MSI N430GT MD1GD3/OC/LP Video Card Review

The MSI N430GT MD1GD3/OC/LP

With high-end video cards, NVIDIA sells the video cards to their partners, which simply put their own sticker and box, at least at a first moment. Therefore, there is no difference buying the video card from partner A or partner B: the video cards are absolutely the same. Unless, of course, the manufacturer added some overclocking. At a second moment, manufacturers start moving from the reference model, changing the video card cooler and even developing their own printed circuit boards.

With the GeForce GT 430, however, NVIDIA didn’t provide a reference sample to its partners. This means that each manufacturer had to create its own video cards based on this graphics chip. So a GeForce GT 430 from manufacturer A is not identical to the GeForce GT 430 from manufacturer B.

MSI decided to use high-end components on their N430GT MD1GD3/OC/LP, as we shall discuss in the next page. One of the highlights of the reviewed video card is that it can be “transformed” into a low-profile video card by simply replacing the rear bracket (the card comes with two low-profile brackets), making it an interesting choice for compact computers (e.g. HTPCs).

Below we have an overall look at the MSI N430GT MD1GD3/OC/LP.

Figure 1: MSI N430GT MD1GD3/OC/LP

Figure 2: MSI N430GT MD1GD3/OC/LP

This video card has one DVI-D, one HDMI, and one VGA connectors.

Figure 3: Video connectors