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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
120 Comments
View All Comments
Stuka87 - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
The software they used in HQV 2.0 (Which they clearly state).And the software does not do all the processing. It only does the processing if there is no GPU to offload it too (ie: Very CPU intensive).
The GPU's drivers have a LOT to do with the image quality.
ganeshts - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
Sorry guys, could have been more clear in the testbed setup. I will update the piece accordingly.Anyways, we use Cyberlink PowerDVD build 2113 with TrueTheater disabled and hardware acceleration enabled for playing back the HQV streams.
Please note that this is the HQV 2.0 benchmark suite, and has been tailored for HD unlike the DVD oriented HQV 1.0 suite.
hmcindie - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
The POINT is to get the image to the screen 100% accurately. Not to enable noise removal (scoring noise removal, "edge enhancement" or anything other "improvements" are extremely dubious)Scoring video resolution after these "improvements" is silly. Some of those deinterlacing tests are also stupid because the only way to score a perfect 5/5 score is to make the drivers detect THAT EXACT scene. An algorithm which is more universal cannot get 5/5. That alone completely negates a lot of HQV tests.
The point of HQV is to make a suite of tests and ONLY products that have been HQV certified will pass them. A lot of those tests are synthetically fabricated especially now with Blurays.
ganeshts - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - link
Interesting point, and I won't argue against your views (because they may be correct).However, stuff like cadence detection is independent of the stream. You are either capable of 2:2 pulldown or not. It has nothing to do with a particular stream. It is aspects like this which are problematic with the GT430.
MadMan007 - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
It's a shame NV gave up trying even for mere performance parity. With even 8 ROPs (16 would have been great) and/or GDDR5 this might have been a suitable low-end/older game budget card and possibly a worthy successor to the late great 9600GT. Adding GDDR5 alone won't fix the lack of ROPs though and probably won't make a noticable difference unlike the GT 240 where the GDDR5 variants were notably better. Too bad because a lower-end/older game silent low power draw budget gaming card is exactly what I'd be interested in, and AMD drivers are too quirky for me.smookyolo - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
I guess you skipped over the part where it said that this is NOT a gaming card?nitrousoxide - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
We don't need low-end gaming card, neither do we need HTPC card anyway 'cuz Llano Fusion APU will wipe them out. The game is over for nVidia at low-end.ggathagan - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
Yes, that *was* stated, and then followed by 9 pages of gaming benchmarks.If you're going to state that the card isn't meant for gaming, then don't run game tests and fill the article with gaming benchmarks.
There are 2 only pages discussing HTPC performance.
We all know it's targeted to HTPC, so expand your reporting on that aspect of the card's abilities.
MadMan007 - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
I guess you skipped over the part where it said that the chip is a step back in terms of graphics-oriented functional units in favor of HTPC features?It's clear this isn't a gaming card, but the potential for making it a passable gaming card that is actually competitive with the going-on-10+-month old lower-end Radeons is what I'm lamenting. I generally prefer NV cards but doing worse than their previous product in this segment (saying it's meant to replace the horrid GT 220 is a joke) is just sad. It's all part of the 'more features, no better price/performance' trend in all but the high-end that's been going on for a year though so whatever..
nitrousoxide - Monday, October 11, 2010 - link
I don't know what's wrong with Mr.Huang, but doesn't he even feel ashamed to bring this c-r-a-p to the market?! The AMD Fusion APU will easily overrun it. There will be no future for nVidia if Huang keeps making such pathetic products. The release of HD6800 is in a few days, the first tests show that HD6850 can beat a GTX460 1GB and HD6870 easily overrun the GTX470 (and probably the incoming 384SP-GF104-GTX475). Once the good days for GTX460 are gone, nVidia will be in total disadvantage.