ASUS ENGT430/2DI/1GD3(LP) Pro Reviews

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.

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. 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.

ASUS has an interesting card in their version of the reference GT430 card. While the card is clocked at the standard reference clock frequencies, there’s headroom on the design as the card was able to hit over 100MHz clock speed increase over the reference clocks. ASUS has decided to include a 2-slot heatsink/fan cooling solution, which allows for the higher clocks on this card. The quoted power draw of 49W TDP means that this card does not need external power to run. The card length is 6 inches, which means it barely is longer than a PCI Express x16 slot.

The ASUS ENGT430 won't play 3D-intensive video games. The ENGT430 won't play DX11 games without seriously lowering the settings. The ENGT430 won't even play a lot of DX10 games without lowering the settings by quite a bit. But that wasn't the purpose of the ASUS ENGT430. The purpose was to provide an inexpensive video card for HTPC and media PC users that supports DX11 and 3D media playback. The ASUS ENGT430 certainly works for that purpose.

Now that we have been through all of the data, let's take a moment to digest the numbers. For the most part, the Asus ENGT430 performed about on par with the Radeon HD 5550. Yes, there were a few tests where they traded places, but their scores usually mirrored each other during testing. As we mentioned before, the GeForce GT 430 replaces the GT 220 within NVIDIA's lineup. Although we did not have a GT 220 available for testing, the GT 240 included in the comparison group maintained a marked performance advantage over the GT 430.

A quick look at the benchmark tables on the previous page will reveal that it's a pretty much level playing field – demonstrating why all the press presentations spoke of the performance boost over the GT 220 rather than how it fared against the competition.

The ENGT430 is not a gaming power house but does indeed have the ability to play games at resolutions of 1680 x 1050 (and below) with the image quality settings reduced in most of the games in which the card was tested. Casual gaming it can handle quite easily. Whereas, when I tested the latest integrated solution from Intel, it just could not handle the same games. Check out the latest Intel integrated solution in this review of the i5 661 chip I looked at back in January of this year. This integrated solution did indeed offer great High Definition and Blu-ray playback so there is some positive on that front for the integrated solution. But, if the comparison stopped there (with just gaming and Blu-ray playback) then, the discrete GPU still comes out on top based on its casual gaming abilities. Therein lies the allure of this card. It is more than just a display device.

The NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 is an intriguing little card that is a great budget low resolution gaming card, but is more aimed at HTPC or digital media PC use.

The bad news is that the GeForce GT 430 isn't being released at the best time for Nvidia. With AMD poised to present its next line of video cards, a card this underpowered is not going to help Nvidia leech much excitement from that event. And with both Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs and AMD's Fusion APUs on the horizon, the call for budget video cards to handle everyday media-manipulation chores is, in all likelihood, rapidly approaching its end. We can still recommend it as a single-use card (though if you have any gaming ambitions whatsoever, the 5670 is a better choice, and only costs $10 more), but if you can wait to see if Sandy Bridge and Fusion (and their video performance) live up to their hype, that might be a better way to go for now. A GT 430–based card like the Asus ENGT430 can be a respectable, media-oriented choice, but it's tough to say right now whether you—or anyone—will necessarily need it in even just a few months.

Most mainstream gamers are using the resolutions of 1280x1024 or 1680x1050. Most ASUS ENGT430 users will not be. Not for games anyway. The ASUS ENGT430 best performs at the low intensity resolution of 1024x768 when it comes to games. Higher resolutions are possible, but at the expense of good quality and higher settings. As far as mainstream gaming performance, the ASUS ENGT430 performed almost exactly where NVIDIA said it would. It will play the games at low resolution and with some features enabled. Our gaming benchmarks prove, however, that the ASUS ENGT430 could perform very well as a media GPU. The ASUS ENGT430 will have no problems streaming high quality movies, pictures, and videos and it also enables 3D media viewing. The ASUS ENGT430, being a GF100 series product, also supports DirectX 11, although not very well when it comes to video games. Other DX11 content will be easily playable, however.

The entry level market likely won't that exciting for the vast majority of people reading this article. However, we feel the GT 430 has become a serious contender by injected just the right amount of adrenalin into this somewhat stagnant price point. It really is a pleasant surprise.