The 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
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  • cactusdog - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link

    Thats weird, I've had heaps of ATI cards too and i've never had problems with any of them. How can you have problems with all of them, yet i dont have problems with any of them? weird.
  • Belard - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link

    I haven't had problems with my ATI cards...
  • bupkus - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    ditto
  • dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Beats me.
    If it weren't for lucky people like you, I wouldn't have tried ATI yet again. I thought it was just a case of bad luck for me.
    But now I'm seriously reluctant. They simply do not work for me.
    If some ATI executive believes that it's unusual and wants to get to the bottom of it, then I'm here waiting.
  • gamara69 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Work in IT and you will understand. Ever try to put a Radeon in the same system as a Fire GL? Can't, as they both use the same name for their .sys file and neither is compatable with both cards. BSOD on boot. Going back a bit, I had an environment with over 100 ATI Rage 128's. Because of slight differences in the models I required 18 different drivers. The wrong driver would cause BSOD's any time an app with a 3'D button opened. In my current environment we use no ATI video cards as we have driver issues in our multiple monitor setups. We have pulled all ATI cards and replaced them with Nvidia cards and our driver troubles have gone away.

    Not to say Nvidia is perfect, but at least I can get more than one of them to work regularly together.
  • AstroGuardian - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    That's because you are new to computers. I have never had a single problem with both ATI and nVidia cards.
  • RGN - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    It wasn't that long ago that ATi drivers were renowned for being terrible and at the same time one of the many benefits of nVidia was the unified driver architecture. That being said, recently I've worked with the A MD/Ti Fire Pro series. Not for gaming, but hi end multi-display setups. The cards and drivers have been flawless - not at all what I expected. The Fire Pro's were selected because they were half height, passive cooling and quad display. There was not an equivalent nVidia card. Kudos to the AMD folk for winning this round!
  • IceDread - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Weird.

    I've used Nvidia when I found them to have the better price / performance and AMD other times.

    I've had more issues with Nvidia than with AMD (ATI).

    I have seen a lot of people have issues with both companies cards.

    I do however like that AMD releases drivers each month and makes an effort to improve. Nvidia seams to release drivers sporadically.

    There is also one thing that annoys me very much with Nvidia. I can not purchase an nvidia graphic card to use for cuda and use a AMD graphic card as primary. Nvidia will then shut down this functionality. So in my view, nvidia is a bit more evil as a company.
  • dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Ahh, good ol' days with ATI...
    Waiting every month for a driver update, uninstalling all drivers & software for my AIW one by one, reinstalling one by one, with reboots, checking out all new bugs, writing ATI's support, uninstalling, reinstalling, manually uninstalling everything, reinstalling, reinstalling all other PC drivers, uninstalling, reinstalling, trying suggested combinations of new and old drivers, uninstalling, reinstalling, and by the time they're out of suggestions - there's a new driver release!
    I'm sooo over that.

    But as stated YMMV.
  • IceDread - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Sometimes I wonder what people do with their computers to make them fail.

    Uninstall, rune drivesweeper, reboot, install, reboot. Same procedure for nvidia as ati...

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