06-30-2018, 02:58 AM
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/33...-card-2018
Quote:The GT 1030 GDDR5 received our recommendation on a few occasions, almost all of which were derived from limited supply of the GTX 1050 or RX 550. Even in spite of this forced recommendation, the card did perform objectively well when compared to its predecessor garbage-tier cards. We almost never recommend sub-$100 cards (this one had an MSRP of $70), but the GT 1030 was good enough to warrant in pairing with a G4560, G5600, or R3 CPU.
Unfortunately, because the new GT 1030 obfuscates that choice and conveniently blends its significant DDR4 reduction into product IDs, we must rescind that recommendation. The average consumer cannot reasonably be expected to look at “GT 1030 2GB OC LPD4” and understand that is 55% slower than “GT 1030 2GB OC LPG5.” That is completely ludicrous, and nVidia, for a company so righteous on making “choices clearer for gamers,” sure seems to be obscuring this one. The company only wants some cards to be a clear choice. Not all cards, apparently. This does not benefit gamers.
The sad thing is that, although we wouldn’t like the card, we wouldn’t be offended by its existence had it been named “GT 1020,” or almost literally anything other than an existing product name whose predecessor has 2x the performance.
The GT 1030 DDR4 chokes on all memory bandwidth-intensive tasks. If you are asking what game graphics are bandwidth-intensive, the answer is “all of them.” The GT 1030 DDR4 is a disgrace of a product, and that is only true because of its name. We can no longer recommend the GT 1030 in any capacity, at this time, out of concern that a consumer might purchase the wrong one. The GDDR5 card is fine, but at a $10 reduction, you lose half the performance with the DDR4 card, and that’s an easy mistake to make.