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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Mumrik - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
From the Final Words:"We opened up this article talking about how NVIDIA is FORGING performance in the name of (...)"
Surely you don't mean "forging"...
knutjb - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
I can see this and similar under performing cards showing up in consumer HTPCs further turning the general public off computer based products giving yet another reprieve to blue ray set top boxes.It seems every time the PC comes closer to taking a key role in the entertainment center a company releases a pos product like this.
manno - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
I can not agree with your conclusions and I'm an ATI/AMD fan. I will not touch fermi with a 10' pole, but to say from your benchmarks that the 430 is not competitive with the 5570 is just plain wrong. Let's do the numbersBenchmark : AMD 5570 | Nvidia 430
Image Quality : +1 | 0
Crysis : +1 | 0
BattleForge : +1 | 0
HAWX : 0 | +1
Left 4 Dead : 0 | +1
Battlefield: BC2 : +1 | 0
STALKER : 0 | +1
DiRT 2 : +1 | 0
Mass Effect 2 : 0 | +1
Wolfenstein : +1 | 0
On power consumption: I personally feel that a lower idle power consumption is more important than load as my system would sit idle way more frequently that it would be under load, but that depends on the user: Draw or +1 Nvidia
Noise : 0 | +1
Totals:
AMD: 5 | Nvidia: 5
Looks dead even to me both cards would make great HPC cards. I find a lot of image quality dbenchmarks are highly subjective and fail under a double blind test. It's like asking an audiophile for advice on weather you should use MP3's or FLAC's very few people can tell the difference between the two and unless you're highly tuned to it it's not noticable. Not to mention I haven't even gotten to the fact that it's an AMD made denchmark, I wouldn't put any weight in an Nvidia benchmark for an ATI card. I've made 0 purchases based on 3D Mark Vantage scores that handicap Nvidia a rediculous amount due to the GPU compute portion of the benchmark, otherwise I'd own no AMD cards.
PLEASE DEFEND YOUR POSITION.
Full disclosure:
10% of my portfolio is AMD
0.0% of my portfolio is Nvidia
cknobman - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
Please read the article correctly. It clearly states that it is on par with 5570 but fails every time against the 5670.Given the pricing of this card it is not out of the question to compare it against the 5670 in gaming tests.
This card at its current price point is a huge failure for Nvidia.
The companies banking on 3D tech are going to find hard time in the near future because consumers arent buying in on it. Heck Ive already read about GIGANTIC price cuts in the LCD market coming in the next month because supply is through the roof and no one is buying.
manno - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
http://www.techeye.net/chips/nvidia-launches-gt-43...http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...
looks like their priced evenly...
manno - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
"GT 430 simply isn’t competitive with AMD’s 5570 and 5670 in gaming performance"Does not read as "on par"
Stuka87 - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
Well, that would be true if those points were all equal. However they are not. Especially in regards to image quality where the nVidia lost horribly in a test for the market that this card is specifically aimed at.As for gaming, you can pick up 5670's for the same price as the 430, and the 5570 for less. So the 5670 is really the card that nVidia is up against. Which easily beat it in every single performance test.
The lower idle power/temps of the 430 are nice to have, but not if it means significantly worse performance in other areas.
manno - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
You're correct, and I want to nake this clear, my issue isn't with your post it's with this articles conclusion which states:"GT 430 simply isn’t competitive with AMD’s 5570 and 5670 in gaming performance"
in which it states that Nvidia is in an unenviable position HTPC wise because the 5570 is superior to the 430. Which is not true based on their own benchmarks. Of course the 5670 is better but that's not the card this Nvidia is positioning against it that will be the GT 440 or maybe 435's job.
The 5770 and 430 are the exact same card benchmark and price wise:
http://www.techeye.net/chips/nvidia-launches-gt-43...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...
As for AMD's Image Quality test, that is not the best test/benchmark they had at their disposal. A double blind comparison where you play two clips one after the other to random people and give them an similar, better, worse question is the best test for something as subjective as image quality. Using an AMD test to judge any card is inherently biased in AMD's favor. Their conclusion is wrong.
esc923 - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
Lol. You seem to think highly of yourselves asking others to defend their position when you can't even defend your own.You've thrown a lot of opinions (e.g. "I personally feel..." or "I find..."). All I can say is let's ignore your personal feelings as they're irelevant, ok?
That just leaves your basic reasoning, and you've failed even more miserably here. Weighing the performance of something like "Battlefield 2" equally to that of video "image quality" to get your conclusion (i.e. "looks dead even to me") is just plain idiotic considering we're talking about the HTPC market where image quality is more imporant than video game frame rates. Which is pretty frigging obvious.... Note that I'm not calling you idiotic, just your reasoning.
You see a lot of crap on the internet that you ignore, but the thing is, your memo was written in such a serious way that even includes a disclaimer as well as a DEMAND in caps that you've just got to laugh because the end result comes across as someone trying too hard to look smart, and failing.
manno - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
From my previous post:http://www.techeye.net/chips/nvidia-launches-gt-43...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...
The 5570 and the 430 are priced exactly the same their performance for all intents and purposes is exactly the same. ATI and Nvidia are both taking the same position in this category, why is ATI's position superior? Because an Nvidia card doesn't perform as well as an ATI card on an ATI created benchmark. That is a poor reason to state one card is superior to another.
As I stated previously a metric like image quality is purely subjective unlike a FPS score which is objective. What looks like garbage to one person looks great to another.
Regarding my intelligence, my argument is correct regardless of how smart I am. Furthermore I could care less how smart anyone here thinks I am, for all I care your can hold a mental image of me squatting in mud smiling as I shove berries up my nose.