Help choosing graphics card please :)

[calduf]

Hi guys, in my previous post to these forums I was needing help on choosing a graphics card, I need to decide between two of these cards, and only these two (unlesss theres a better one for cheaper, which i doubt) as I can't afford better (even though pcs is really cheap) so the two cards I need a hand with are the 1gb gt520 and the 1gb gt430. I would really appreciate if someone could reply telling me a couple things. What one is overall better on performance, ability, speed, gaming capability, and general capability, will last longest, be able to play games the best and over all nice-ness to use! Much appreciated guys, Calum.

 

[Teaz]

the gt430 is better. not sure how well it will cope with games but it should be playable on low-med settings. the card is a low end gpu but should be fine to play games but may lag depending on some games.

 

[calduf]

Hi, thanks for that, but from what I can tell, about 90% of all of the spec on nvidias own site make the 520 seem better? How does this add up? :/ thanks again

 

[Teaz]

its because its a 500 series card which is the latest line up on their desktop cards. but the 430 does better. the 400 series is pretty much a legacy product now but still works as good.

 

[Sleinous]

Yeah the GT 430 vastly outguns the GT 520, GT 430 has 96 stream procs over the GT 520's measly 48 (just for starters). A GT 430 will blow a GT 520 out of the water in all of the above checklists you provided. I'd still go for a GTS 450 / GTX 550 Ti. Shame.

 

[calduf]

Hi again, still unsure so I will show you what I mean, here are the spec for the 520.

48CUDA Cores
810 MHzGraphics Clock (MHz)
1620Processor Clock (MHz)
6.5Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec)
Memory Specs:
900 MHzMemory Clock (MHz)
1024 MBStandard Memory Config
DDR3Memory Interface
64-bitMemory Interface Width
14.4Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)
Feature Support:
4.1OpenGL
PCI-E 2.0 x16Bus Support
YesCertified for Windows 7
DirectX 11, CUDA, PhysX, 3D VisionSupported Technologies

And here's the spec for 430


96CUDA Cores
700 MHzGraphics Clock (MHz)
1400 MHzProcessor Clock (MHz)
5.6Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec)
Memory Specs:
800 - 900Memory Clock (MHz)
1 GBStandard Memory Config
GDDR3Memory Interface
128-bitMemory Interface Width
25.6 - 28.8Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)
Feature Support:
4.0OpenGL
PCI-E 2.0 x 16Bus Support
YesCertified for Windows 7
DirectX 11, 3D Vision, CUDA, PhysXSupported Technologies



So I understand what you guys are saying about it being a legacy product and all that, and will probably go for the 430 by your guys recommendation, but I would still like to know, how that even though (from what I can tell) the spec is better in the 520, the 430 still manages to beat it? Thanks, and sorry if I'm being a pain or missing something obvious, but I'm not the best with computers, thanks !

 

[Sleinous]

GT 520: 48 CUDA cores, GT 430: 96 CUDA cores.

Core clock, memory clock etc is irrelevant in this case as the GT 430 is just a more powerful chip to begin with. (2x the number of stream processors aka CUDA cores).

 

[calduf]

Ok, I will go with your recommendation of the gt430 as I feel I am getting a bit annoying, thanks for the help, it's much appreciated !