ASUS GeForce GT 430 - Can You Really Play Games with Budget Cards?

The Basic Fermi

At the recent , NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang admitted to the production delays of Fermi, but with the release of the more mainstream-friendly GeForce GTX 460 and GTS 450, Fermi is slowly but surely gaining traction amongst gamers.

To build on its momentum, NVIDIA is now introducing their latest addition to the Fermi family - the GeForce GT 430. As the “GT” moniker denotes, this is a card targeted at budget to lower-end mainstream users. And this is fitting, because the GeForce GT 430 is powered by the GF108, a far more streamlined version of the original GF100 chip that debuted in the GeForce GTX 480. It is also the same chip that powers the GT 415M, GT 420M, GT 425M, and GT 435M mobile GPUs.

On the hardware level, the GeForce GT 430 has effectively only half a GPC (graphics processing cluster). This means it has only two streaming multiprocessors, giving it a total of 96 CUDA cores, 16 texture mapping units and 16 raster operating units, which is a fair bit lesser than the GeForce GTS 450. The GeForce GT 430 is also the first Fermi card to use GDDR3 memory even though it retains a 128-bit wide memory bus. In all and on paper, it is very similar to the that was launched in November last year.

Needless to say, NVIDIA does not claim that the GeForce GT 430 is the answer to all your gaming needs. Instead, it is positioned as the perfect complement to HTPC or media centre setups especially if you into 3D, seeing that it supports 3D Blu-ray playback and HD audio bitstreaming (supported only by the newer ForceWare 260 drivers).

Even so, NVIDIA says gaming can still be done insofar as users are reasonable with their expectations. According to NVIDIA, the GeForce GT 430 will trump integrated graphics solutions, and will handle the 1280 x 1024 resolution nicely as long as you don’t go wild on the in-game graphics quality settings by checking all the boxes or turn everything up to high.

Anyhow, this got us thinking, could you really play modern games with entry-level graphics cards? To find out, we have have put to the test popular entry-level cards from both NVIDIA and ATI, along with the new GeForce GT 430.

Before we begin, here's a quick look at how the GeForce GT 430 stacks up against competitive comparison SKUs.

The ASUS ENGT430 1GB GDDR3

As a basic card for entry-level users, the ASUS ENGT430 is devoid of any of the usual features you get from high-end and even mainstream cards. The card doesn’t require a PCIe power connector for power as it gets all it needs from the PCIe slot. There’s also no SLI connector meaning you can’t upgrade your system just by plonking another GeForce GT 430. This is a limitation on all GeForce GT 430 cards, but that's fine because if you need more performance, you're better off with a proper upgrade.

That said, the ASUS ENGT430 does get some ASUS-designed niceties to make it stand out from the competition, such as a dust-proof fan design, which helps keep dust away from the fan and claims to improve the lifespan by 25%. The card also gets ASUS’ GPU Guard, which stiffens the PCB and prevents the card from flexing unnecessarily. And lastly, ASUS has also implemented Fuse Protection to protect the card from sudden surges in current.

 

Test Setup

We'll be running these cards through our usual X58 testbed which has the following specifications:

• Intel Core i7-975 (3.33GHz)
• Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P motherboard
• 3 x 1GB DDR3-1333 G.Skill memory in triple channel mode
• Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive
• Windows 7 Ultimate

Apart from evaluating the performance of the new GeForce GT 430, we are also interested in finding out if the current crop of entry-level, budget graphics cards are actually good enough to run modern games at reasonable frame rates. As such, we have included in our analysis the GeForce GT 240 and GT 220, both of which were launched in November last year and were NVIDIA’s first 40nm desktop parts, as well as the Radeon HD 5670 and HD 5570. The Radeon HD 5450 was omitted from this test because we deem it far too underpowered. The Radeon HD 5570 however, should be an ideal match in terms of price point and performance for the new GeForce GT 430, so keep an eye on these two.

Here are the full list of cards tested and the driver versions used:

• NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 (ForceWare 259.36)
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 (ForceWare 258.96)
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 (ForceWare 258.96)
• ATI Radeon HD 5670 (Catalyst 10.9)
• ATI Radeon HD 5570 (Catalyst 10.9)

This is the list of benchmarks used. Regular readers will notice that we’ve tweaked the graphics quality settings to something more manageable and ensure meaningful results for this low-end category of cards:-

• Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
• Crysis Warhead (Overall settings: Mainstream)
• Far Cry 2 (Overall settings: High)
• Warhammer: Dawn of War 2 (Overall settings: Low)
• Battlefield Bad Company 2 (Overall settings: Low)
• "Heaven" from Unigine v2.1 (Overall settings: Low)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (Overall settings: Medium)

3DMark Vantage Results

Beginning with our usual benchmark of 3D Vantage, the new GeForce GT 430 comes nicely in between the older GT 240 and GT 220. And, despite having the same 96 cores as the GeForce GT 240, we found that the GT 430 scored about 20% lower.

And when compared to ATI’s mainstream offerings, it is matched by the Radeon HD 5570 and trumped completely by the more powerful HD 5670, which also happens to be the highest scoring card here. 

Crysis Warhead and Far Cry 2 Results

Moving on to Crysis Warhead, the GeForce GT 430 managed to put in a decent performance. On the lower mainstream settings, we were pleased to see that the GeForce GT 430 managed to record above 30fps albeit on the lowest settings of 1280 x 800. But going above this resolution, its performance took a massive turn for the worse. Furthermore, compared to the GeForce GT 240, it was still very much slower - by at least 40%. The GeForce GT 430 wasn’t convincing against ATI’s entry-level offerings too, losing out to both the Radeon HD 5670 and HD 5570.

On Far Cry 2, the GeForce GT 430 found itself sandwiched again by both the GT 240 and GT 220, with its performance leaning more towards the latter. Again, the GeForce GT 240 proved quickest amongst the NVIDIA trio, outperforming the GeForce GT 430 comfortably. And it was close between the GeForce GT 430 and Radeon HD 5570, with the GT 430 taking a marginal victory only when anti-aliasing was enabled thanks to its larger 1GB frame buffer and more ROP units at work.

Dawn of War 2 & Battlefield Bad Company 2 Results

The GeForce GT 430 did admirably here, having outperformed the Radeon HD 5570 and held its own against the Radeon HD 5670. However, the GeForce GT 240 was the star performer here. We also noted that all cards managed above 30fps even when running at 1920 x 1200.

The older GeForce GT 240 and GT 220 were omitted from Battlefield Bad Company 2 because they don’t support DirectX 11. Although you cannot specifically choose, Bad Company 2 automatically detects if your card supports DirectX 11 and enables tessellation. Earlier Fermi cards proved to be strong performers where tessellation is concerned, but here the new GeForce GT 430 trailed both the Radeon HD 5670 and HD 5570 by a considerable margin. Even against the slower Radeon HD 5570, the GeForce GT 430 was about 25% slower. 

Unigine "Heaven" 2.1 Results

On Unigine’s “Heaven” benchmark and with tessellation enabled, the GeForce GT 430 fought back against the Radeon HD 5570. Overall, with tessellation enabled, the GeForce GT 430 was about 10% quicker than the Radeon HD 5570; but against the faster Radeon HD 5670, it had no answer. Still, the sad thing is that even with the shader quality set to “low” none of the cards managed respectable frame rates and were well below the playable threshold of 30fps.

When we reverted to DirectX 10, we found that the GeForce GT 430 came in nicely between the GeForce GT 240 and GT 220. And it was almost on a par when compared to the Radeon HD 5570; the HD 5670 was much quicker as usual. But with anti-aliasing enabled, the advantage went to the Radeon cards, despite the GeForce GT 430 having twice the framebuffer of the Radeon HD 5570 and more ROP processing units. Clearly, the raster operating units on the GeForce GT 430 is not as efficient than those on the Radeon HD 5570 (or the NVIDIA drivers could use some work). 

DirectX 11 Results

DirectX 10 Results

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Results

Overall on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, the GeForce GT 430 was neck-to-neck against the Radeon HD 5570, whether it was on DirectX 11 or DirectX 10. And on the other hand, the Radeon HD 5670 was almost on a par against the GeForce GT 240, but we did notice that the HD 5670 was significantly quicker once we increased the resolution.

We also observed that with on the lowest resolution of 1280 x 800, with anti-aliasing disabled and on the regular “Day run”, the cards were mostly able to to put in playable frame rates of above 30fps. But if we increased the intensity (enable anti-aliasing, increasing resolution, enabling high dynamic range rendering), performance takes a considerable hit. 

DirectX 11 Results

 DirectX 10 Results

Temperature

The GF104 and GF106 Fermi derivatives have proven themselves to be pretty cool to run, and the GF108 is no different. Even with a simple fan and heatsink combo, the ASUS ENGT430 that we have here recorded a decent 60 degrees Celsius. It’s warmer than the older GeForce GT 220, and comparable to the GeForce GT 240, but bear in mind that the ASUS ENGT430 is a half-height card and only has the most rudimentary cooler. Had it been a full-height card with a larger cooler, we would have seen even lower temperature readings.

Power Consumption

NVIDIA claims a maximum TDP of 49W for the GeForce GT 430, and that’s inline with our own measurements. At idle, its readings were the lowest amongst the other budget, entry-level cards; and at load, it was competitive, though slightly higher, than that of the Radeon HD 5570. Generally, however, we’re pleased with NVIDIA’s efforts in keeping the power draw figures of the GeForce GT 430 down to manageable levels. Though we do wish it could have been a tad better.

Overclocking

The earlier GF104 and GF106 GPU cores were eager overclockers and if the ASUS ENGT430 is any indication, the GF108 chip is equally eager to overclock as well. From a reference core and memory speed of 700MHz and 1800MHz DDR, we were able to attain a maximum overclocking state of 870MHz and 1850MHz DDR, giving us a healthy 15% boost in 3DMark Vantage scores. Although we couldn’t boost it to GeForce GT 240 or Radeon HD 5670 levels, it’s still a substantial improvement nonetheless. Though we doubt those who buy a GeForce GT 430 would be interested in overclocking, it is nonetheless good to know the overhead available with just a simple cooler.

A Non-impressive Update

As an entry-level card, the GeForce GT 430 is a decent offering from NVIDIA. But it neither impresses nor excites, and we find it hard to recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a serious upgrade.

In terms of performance, it is somewhere between the GeForce GT 240 and GT 220. And judging from our becnhmarks, the new GeForce GT 430 trailed the older GeForce GT 240 by a considerable margin, which we found surprising considering how the two of them are mostly comparable in terms of paper specifications.

Against the competition from ATI, the GeForce GT 430 was a match for the Radeon HD 5570, but lost out to the Radeon HD 5670. Hence, performance is certainly not one of the GeForce GT 430’s strong suits, but you’ll be happy to know that it’ll play games quite nicely if you keep your expectations reasonable (by that we mean keep your resolution and graphics settings low).

It’s the same story with HTPC-related features. Although the GeForce GT 430 supports 3D Blu-ray playback and HD audio bitstreaming, the older GeForce GT 240 can do the same, and it is faster to boot. It also loses out to ATI’s entry-level offerings, all of which comes with EyeFinity and can therefore drive up to three monitors simultaneously. It might not be suitable for surround gaming, but at least it can be used as a relatively inexpensive tool to increase screen real estate and productivity.

Although NVIDIA hasn’t fixed a specific launch price for the GeForce GT 430 and has left that decision to their partners, NVIDIA did say that it expects the GeForce GT 430 to retail around the US$79 mark, which again is between its two older siblings and comparable to the Radeon HD 5570. And based on its performance and feature set, there’s no compelling reason for anyone to get the GeForce GT 430 if you are already a GeForce GT 240 or Radeon HD 5570 user. However, as a card for someone building an entry-level rig or a HTPC system, the GeForce GT 430 fits the bill well.

And while it might be the first entry-level Fermi card for the masses, but enabling tessellation on such a low-powered card greatly affects performance, so that point about playing games with tessellation is moot really. Furthermore, 3D Blu-ray and HD audio bitstreaming are also supported by the older GeForce GT 240, so the GT 430 isn’t breaking new grounds here either.

In all, the GeForce GT 430 is a decent new offering, but comes recommended only if you have a are using an old basic card (such as the GeForce GT 220, Radeon HD 5450 and older products) or if you are stilling running off your motherboard's integrated graphics solution.

As for the ASUS ENGT430, we think that its a reasonable implementation of the GeForce GT 430. It sports reference clock speeds, so it is no speed demon, but as a half-height card, it is compact and runs cool enough. On top of that, its a rather eager overclocker too. Pricing-wise, it comes in at S$139, which is right between most GeForce GT 240 and GT 220 cards and comparable to the Radeon HD 5570, so at least it's pretty decent.

As for the question of whether can you play games with entry-level, budget graphics cards, the answer is both yes and no. If you are willing to sacrifice on graphics quality and play at a lower resolution, then a basic card like the GeForce GT 430 is going to get you playable frame rates above 30fps. But this also means, losing out on a lot of graphics eye candy, which has become an integral part of today’s games. Imagine playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 with washed out explosions and lighting effects, the experience won’t be the same as opposed to playing it with full graphics settings enabled on a powerful system even though the frame rates might be identical. There are of course folks who are engrossed only in strategic online game play, and for this group of people, the ability to play a game comfortably is their utmost criteria over graphics quality.

For regular or hardcore gamers, there’s simply no substitute for a proper mid to high-end graphics card. However, for casual gamers using an IGP solution and do not care much for graphics eye candy or only want to run basic games and spend more time consuming media such as movies and photos, an entry-level graphics card is a worthy investment.

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