AXLE GeForce GT 430 1GB Video Card Review

Power Consumption and Temperature Testing

For testing power consumption, we took our test system and plugged it into a Kill-A-Watt power meter. For idle numbers, we allowed the system to idle on the desktop for 15 minutes and took the reading. For load numbers we measured the peak wattage used by the system while running the OpenGL benchmark FurMark 1.8.2 at 1920×1200 resolution.

Power Consumption Results: Here we see the AXLE GeForce GT 430 used less power than the ASUS 9600 GSO, which was expected somewhat since it does not require supplemental power from the power supply like the 9600 GSO needed. At idle the AXLE GeForce GT 430 used 24 watts less than the ASUS GeForce 9600 GSO. Under full load the AXLE GT 430 used 18 watts less than the ASUS GeForce 9600 GSO.

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 AXLE GeForce GT 430 1GB graphics card does at idle and under a full load.

AXLE GeForce GT 430 1GB Video Card Idle Temperature:

Here,
as we can see from the screen shot above, the AXLE GeForce GT 430 drops
the GPU core clock speed down to 50.6MHz and the memory speed down to
135MHz to help conserve power and lower the temperatures. At idle inside
the HAF 932 Black Edition case the AXLE GT430 temperature was observed a
28C with the fan speed clocked at 65%.

AXLE 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 AXLE GeForce GT 430 1GB video card was left
on auto during temperature testing and the fan speed never changed,
which was a little interesting. The peak temperature reported inside the
HAF 932 case was 41C but stayed steady at 40C. Pretty darn good for a
Fermi core although it’s got a rather hefty heatsink on it.

AXLE GeForce GT 430 1GB Video Card Overclocked Load Temperature:

Temperatures
while overclocked were not too much higher which is very good for this
video card. At 800MHz on the GPU core peak temperature was 45C which is
only about 4C higher than stock speed under load. Not bad at all. The
ASUS GeForce 9600 GSO did not have a temperature sensor; therefore no
comparison was made with the AXLE GeForce GT 430.