Galaxy’s GT 430 – Introducing Nvidia’s new GF108 multi-media GPU
Just Cause 2
Just Cause 2 is a 2010 sandbox-style action video game by Swedish developer Avalanche Studios and Eidos Interactive and is the sequel to the 2006 video game, Just Cause. Just Cause 2 employs the Avalanche Engine 2.0 which an updated version of the engine used in the original and there are impressive visuals as it is made just for DX10. It is set on the fictional tropical island of Panau in Southeast Asia. Rico Rodriguez returns as the protagonist who aims to overthrow the evil dictator “Baby” Panay and also to confront his former boss, rogue agent Tom Sheldon. The game play is similar to that of its predecessor in that the player is free to roam the huge open world without a need to focus on the storyline.
The Just Cause 2 AI has been rewritten to use a planning system which enables the in-game enemies to do more and there is also more vertical game play as well as a manual aiming system that allows the player to target enemy NPC’s specific limbs. Just Cause 2 also includes an adaptive difficulty system which scales as the player progresses. There are also new weapons in Just Cause 2 which include launching laser-controlled rockets as well as several new vehicles including a Boeing 737. Just Cause 2 now includes dual-grappling hooks which give players the ability to tether unlimited objects to each other including the tethering of enemies to vehicles and to each other which works very well as one of your goals is to cause maximum chaos.
Here are the maximum settings available to a GeForce card; the bottom two, the Bokeh Filter and GPU water simulation, are unavailable to Radeons and they are left off on all runs to give solid apples-to-apples comparisons for all of our tested video cards; we used the Dark Tower benchmark built into the retail game. Please note that the image (below) contains an error as Point Light Specular is ‘on’ for all runs.
Now let’s look at the performance at 1440×900:
The stock Galaxy GT 430 scores an impressive win over the GT 220.
while i understand that it’s nice to have gts 450 and hd 5750 scores for a bit of context, can i ask why you haven’t included the hd 5570 and/or hd 5670 as, being the gt 430’s main competitors, they are rather important in terms of how much value this card actually is…?
Thanks for your comment. As reviewers, we use what we have. I do not have HD 5570 nor HD 5670 to use for comparison.
However, as I pointed out in my Galaxy GT 430 evaluation, this is only “Part 1”. Part two will cover HD 4290 IG and using GT 430 as a dedicated PhysX card. If I can get ahold of HD 5570, I will also include it.
As I understand it, GT 430 is primarily a HTPC card first with an emphasis on BluRay 3D movies. It is a direct successor to GT 220 which serves a similar purpose in Nvidia’s lineup. As a successor, it works much better than the GT 220 which will probably get further discounted. And the GT 430 success will also depend on its market pricing.
@arcade flyer,
Since the HD5670 card costs the same as the 430 (79.99 on newegg), and typically beats it by a large margin (from the other review sites ive seen). I agree it makes little sense that its not compaired with the 430. Even the HD5570 should beat it by a little bit, and be selling cheaper. The 5670 in the benchmarks at tomshardware/HardOCP/Anandtech, is almost pulling twice as much frames pr secound in most of the tests (games).
@apoppin,
if its emphasis is on bluRay 3d movies, why isnt in the review? instead of 21 games tested. Also could you test out ATIs blueray 3d? in 10.3 I believe they added support for it, and that “middleware vendors” now have glasses out for it too.
You seem to miss that there is a “Part Two” part of my GT 430 review coming. And although I do not have a HD 5570 or HD 5670 (Leon has them in Jamaica; there was no time to get the GT 430 to him for his evaluation). I will also save this card for evaluation when the HD 6500/6600 series is out.
There are many ways to evaluate a product and my approach focused on the GT 430 as a successor to GT 220. The GT 220 was not a strong gaming card; the GT 430 is much faster, yet GT 220 had a solid and successful place in Nvidia’s lineup. In this way, the GT 430 succeeds. And as I stated, “price” and market positioning will determine its level of success. It also appears to excel at 3D BluRay playback which leaves it in a rather unique position for now.
Now this is a tech site where each editor has his own interests and specialties. My evaluations and BFG10K’s reviews are from the perspective of a gamer. MrK is very interested in video playback and encoding and you will always see that featured in his evaluations.
Soon we expect to receive a 3D vision kit from Nvidia and we will be very happy to evaluate 3D video playback and 3D games in future reviews. We are always looking to bring more to our readers.
@apoppin
thanks for replying. i appreciate that you can only use what you have. of course the gt430 is a light/mid card geared towards hd media decoding and casual gaming rather than hd gaming. anyway, i look forward to part 2 for a more complete picture.
quotes from AnandTech:
“..GT 430 simply isn’t competitive with AMD’s 5570 and 5670 in gaming performance..”
Some games the 5670 has almost twice the fps rates, like in Battlefield bad company 2, at 1280×1024 medium quality settings Chase bench. The 430 is scoreing around 36 fps vs the 5670s 62 fps.
Thats a HUGE differnce, for 2 cards priced the same.
“..If image quality absolutely matters to you, then the Radeon 5570 is definitely the card to get for the time being”
HQV 2 benchmark for image quality, the 5570/5670 cards score ALOT higher.
“So if NVIDIA stumbles on image quality, where do they excel? 3D stereoscopy.”
so… 430 is a card for people that want 3d Steroscopy, only how many people actually have a tv that has 120+ mhz refresh rates?
To answer your question,
Improvements in technology and content availability will lead to “tremendous growth” in 3DTV sales in the next few years, according to a study out of DisplaySearch. The research outfit forecast 3DTV sales of 3.2 million this year and a whopping 90 million by 2014.
-Source: TWICE (10/13) Home Media Magazine (10/13)
GT 430 is a great successor to GT 220 – which was no flop. I am certain any IQ issues will be fixed in drivers and it will serve as an excellent HTPC videocard that can do light to moderate gaming.
I am very interested in this card. I like the lower memory speed and the large fan. The gaming performance does not interest me. A 20 or 30 dollar price difference is not a big deal either. What this shopper wants to know is which has more reliable drivers, Nvidia or AMD. My needs are for HTPC. Mostly Internet TV and Video Streaming. People with new HDTV just want somting to get an HDMI connection with audio going on. I mostly look at the power consumption,heat and noise specs.I am not familar with Galaxy but it is so far the best design I have seen for my needs.
Nvidia’s and AMD’s drivers and support are both top notch. You can’t go wrong with either company for your needs.
I had recently called Galaxy’s “US” support line in regard to Xtreme Tuner HD. Not only was the person on the phone unfamiliar with the program, but for being the North American support line he was not the most fluent in English. I can speak 3 languages unfortunately, I’m not well versed in Hindi.
I later emailed Galaxy support with a simple and specific question. It’s now been over a week and I have yet to hear back.
I’ve also read on numerous websites that support for Galaxy is horrible and pointless. When you called and spoke with them, what was asked?
I can certainly call Galaxy tech support again.
However, there is a Galaxy representative that responds to our forum member’s issues. I would be glad to put him in contact with you. Why not sign up on our forum and post your issue there?
Okay, excellent post along with fair comments coming from your readers, I have shared this post on a handful of social book-marking sites because it’s a very good read, thank you.
I am glad that I noticed this website , exactly the right information that I was looking for! .
Hi, I do believe this is a great website. I stumbledupon it 😉 I am going to return yet again since I book marked it. Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you be rich and continue to help other people.