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GeForce GT 1030

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The GeForce GT 1030 is an entry-level video card from NVIDIA, based on Pascal architecture, aimed on the low-consumption and super low-cost markets. Let’s see if can it be used for casual gaming.

The GeForce GT 1030 is based on the GP108 chip, manufactured under 14 nm technology, with 384 cores. Its base clock is 1,227 Mhz and its turbo clock is 1,468 MHz.

Unlike mainstream cards like the ones based on GeForce GTX 1050 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, that use a 128 bit memory bus, the GeForce GT 1030 uses a 64 bit bus, accessing 2 GiB of GDDR5 memory at 6 GHz. So, it has a bandwidth of 48 GiB/s. Notice, however, that there are video cards based on the same chip with different characteristics, like DDR3 memory and 128 bits versions.

The GeForce GT 1030 is not actually aimed on gaming, but on general use desktop computers that need a “real” video card. Its naming makes it clear: gaming video cards from NVIDIA are named GeForce GTX, while the general-use ones are GeForce GT.

One of the highlights of the GeForce GT 1030 is its low power consumption: its TDP is only 30 W, which means it doesn’t need an additional power connector. It also allows the manufacturers to build compact cards, with half-heigth (like the model we tested) or even with passive cooling (without a fan).

Obviously, another key characteristic of the GT 1030 is its low cost, around USD 70

Video card	CoreClock	Turbo Clock
Gigabyte Radeon RX 550	1,206 MHz	1,219 MHz
Gigabyte GeForce GT 1030	1,227 MHz	1,468 MHz
Zotac GeForce ​GTX 1050 Mini	1,354 MHz	1,455 MHz
Intel HD Graphics 630	300 MHz	1,150* MHz

Video card	Memory clock	Memory bus	Memory bandwidth
Gigabyte Radeon RX 550	7.0 GHz	3.6 GHz	128 bit
Gigabyte GeForce GT 1030	6.0 GHz	64 bit	48 GB/s
Zotac GeForce ​GTX 1050 Mini	7.0 GHz	128 bit	112 GB/s
Intel HD Graphics 630	–	–	–

Video card	Memory	Processing cores
Gigabyte Radeon RX 550	112 GB/s	512
Gigabyte GeForce GT 1030	2 GiB GDDR5	384
Zotac GeForce ​GTX 1050 Mini	2 GiB GDDR5	640
Intel HD Graphics 630	–	24

Video card	TDP	DirectX	Price
Gigabyte Radeon RX 550	50 W	12	USD 80
Gigabyte GeForce GT 1030	30 W	12.1	USD 70
Zotac GeForce ​GTX 1050 Mini	75 W	12.1	USD 100
Intel HD Graphics 630	–	12.1	–

Hardware Configuration

• Motherboard (Coffee Lake): Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming
• Motherboard (Kaby Lake): Gigabyte AORUS Z270X-Gaming 7
• Motherboard (AM4): ASRock X370 Taichi
• Memory: 16 GiB, two DDR4-3200 8 GiB Geil modules configured at 2666 MHz
• Boot drive: Samsung 960 EVO 500 GiB SSD
• Video Card: GeForce GTX 1080
• Video Monitor: Philips 236VL
• Power Supply: Corsair CX600

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 10 Home 64-bit
• NTFS
• Video resolution: 1920 x 1080 60 Hz

Driver Versions

• NVIDIA driver version: 387.92

Software Used

• 3DMark
• Blender
• Cinebench R15
• CPU-Z 1.81
• Handbrake
• PCMark 10
• WinRAR 5.5
• V-Ray Benchmark
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Dirt Rally
• GTA V
• Hitman
• Rise of the Tomb Raider

Error Margin

We adopted a 4% error margin. Thus, differences below 4% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 4% should be considered as having similar performance.

PCMark 10

PCMark 10 is benchmarking software that uses real-world applications to measure computer performance. We ran the standard test, which included opening applications, web browsing, writing, photo editing, video chat, video conversion, and rendering. Let’s see the results.

On the 3DMark 10 benchmark, the A8-9600 was 30% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 29% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

3DMark

3DMark is a program with a set of several 3D benchmarks. Time Spy runs a Direct X12 simulation; Fire Strike runs a “heavy” DirectX 11 simulation, and Sky Diver also measures DirectX 11 performance but is aimed at average computers.

On Time Spy, the A8-9600 was 13% slower than the Pentium G4600 and 18% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

On the Fire Strike benchmark, the A8-9600 was 26% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 34% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

On the Sky Diver benchmark, the A8-9600 was 35% slower than the Pentium G4600 and the Ryzen 3 1200..

Cinebench R15

Cinebench R15 is based on the Cinema 4D software. It’s useful to measure the performance gain obtained by the presence of several processing cores while renderi
ng heavy 3D images. Rendering is an area where a bigger number of cores helps a lot because usually, this kind of software recognizes several processors (Cinebench R15, for example, can use up to 256 processing cores).

We ran the CPU benchmark, which renders a complex image using all the processing cores (real and virtual) to speed up the process. The result is given as a score.

On Cinebench R15 CPU benchmark, the A8-9600 was 27% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 41% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

Blender

Blender is an image and movie rendering software that uses all the threads of the CPU. We used the program to render a heavy image of a project named Gooseberry Benchmark. The graph below shows the time the CPU used to finish the image, so the less, the better.

On Blender, the A8-9600 was 43% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 36% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

CPU-Z

On its current version, the well-known hardware identification software CPU-Z comes with a benchmarking tool, which measures CPU performance for one core and for all available cores.

On the single thread benchmark, the A8-9600 was 43% slower than both the Pentium G4600 and the Ryzen 3 1200.

On the multiple thread benchmark, the A8-9600 was 32% slower than the Pentium G4600 and 49% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

Handbrake

Media Espresso is a video conversion program that uses the graphics processing unit of the video engine to speed up the conversion process. We converted a 1 GiB, 1920x1080i, 23,738 kbps, .mov video file to a smaller 320×200, H.264, .MP4 file for viewing on a smartphone. The results below are given in seconds, so the lower the better.

Here the A8-9600 was 20% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 55% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

WinRAR

Another task where the CPU is very demanded is on file compacting. We ran a test compacting a folder with 8 GiB on 6.813 files to a file, using WinRAR 4.2. The graph below shows the time taken for each test.

n WinRAR, the A8-9600 was 83% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 60% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

V-Ray Benchmark

V-Ray Benchmark is a tool for measuring image rendering performance using the processor and the graphics card. It renders two images, one using the processor (CPU) and one using the video engine (GPU). We ran the benchmark and compared the CPU time on the graphics below.

On V-Ray, the A8-9600 was 47% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 82% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an action RPG with FPS elements, launched in August 2016, that uses the Dawn engine, being compatible with DirectX 12. We tested it using the benchmark included in the game, with DirectX 12 enabled, Full HD, and graphics options as “medium”.

The results below are expressed in frames per second.

On this game, the A8-9600 was 49% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 38% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

Dirt Rally

Dirt Rally is an off-road racing game released in April 2015, using Ego engine. To measure performance using this game, we ran the performance test included in the game, in 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) resolution and image quality configured as “medium” and MSAA off.

The results below are expressed in frames per second (fps).

In this game, the A8-9600 was 54% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 46% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V, or simply GTA V, is an open-world action game released for PCs in April of 2015, using the RAGE engine. In order to measure the performance on this game, we ran the performance test of the game, measuring the framerate with FRAPS. We ran GTA V at Full HD, with all image quality set as “normal” and MSAA off.

The results below are expressed in frames per second.

In GTA V, the A8-9600 was 39% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 38% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

Hitman

Hitman is an action/stealth game, launched in March 2016, that uses a DirectX 12 compatible version of the Glacier 2 engine. To measure performance in this game, we ran the benchmark in it, measuring the framerate with FRAPS. We ran this game in Full HD, with DirectX 12 enabled, with image quality set as “medium”.

The results below are expressed in frames per second.

On Hitman, the A8-9600 was 42% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 39% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is an adventure/action game launched in January of 2016, based on Foundation engine. In order to measure the performance using this game, we ran the benchmark included on it, using Full HD resolution and graphics quality set to “medium”.

The results below are expressed in frames per second.

Also on Rise of the Tomb Raider, the A8-9600 was 40% slower than the Pentium G4600, and 43% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an open-world RPG, released in May of 2015 and based on the REDengine 3 engine. In order to measure the performance in this game, we walk around at the first scene of the game, measuring the framerate with FRAPS three times. We ran the game at Full HD (1920 x 1080), with image quality set to “medium”.

The results below are expressed in frames per second and represent the arithmetical mean of the three collec

In this game, the A8-9600 was 35% slower than both the Pentium G4600 and the Ryzen 3 1200.

We ran some quick benchmarks in order to compare the performance of the integrated video present on the A8-9600 to the Pentium G4600, and the Core i3-7100 from Intel. We removed the video card
and ran three 3DMark benchmarks: Fire Strike, Sky Diver, and Cloud Gate.

On Fire Strike, the A8-9600 was 58% faster than the Pentium G4600.

On Sky Diver, the A8-9600 was 28% faster than the Pentium G4600.

On the Cloud Gate, the A8-9600 was 9% slower than the Pentium G4600.

We also ran, using the integrated video, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (A.K.A. CS: GO), which is a very popular game, launched in August 2012, using Source engine, which is DirectX 9. We benchmarked it playing in “Inferno” map, against bots, in Full HD, and image quality as “medium”.

The results below are expressed in frames per second and represent the arithmetical mean of the three collected results.

On CS: GO, the A8-9600 was 6% faster than the Pentium G4600.

When AMD announced new CPUs with integrated video using the new AM4 socket, we were excited. We were hoping for a combination of the good performance of Zen cores (used by Ryzen CPUs) and a high-performance iGPU, which creates a great cost/performance ratio for budget gaming computers.

However, for some reason, AMD chose to launch new APUs using the old Excavator architecture. Because of this, the A8-9600 is a processor that is slower, not only than Intel’s competitors but also the newer processors from AMD itself. If we compare the performance of the A8-9600 to the Pentium G4600’s,

We see it’s a lot slower; if we compare it to the Ryzen 3 1200 (which also brings four cores), it’s clear how much faster Zen architecture is compared to Excavator.

The competitor of the GT 1030 is the Radeon RX 550 from AMD. However, this time we are testing the GT 1030 against a GeForce GTX 1050, in order to answer two questions: if the GT 1030 is powerful enough for a casual player, and, in the case of a positive answer, if it has a good price/performance ratio.

The GeForce GT 1030 does not support SLI, Ansel, G-SYNC, GameStream, VR Ready, and Simultaneous Multiprojection technologies, present on GTX models.

The GeForce GT 1030 we tested is manufactured by Gigabyte, model number GV-N1030D5-2GL (also called “GT 1030 Low Profile 2G”), which is a low profile model, bringing a bracket to be used on “slim” (half-height) cases. It uses standard clocks on normal mode, and a base clock of 1,252 MHz base clock and 1,506 MHz turbo clock on OC mode (selected by an app).