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Recently we have changed our method of measuring noise levels. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. We are using a heatpipe based passive power supply and an Intel SSD to keep noise levels to a minimum. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests. Ambient noise in the room is around 20 dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
Under Furmark load, the fan spins up quite fast, although the noise levels never get that intrusive, even more impressive when considering the modest single slot cooler used. The challenge here for nVidia is that AMD's partners already offer many media cards around this price-point which are completely passive – including Sapphire's Ultimate range.
ekk, same price as a HD5670, thats a bit of a mess.
Disaster, the card doesnt seem to have much going for it, certainly not at that price.
Why not make it passively cooled and the same price as a HD5500 series card? like 40 quid.
Very highly overpriced. as a media card it seems decent as the HQV testing shows, but again the HD5670 is better. Dont think it has anything really to sell it. price needs to be 40-50 quid.
They all need to passively cooled and under £50. not sure what they are thinking. performance is very poor.
Very honest, and I like to see KG not hiding behind some silly comments. its a poor board. GTX460 seems to be the only no brainer this time around.
Well this is very open. I am a bit sick seeing 9/10s on this site, I doubt this review will make you popular with nvidia fans, but It is a tough card to recommend. I think even the 5570 si a better card. at least its passively cooled too !
I have read this and there was certainly no quarter drawn 🙂
It isn’t a poor card, power consumption is good and noise levels are decent.
My points are this and its been said before.
1: price needs to put it into the RIGHT CATEGORY! £45 inc vat
2: passively cooled, all solutions (or see point 3)
3: non passive cooled solutions need the clocks raised much higher to help with gaming.
I know people say its a ‘media card’ but come on, even people who are media fanatics, still play the odd title at 720p. this card even struggles at that, which is acceptable for 45 quid, not 65. HD5670 is a decent media gaming card, so this has to be as well, or else the price has to change. fact.
10/10 review. dig the honesty. product sucks. There are loads of cards in this price sector which deliver better performance. point proven today.
Maybe they can;t drop the price more, but this is destined to fail. loads of threads up across the net already. its only decent for encoding some files. but very few media people care less with even powerful low end CPU’s today.
Well this article is useless as it it compares against the wrong ATI graphics card…
The Nvidia GT430 is priced at about $79 (£51) and so competes with the ATI 5550 which would look much more interesting, and a Best buy rating !
bollocks.
This is the common pricing online. learn to count http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-239-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1863
JCB has been on the LSD 🙂
The whole point of this article is that the 430 SHOULD be £sub 50 but its £65-70!
Might be cheaper in america but it sure as shit aint in the UK.
Maybe if I got a flight to New York, it might work out at £50, but id need to get a flight for £3 before it would be worth my time.
All the prices today in the UK are 65 to 75 quid in the uk. ive not seen any decent makes for close to 50 quid. at 70 quid for the asus card, thats 5 less than a 1gb HD5670 ! well worth a 6 month wait for this crap.
i wait for the nexgenartion cards