTPC card we found the Radeon HD 5570 earlier this year, and it was good. In more recent times AMD has put a lot of effort in to stepping up their game on image quality with the release of the HQV 2 benchmark and it shows in our results.
We always hate to rely so much on a single benchmark, but at this point HQV 2 provides the best tests we can get our hands on, so we can’t ignore the results. Certainly the GT 430 is a step up from the likes of Intel’s GMA, however the Radeon 5570 has an even bigger advantage over the GT 430. If image quality absolutely matters to you, then the Radeon 5570 is definitely the card to get for the time being until NVIDIA can spend more time on improving the video capabilities of their drivers.
So if NVIDIA stumbles on image quality, where do they excel? 3D stereoscopy. The only rational conclusion that we can draw from these results is that NVIDIA is banking hard on 3D this Christmas, like so much of the consumer electronics industry. They have HDMI 1.4a and they have 3D Vision, and as a result they’re in a position where they can offer a 3D experience that AMD cannot match. If you believe that 3D is king like NVIDIA does and you’ll be using an HTPC to experience it, then clearly there’s no other option than an NVIDIA GT 430.
NVIDIA and Asus also deserve a nod here for noise, and a weak smile for power consumption. The acoustics of the ENGT430 are fantastic, and while load power consumption runs high, idle power consumption looks good. If you’re indifferent about 3D and about picture quality, then perhaps acoustics and power consumption are worth considering? Just bear in mind that with so many vendor designs for both the AMD and NVIDIA cards, what we’re looking at today is only a small sample of what else is out there.
Finally, taking all of this in to account, we’re left with little choice but to offer a tepid reception to the GT 430. As enthusiasts, we can accept the ultimate HTPC card even if it doesn’t deliver on gaming performance, but what NVIDIA has given us is not the ultimate HTPC card. 3D and HDMI 1.4a are good, but 2nd place image quality is not. Since image quality is directly a product of driver development, there’s a great deal of hope for the future and at some point we hope we’ll be able to revisit things and to find a different conclusion.
But for the time being, NVIDIA has delivered an $80 card that is slower and offers inferior image quality compared to its competition – an unenviable position indeed. Only by 3D stereoscopy is it saved from being a flop, making the GT 430 a very significant gamble for NVIDIA. If it turns out that this isn’t a 3D Christmas then it’s not just going to be the CE companies that would be hurting.
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heflys - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
BTW, I've only had problems with one card. A nvidia 6600 GT or something.....The fan burnt out, and the card starting getting real hot. You can guess the rest. It was getting old though.dnd728 - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - link
With fresh new Windows 7 install it would for example never wake up right from sleep - it may permanently freeze or refuse to log in or log in keeping the log-in screen and stop responding, artifacts may also show up.In XP none of that happens, but frequently and sporadically the VPU would crash and get restarted. No need stressing the GPU or CPU at all. It would also break the anti-keylogging software. Get the card out, and everything is back to normal.
khimera2000 - Thursday, October 14, 2010 - link
Never had these issues with my 5970 on win 7.khimera2000 - Thursday, October 14, 2010 - link
sorry 5870 not 5970.dnd728 - Thursday, October 14, 2010 - link
Well, obviously they're working for most people.The question was, why so many people buy nvidia, and I gave one reason, my personal one - not because I love nvidia, but because the comparable AMD does not work for me. Give me any third competitor, and I'll give them a try. :)
extide - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
If you are constantly crashing windows, (blue screens), then you have bad hardware whatever is broken it needs to be replaced.dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
True, that's how I know it's ATI/AMD.extide - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
It's not ATI/AMD, you may have happened to have a bunch of bad AMD/ATI cards yourself that were bad (in which case you would be extremely un-lucky and I actually highly doubt that is the case), but they in general are NOT. I have ran both, and even 3dfx back in the day. Currently my box at work uses a 4350, 100% stable (4Ghz i7/X58), never blue screens, and my pc at home has had MANY configs (single 4850, dual 4850, single 4870, single 4350, etc) NONE of them caused stability problems, and I have ran many many many driver versions over time . I am not insulting you or your intelligence but I am saying if you are getting blue screens in windows these days you have bad hardware or a bad driver. The ATI driver is not bad/broken, period.I'm not even a fanboy I have owned products from both vendors and my next may be an ATI/AMD one or an nVidia one, I haven't decided yet and I dont really consider stability to be a part of the decision as neither one of these companies make straight up un-reliable stuff. Infact last card I had was an 8800GT and then before that was an ATIX1950Pro in crossfire, and prior was just a single X1950Pro, and prior was a gf4 ti4200, then prior was a gf3 ti200, then prior was a voodoo 5 5500, and prior was a voodoo 3 3500, and I had many card before that too. That's just my main machine....
There IS something bad in your machine, don;t take it as an insult, be mature about it and just figure it out dude.
I remember years ago I was working on a machine that used RAMBUS, and I dont know if you are familiar with those but they required terminators in un-used ram slots. It had stability issues, I tried everything eventually pretty much swapped out all the hardware. It ended up being bad terminators in the empty ram slots. Weird stuff can and does happen with computers.
extide - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
Sorry, the 4Ghz i7/X58/6GB is my main pc at home, and my box at work is a Q9400/Q45/8GBdnd728 - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - link
All of my machines plus a few others being defective in a way that would not allow them to accept ATI, but only competing brands? That's even less likely.If your car keeps breaking while driving road x, and nowhere else, then at first you say - a coincidence, then you look for a reason and decide - bad luck, but eventually you just avoid that road. Even if many other drivers are happy with it. It's not worth it.