NVIDIA's GeForce GT 430: The Next HTPC King?
by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on October 11, 2010 9:00 AM ESTGT 430 For the HTPC: HQV Benchmarking
HTPC enthusiasts are often concerned about the quality of pictures output by the system. While this is a very subjective metric, we have decided to take as much of an objective approach as possible. Starting with our HTPC reviews, we have been using the HQV 2.0 benchmark for this purpose. The HQV 2.0 test suite consists of 39 different streams divided into 4 different classes. In our HTPC(s), we use Cyberlink PowerDVD build 2113 with TrueTheater disabled and hardware acceleration enabled for playing back the HQV streams. The playback device is assigned scores for each, depending on how well it plays the stream. Each test was repeated multiple times to ensure that the correct score was assigned. The scoring details are available in the testing guide from HQV.
Given the price point and the power consumption profile of the GT 430, it is evident that it is going to compete with the Radeon HD 5570. In the table below, we indicate the maximum score possible for each test, and how much the GT 430 (with driver version 260.77) and the Radeon HD 5570 (with Catalyst 10.9) were able to get.
| GT 430 vs. HD 5570 : HQV 2.0 Benchmark | |||||
| Test Class | Chapter | Tests | Max. Score | GT 430 | HD 5570 |
| Video Conversion | Video Resolution | Dial | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| Dial with Static Pattern | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Gray Bars | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Violin | 5 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Film Resolution | Stadium 2:2 | 5 | 0 | 5 | |
| Stadium 3:2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Overlay On Film | Horizontal Text Scroll | 5 | 5 | 5 | |
| Vertical Text Scroll | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Cadence Response Time | Transition to 3:2 Lock | 5 | 5 | 5 | |
| Transition to 2:2 Lock | 5 | 0 | 5 | ||
| Multi-Cadence | 2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCam Video | 5 | 0 | 5 | |
| 2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video | 5 | 0 | 5 | ||
| 3:2:3:2:2 24 FPS Vari-Speed | 5 | 0 | 5 | ||
| 5:5 12 FPS Animation | 5 | 0 | 5 | ||
| 6:4 12 FPS Animation | 5 | 0 | 5 | ||
| 8:7 8 FPS Animation | 5 | 0 | 5 | ||
| Color Upsampling Errors | Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP) | 5 | 5 | 5 | |
| Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE) | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Noise and Artifact Reduction | Random Noise | SailBoat | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Flower | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Sunrise | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Harbour Night | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Compression Artifacts | Scrolling Text | 5 | 3 | 3 | |
| Roller Coaster | 5 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Ferris Wheel | 5 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Bridge Traffic | 5 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Upscaled Compression Artifacts | Text Pattern | 5 | 3 | 3 | |
| Roller Coaster | 5 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Ferris Wheel | 5 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Bridge Traffic | 5 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Image Scaling and Enhancements | Scaling and Filtering | Luminance Frequency Bands | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Chrominance Frequency Bands | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Vanishing Text | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Resolution Enhancement | Brook, Mountain, Flower, Hair, Wood | 15 | 15 | 15 | |
| Video Conversion | Contrast Enhancement | Theme Park | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Driftwood | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Beach at Dusk | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| White and Black Cats | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Skin Tone Correction | Skin Tones | 10 | 7 | 7 | |
| Total Score | 210 | 148 | 189 | ||
We find that the GT 430 scores the same as the GT 425M in the ASRock Vision 3D. It is also better than the Intel HD Graphics (which scored 133) with respect to this metric, but comes up short against the HD 5570.
A look at the above table reveals that there is not much to differentiate between the GT 430 and HD 5570 except for the bulk of the cadence detection tests. The all-important 3:2 pulldown is performed correctly. However, none of the other cadence detection tests passed. Getting those cadence detection features implemented in the drivers has the potential to increase the HQV score by 35 points, bringing it much closer to the 5570's score. Till then, it is hard for us to recommend the GT 430 with respect to picture quality for the average user.
Power users can always get past the cadence issues by setting up custom resolutions and refresh rates depending on the video being played back, but this not a solution for the average consumer. More concerning is the fact that many digital camcorders record at 30 fps, making it necessary to have proper cadence detection set up for 2:2 pulldown. nVidia says that this issue is being looked into, but not as a top priority feature to implement. Eventually, we should see scores similar to the 5570 a couple of driver releases down the line. For now, the Radeon HD 5570 is a clear winner from the picture quality standpoint.
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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.