Test Setup And Benchmarks
The cards we chose for comparison can all be found within $5 of the GeForce GT 430’s MSRP of $79, including the GeForce GT 220 DDR3, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5, the Radeon HD 5570 DDR3, and the Radeon HD 5670 GDDR5.
To better represent a level playing field (and to address some of the concerns we've seen in the comments section), all of these cards have been set to reference clock rates for testing.
| Test System | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Motherboard | Asus M4A785TD-V EVO Socket AM3, AMD 785G, BIOS 0410 | ||
| Processor | Phenom II X4 970 3.5 GHz, Quad-Core, 6 MB L3 CacheOverclocked to 4.0 GHz | ||
| CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper TX3 | ||
| Memory | Crucial DDR3-1333 Dual-Channel 2 x 2048 MB, 669 MHz, CAS 9-9-9-24-1T | ||
| Graphics | Gigabyte GV-N220OC-1GI (GeForce GT 220) 1 GB DDR3, 720/1566 MHz GPU/Shaders, 800 MHz MemoryAsus ENGT430 (GeForce GT 430) 1 GB DDR3, 700/1400 MHz GPU/Shaders, 800 MHz MemoryGigabyte GV-N240D5-512I (GeForce GT 240) 512 MB GDDR5, 550/1340 MHz GPU/Shaders, 850 MHz MemoryRadeon HD 5570 Reference 1 GB DDR3, 650 MHz GPU, 900 MHz MemoryRadeon HD 5670 Reference 512 MB GDDR5, 775 MHz GPU, 1000 MHz Memory***all clock rates set to reference specifications for the purposes of benchmarking*** | ||
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Black 1000 MB 7200 RPM, 32 MB Cache SATA 3Gb/s | ||
| Software and Drivers | |||
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 7 x64 | ||
| DirectX Version | DirectX 11 | ||
| Graphics Drivers | AMD Catalyst 10.9, GeForce 260.77 beta (GeForce GT 430), GeForce 258.96 (all others) | ||
| Benchmark Configuration | |
|---|---|
| 3D Games | |
| Crysis | Patch 1.2.1, DirectX 10, 64-bit executable, benchmark tool General Benchmarks: Low Quality, Textures, Shadows, Physics, Shaders, Water, and Sound to MediumAnti-aliasing Benchmarks: Low Quality, Textures, Physics, Water, and Sound to Medium, Shaders to High |
| Just Cause 2 | Version 1.0.0.2, in-game benchmark,Low Settings, Shadows and Water to Medium, No AA, 2x AF |
| Aliens vs Predator | Benchmark Tool, Medium Settings, SSAO Off, Dx11 tesselation and shadow sampling off, no AA, 8x AF |
| StarCraft II | Version 1.1.1, Custom Tom's Hardware BenchmarkHigh Quality Preset, No AA |
| DiRT 2 | In-game benchmarkDirectX 11, High Quality Preset, No AA |
| Synthetic | |
| 3DMark Vantage | Version: 1.01, Total System score |