NVIDIA's GeForce GT 430: The Next HTPC King?
by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on October 11, 2010 9:00 AM ESTFor the purpose of HTPC reviews (in particular, HQV benchmarking for discrete GPUs), we have set up a dedicated testbed with the following configuration. Considering that we will soon be having Sandy Bridge HTPCs, we have specifically tagged this as the Fall 2010 HTPC testbed.
| Fall 2010 HTPC Benchmarking Testbed Setup | |
| Processor | Intel i5-680 CPU - 3.60GHz, 4MB Cache |
| Motherboard | Asus P7H55D-M EVO |
| OS Hard Drive | Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB |
| Secondary Drive | Kingston SSDNow 128GB |
| Memory | G.SKILL ECO Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) F3-10666CL7D-4GBECO CAS 7-7-7-21 |
| Video Cards | Various |
| Optical Drives | ASUS 8X Blu-ray Drive Model BC-08B1ST |
| Case | Antec VERIS Fusion Remote Max |
| Power Supply | Antec TruePower New TP-550 550W |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate x64 |
| . | |
All the above components were chosen keeping extensibility in mind. The Clarkdale CPU allows us to test the Intel HD Graphics, and the PCI-E 2.0 x 16 slot can take in any HTPC oriented graphics card from ATI or nVidia. We got the fastest dual core Clarkdale processor and paired it with one of the well-reviewed LGA1156 motherboards from Asus. With USB 3.0 and eSATA support, transferring information to and from our SFF HTPCs such as the ASRock Vision 3D and Core 100 was a cinch. Keeping hard drive duties is the Seagate Barracuda XT, which strikes a fine balance between speed, power consumption and quietness. A SSD drive from Kingston was thrown in to enable us to use for some benchmarking programs we will cover in some future articles.
The G-Skill ECO series DDR3 modules fit in perfectly with the rest of the testbed. Low voltage requirements ensured that the DIMMs never heated up despite being fast and responsive. Asus was also kind enough to provide a Blu-Ray drive (internal module) which we used to play the HQV BR disc / test bitstreaming. A big chassis from Antec was chosen despite the testbed motherboard being micro-ATX. This was done in order to accommodate ATX motherboards in the future, if made necessary. The 550W Antec power supply also ensures that we can evaluate cards requiring external power connectors for HTPC purposes.
Each hardware configuration has an associated OS image which was created / restored as necessary using Clonezilla. This ensures that we do not end up with conflicting drivers while evaluating GPUs from different companies on the same base testbed. Our first evaluation using the above testbed setup was HQV benchmarking for the GT 430 and Radeon HD 5570. Read on for the results from our exercise.
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geok1ng - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
The other consumer grade low cost Blu-Ray Player is the PS3. It qould be nice to have baseline HQV2 numbers for the last firmware of PS3 , so that readers could get a measure of how much picture quality, if any, a HTPC has over a PS3.As for the 3D HTPC card, i simply do not see the owner of a 3D TV using such a low end card. The minimum budget wise is a 768MB 460.
Now NVIDIA should work for a passive card that can beat the 5750 on picture quality, until then it is a PS3 for 3D Bluray and a 5750 for HTPC.
Arnejoh - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
Some of us in here likes to see how new and old Nvidia cards is doing as dedicated Physx cards. There is some tests out there like fluidmark. And i know this is no problem for experts like you @Anandtech :)Hrel - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
Looks like the only card I'd buy for the low end is the HD5670. Slowest card you can buy that allows acceptable gaming and it's a great HTPC card. You can easily find fully silent versions.manokius - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - link
It's quite simple:an HTPC Must Be Quiet!Power consumption is a factor but most of all you need tranquility when watching movies etc.
So, you need a FANLESS card for not adding noise to the system apart from what the CPU and PSU emits.
What is this then and why is the author giving it the title "HTPC King"?
krumme - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - link
"The next HTPC King?"Well and the answer to that was pretty much a weak no in my reading.
We have dirt cheap ontario hdmi 1.4, 3d comming with a cpu+gpu for less than this card. This is unfortunately 2 years to late.
dragonsqrrl - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - link
"unlike all of NVIDIA’s other desktop launches which had GPUs with disabled functional units, the GT 430 uses a fully enabled GF108 GPU. For once with Fermi, we’ll be able to look at the complete capabilities of the GPU."I believe the GTS450 incorporated a fully activated gf106 with 192 SP's, did it not?
Ryan Smith - Thursday, October 14, 2010 - link
All of its SPs, but only 2/3rds of its ROPs and memory controllers.BoonDoggie - Thursday, October 14, 2010 - link
How can any card that cant do decent gaming @ 1920x1080 be called an HTPC card? What a douchebag title. HTPC video cards have to be:A) Able to do video decoding.
B) Do gaming at the defacto standard of 1920x1080.
C) Do it quietly.
NO HTPC card should even be considered unless it can do these. Yes you can get by without gaming, but, since an HTPC can do gaming and console type gaming is regularly seen on the main TV at home, I think it should be a needed quantifier of a decent HTPC card.
Radeth - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
Hi!I'd like to build an HTPC and I got some questions..These are the specs:
MB: Zotac H55-ITX-A-E
CPU: I3 530 2,92 GHz
RAM: 4Gb DDR3 Kingston SO-DIMM
Optical: LG slim DVD writer
HD: WD Caviar Green Power 500 Gb 3,5"
GPU: Undecided between HD5570 and GT430 or other
What would be the best card to use (even one i didn't mention like GT220) with a 120W power source mini-ITX case?
Thank you
MavAnan - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - link
The review says: "For now, the Radeon HD 5570 is a clear winner from the picture quality standpoint."Does the 5570 also beat the GT240 from the picture quality standpoint?