ASUS ENGT430 GeForce GT 430 1GB DDR3 Video Card Review

Temperature Testing

Since video card temperatures and the heat generated by next-generation cards have become an area of concern among enthusiasts and gamers, we want to take a closer look at how the ASUS GeForce GT 430 `GB graphics card does at idle and under a full load.

ASUS ENGT430 GeForce GT 430 1GB Video Card Idle Temperature:

As you can see from the screen shot above, the idle state of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 drops the GPU core clock frequency down to 50.6MHz and the memory clock down to 1355MHz to help conserve power and lower temperatures. At idle on an open test bench the ASUS ENGT430 1GB video card temperature all along was observed at 36C. The fan speed on the card was at 60% and fairly quiet.

ASUS ENGT430 GeForce GT 430 1GB Video Card Load Temperature:

We fired up FurMark and ran the stability at 640×480, which was
enough to put the GF108 GPU core at 100% load in order to get the highest
load
temperature possible. This application also charts the temperature
results so you can see how the temperature rises and levels off, which
is very nice. The fan on the NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 1GB video card was
left on auto during temperature testing and the fan speed never changed, which was interesting. When we hit the space bar to stop the rendering the
temperature dropped. The peak temperature reported on the open air test
bench was 73C.

The GPU fan was only at 60% when at this temperature, so cooling can easily be improved if you manually want to set the fan to a higher RPM. Not bad results from a Fermi core with such a small heat sink and cooling fan, in all honesty.

The ASUS ENGT430 is slightly hotter than most of the GeForce GTS 450 video cards that we have tested, but not by too much. The HIS Radeon HD 5570 512GB GDDR5 video card is passively cooled and that is why it runs so much hotter at both idle and load. All testing in the chart above was done on the open test bench with a room temperature of 78F.