Computex 2011: Silent and Single Slot GPUs

[John P. Myers]

It's about time! I actually wrote to Jaton and Sparkle a year ago begging them to bring out something faster than the 9500GT for PCI slots. Glad Zotac is stepping up and solving the problem

Also, i don't see any additional plugs on this card, so max power usage would be 25W

[Mumps]

It's about time! I actually wrote to Jaton and Sparkle a year ago begging them to bring out something faster than the 9500GT for PCI slots. Glad Zotac is stepping up and solving the problem

Also, i don't see any additional plugs on this card, so max power usage would be 25W

Yup. That's another tidbit that really has my interest up. No extra power needed and 1 slot form factor. It'll fit nicely in the older 1U servers I've got lying around. And it's actually relatively high on the GFlop/watt charts...

[John P. Myers]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4429/c...ngle-slot-gpus

The thing that caught my eye is a GT 430 **PCI** card (yes you read that right). Finally something faster than the 9500 GT that so many of us use.

A conversation i had with Zotac today regarding this wonderful card:

16:46John P. Myers: Hello
16:46Hansel: Hello my name is Hansel with Zotac USA Customer Service Department, how may I assist you?
16:47John P. Myers: Well i've been really interested in the availability of the PCI GT 430 GPU you have but can't seem to find it anywhere
16:48John P. Myers: btw, under 'Additional Information' it lists the card as PCIe 2.0, but it is actually a PCI
16:55Hansel: I apologize
16:55Hansel: My window froze
16:56Hansel: Do you have a model number I can use to search for that particular product?
16:57John P. Myers: geforce-gt-430-zt-40605-10l
16:57John P. Myers: i assume that's it. got ir from this link: http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-geforc...0605-10l.html#
17:00Hansel: I believe you are correct
17:00Hansel: The card is a PCI format
17:01Hansel: I will let my webmaster know of this
17:01Hansel: I apologize if there was any confusion
17:01John P. Myers: not a problem. i came looking for it after it got alot of attention at CES
17:01John P. Myers: i know alot of people that've been looking for a PCI card better than the old 9500 GT
17:06Hansel: I understand
17:07Hansel: I will have it updated by latest the end of the day today
17:08John P. Myers: so i guess my question is, has this card been released to any retailers yet? or is there another way to find it?
17:08Hansel: Let me go find that out
17:09Hansel: Are you located in the US?
17:09John P. Myers: yes
17:13Hansel: We will have the the products available in the states
17:13Hansel: we have yet to have them on the market at this moment
17:27John P. Myers: ok thanks. and sorry for my delay
17:27Hansel: Not a problem
17:27Hansel: We may be able to have some by later this month
17:27John P. Myers: alright. i appreciate you looking into this for me.
17:28John P. Myers: and that is good news
17:28Hansel: Was there any other questions you had for me today, John?
17:29John P. Myers: No that was all. Thank you very much
17:29Hansel: Come and stop by anytime
17:29Hansel: Have a great day!
17:29John P. Myers: You too
17:30Hansel: Thank You

[Mumps]

Still interesting. But feels odd to see their PCIe version, that has a fan on it's heatsink, listed as running at much slower memory clocks (1333 Mhz) than the PCI version that's passively cooled (at 1800 Mhz)

I'm still looking forward to ordering my first one of these. Hopefully it won't go the wrong direction on price. It'd be nice to see it below the $60ish for their PCIe competition rather than the $75 ZOTAC's other, PCIe, 430 GT's are hovering at.

EDIT: Oh. And on another note, according to dandasarge's collected NVidia GPU Breakdown, it ranks 12th out of the 63 NVidia cards he grabbed specs for when considered as a PCIe card drawing 60 watts for GFlop/watt. If this truly stays at or under 25 watt, but at that same performance level (which could be implied by it having the same number of shaders) this will blow the top off his chart. So, for 25 watts, I'd guess they may have some serious decrease in their clocks... But the specs on the website imply not.

Also:

Although all 400-series GPUs are architecturally capable of providing Open CL 1.1 support, drivers are not yet available for all models (as at 03/05/2011). For those models with Open CL 1.1 driver support, this is a beta driver only (v258.19 from June 2010).

So there may be concern that this card may not come with Cuda 1.1 support...

EDIT2: Did I type Cuda? What whas I reading???

[John P. Myers]

Nvidia states that programs developed for the GeForce 8 series will also work without modification on all future Nvidia video cards, due to binary compatibility.

The 430 has Compute Capability 2.1 and should run the current version of CUDA just fine. It's Open CL that the issue is with (it still runs version 1.0, just not 1.1 yet)

[Mumps]

Hmmm, what's wrong with this picture?

Chip clock: 700MHz, Memory clock: 600MHz, Shader clock 1400MHz • Chip: GF108 • Memory interface: 64-bit • Stream processors: 96 • Texture units: 16 • Manufacturing process: 40nm • Max. power consumption: 56W • DirectX: 11 • Shader model: 5.0 • Construction: single-slot • Special features: HDCP support, passive cooled

With no add-in 6 or 8 pin power? From a single PCI Slot? Isn't that out of spec?

Conventional PCI revision 2.3 (and previous versions) give the maximum
currents allowed per slot as:

3.3V: 7.6 A max. (system dependent)
5V: 5 A max. (system dependent)
12V: 500 mA max.
-12V: 100 mA max.

"There are no specific system requirements for current per connector on
the 3.3V and 5V rails; this is system dependent."

EDIT: And anyways, those specs are nothing at all like the ones on Zotac's web page...

[John P. Myers]

hrmmm....
well the 9500 GT is actually rated at 50W on Nvidia's site. 56W though seems a bit of a stretch...

[Mumps]

Still not available in the US. But I see a number of outlets in the UK supposedly have them for sale now. Looks like around $82 after currency conversion.

Still waiting...

[Beerdrinker]

Still not available in the US. But I see a number of outlets in the UK supposedly have them for sale now. Looks like around $82 after currency conversion.

Still waiting...

I can buy the Zotac version here in Denmark. Retailers site states 102 pieces in store. The danish price converted to $ says 138$ incl shipping. The retailers site says this about specs:


Model
Model ZT-40605-10L
Interface
Interface PCI
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer NVIDIA®
GPU GeForce® GT 430
Core clock 700 MHz
Stream Processors 96
Shader Clock 1400 MHz
Memory
Memory Clock 1200 MHz
Memory Size 512MB
Memory Interface 64-bit
Memory Type DDR3
3D API
DirectX DirectX 11
OpenGL OpenGL 4.1
Ports
DVI 1 (DVI-I)
HDMI 1 (1080p)
DisplayPort NA
VGA 1
General
Tuner None
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600
RoHS Compliant Yes
SLI Supported No
Cooler Without fan (single-slot)
Dual-Link DVI Supported Yes
Windows Vista N/A

[John P. Myers]

It's finally here!! And only $77 including shipping!


Edit: also, sorry i've been away awhile. working on going to Australia for a couple years. Sold my i7-2600K and both GTX 590s thinking new gen stuff would be out by the time i got there and got situated :/ but this damn visa is taking far longer than i thought.