Reviews - NVIDIA ASUS GeForce GT 430 graphics card review

[HEXUS]

The cheapest Fermi card gets taken for a spin by HEXUS.

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[scaryjim]

Looking specifically at the reviewed ASUS ENGT430, due to retail for £60, we feel that the company misses a step by opting for an active-cooled heatsink that's also a little on the porky side.

Judging by Scan's GT430 listings that statement has two minor flaws... firstly, the 1GB ASUS GT430 is listed for pre-order at almost £70, and secondly the only passive card on show is a zotac with a full height, dual slot heatsink: it would appear that the GT430 needs considerable assistance to keep cool...

tbh, I'm utterly underwhelmed by this. The GTX460 was a great card, and we all thought it signalled the start of great things for nvidia. Since then we've had the adequate but unspectacular GTS450, which keeps pace with its direct AMD competition without threatening to outshine them, and now the GT430, which looks like it will barely keep touch with the 55x0s, and falls well behind the 5670 which starts at just £10 more (for a 512MB model, admittedly, although that's enough memory at the gaming resolutions these cards target). I know we were spoiled with the great exchange rates we got at the same time that the 4-series and GTX200s launched, but I've yet to see a compelling argument for buying anything other than a 4670 in this price range...

incidentally, I know you've mentioned some of the reasons for the comparison GPU choice in this article, but tbh the comparison GPUs make little sense (other than the 5670). Using a non-standard 5550 with twice the normal memory bandwidth makes it hard to know how this genuinely competes with its direct price competitor; the lack of a 5570 which starts at just over £60 seems unwise, and it would've been nice to see if it was an improvement over the previous generation 4670 and GT240. Basically the review lacks any card with which to make a meaningful direct comparison. Any chance of retesting or adding those cards to the mix at any point?

[HalloweenJack]

may i also suggest adding a 5450 to the mix as well? to compare with AMD`s cheapest offering

[Tarinder]

Judging by Scan's GT430 listings that statement has two minor flaws... firstly, the 1GB ASUS GT430 is listed for pre-order at almost £70, and secondly the only passive card on show is a zotac with a full height, dual slot heatsink: it would appear that the GT430 needs considerable assistance to keep cool...

tbh, I'm utterly underwhelmed by this. The GTX460 was a great card, and we all thought it signalled the start of great things for nvidia. Since then we've had the adequate but unspectacular GTS450, which keeps pace with its direct AMD competition without threatening to outshine them, and now the GT430, which looks like it will barely keep touch with the 55x0s, and falls well behind the 5670 which starts at just £10 more (for a 512MB model, admittedly, although that's enough memory at the gaming resolutions these cards target). I know we were spoiled with the great exchange rates we got at the same time that the 4-series and GTX200s launched, but I've yet to see a compelling argument for buying anything other than a 4670 in this price range...

incidentally, I know you've mentioned some of the reasons for the comparison GPU choice in this article, but tbh the comparison GPUs make little sense (other than the 5670). Using a non-standard 5550 with twice the normal memory bandwidth makes it hard to know how this genuinely competes with its direct price competitor; the lack of a 5570 which starts at just over £60 seems unwise, and it would've been nice to see if it was an improvement over the previous generation 4670 and GT240. Basically the review lacks any card with which to make a meaningful direct comparison. Any chance of retesting or adding those cards to the mix at any point?

Writing reviews before an official launch is always difficult from a pricing perspective. We have to go with what the manufacturer offers as a U.S. dollar price and then cross-check it against existing GPUs from the likes of Newegg.

NVIDIA was adamant that a number of partners would be releasing passive-cooled cards from the get-go.

Testing is an ongoing business and we'll take your comments on board. Indeed, we have a few partner cards in and will add comparison results from lower in the Radeon 5000 range with the aim of fleshing out the picture.

[Tarinder]

may i also suggest adding a 5470 to the mix as well? to compare with AMD`s cheapest offering

Will do, as above.

[scaryjim]

Writing reviews before an official launch is always difficult from a pricing perspective.

Fair enough: does this mean you were time constrained preparing this review then? I suspect you're aware that I'm generally a fan of Hexus (and your!) reviews, but this one just felt either rushed or half-hearted.

NVIDIA was adamant that a number of partners would be releasing passive-cooled cards from the get-go.

Really? I'll be interested to see that when (if?) they turn up in retail

Testing is an ongoing business and we'll take your comments on board. Indeed, we have a few partner cards in and will add comparison results from lower in the Radeon 5000 range with the aim of fleshing out the picture.

Good stuff - I look forward to seeing them.

[Tarinder]

Scaryjim,

The day that there are no time constraints on a review is the day I give up

In this case, the suggested pricing from NVIDIA dictates which cards we used for review. It's easier for us to include a complete line-up of high end cards - see the KFA2 GeForce GTX 480 Anarchy review - because manufacturers love sending £150-plus cards in for evaluation.

They're not so keen on low-end stuff, which is strange given the size of market. Consequently, we sometimes don't have all the pricing gaps covered in the initial review, but this will change as more GT 430 partner cards are sent in for examination and the comparison section is filled out.

We ran with the comparison cards we had in the labs at the time of testing. As noted above, these will be updated to include more of the HD 5000-series range.

[HalloweenJack]

i suspect given the thermal output of this card (and comparably to the 5550) we wont see any 1/2 height passive solutions - the only AMD card 1/2 height passive card iirc is the 5450.