Zotac GT 430 PCI slot GPU info

[John P. Myers]

Specifically, i'm talking about this card here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814500221

***Please note this is a PCI card, not a PCIe card. It is the fastest PCI card available***

I highly recommend this card for anyone who has an open PCI slot - especially in the older Pentium 4 systems where that's probably the only options there are, and anyone with any system where you're out of PCIe slots or are too near your power supply's wattage limit to risk another PCIe GPU. This card does not have any additional plugs. 100% of the power is drawn from the motherboard's PCI slot (25W, give or take), and because it has such a low power requirement, there's a 99% chance you won't even have to consider upgrading your power supply to run it.

The card only takes up 1 slot, and has no cooling fans to add additional noise to your system. I was a bit skeptical about how well the heatsink would perform, especially when overclocked and right next to an ATI 5870. Was also concerned about how much it might increase the temp of the 5870 with a heat source near it, but i found there's nothing to worry about. With an ambient temp of 75F (~24C), the overclocked GT 430 raised the 5870 @ 900MHz by 1C (74C to 75C). Increasing the fan from 40% to 41% brought it back to down to 74C.

Stock Specs:
Core Clock: 700MHz
Shader Clock: 1400MHz
Memory Clock: 1200MHz

My Overclocked Specs:
Core Clock: 839MHz
Shader Clock: 1678MHz
Memory clock: 1320MHz
GPU temp @ 75F ambient: 65C
Credits/day @ DistRtGen: ~87,580 http://boinc.freerainbowtables.com/d...state=3&appid=

87.5k credits/day from a PCI slot using 25W? Damn right. Over 3x the performance of the 9500GT PCI cards and cost $25 less than the 9500GT i had. Unbeatable.

Also, if you're a gamer, this card is perfect for dedicated PhysX

EDIT: one more thing, the length of the card is more than short enough that it won't block the air intake on most GPUs.