It seems the big manufacturers are looking at the marketfrom a completely different angle than buyers. Of course, it is possible that in the US or Europe, users listen to the recommendations of the manufacturer and choose a graphics accelerator based on them. In Russia, this seems utopia, and price rules the market. She was and remains the main criterion in the selection of components. Therefore, it is not a secret to anyone that the majority of sales are made in the segment of budget and ultra-budget computer components.
Buying a video card, no matter how much it costs,the user hopes to launch with it some sample of interactive art. Otherwise, the acquisition of a graphics card loses all meaning - the integrated problems can be easily handled with office problems.
Can a budget video card meet the needs of a gamer? To understand, consider the sample NVIDIA GeForce GT 630.
Equipment
The graphics adapter comes in quitea box familiar to buyers, on both sides of which there are more advertising slogans than dry information. Inside lies only the device itself and the laser disk on which the drivers are written. No additional wires or adapters.
Appearance
NVIDIA GeForce GT630 graphics card lookssolid: full-sized with a massive radiator and cooler. And the latter is dustproof. Well, the cooling system covers a large area of the board. The manufacturer notes that the production of video cards used only high-quality chokes, the cores of which are made of ferrite. And capacitors have twice the service life.
Specifications
And if there are no claims to the embodiment in the glandno, then to the engineers themselves abound. Although the first digit of model 6, the architecture is used the same as in younger representatives such as GeForce 400, that is, Femi. The video card processor is marked as GF108, and this indicates that the developments of 2010 were actually applied, and even then only the younger models were produced on this GPU.
We can say that today NVIDIA GeForce GT630 characteristics are completely analogous to the GT 440. The same frequencies, the same memory controller, the same number of blocks. In more detail, the GPU is designed according to the standards of 40 nm. The number of transistors is 585 million, on the basis of which four rasterization blocks are made, 16 are texturing. The stream processors here are 96. More modest. The frequency of the processor video card - 810 MHz, which is unlikely to compensate for all the shortcomings.
The NVIDIA GeForce GT 630 graphics card has anddignity. They all relate to memory. Its work is carried out using a 128-bit bus, which is rare for the lower price segment. GDDR-5 chips operate at a frequency of 3200 MHz. Therefore, the memory bandwidth is 51.2 Gb / s, which is unattainable for the older brother in the face of the GT 640. It is unlikely that it will save the graphics adapter and bring its performance to a high level, but attempts to make a weak device competitive are worthy of respect. But the characteristics of the graphics processor are very modest.
By the way, there is a model in the NVIDIA product linewith GDDR3 memory. To understand how much memory affects the work, you can read the comments of the owners of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 630. Reviews of those people who purchased the GDDR3 card are far from praising this product.
Performance
Testing in 3DMark sad - lagging behind70% of its closest competitor in the face of the GT 640. In Unganged Heaven, it still seems noticeable - 50%, but Metro 2033 almost equalizes opponents, leaving only 10%. However, FPS at high graphics settings is so low that playing the last is possible only by changing the settings to medium.
In Battlefield 3 and F1 2011 games, the frame rate has doubled compared to Metro, but it’s still not enough for a comfortable game: the average is 20-24 frames per second.
Conclusion
Call NVIDIA GeForce GT 630 Game Video Cardthe tongue will not turn. Performance in three-dimensional games, even not the last generation is too low, enjoy the work of game designers will not work. The reasons for this is that the company did not design a new product, but renamed the old one, trying to make money, not a video card. The funniest thing is that even in 2010, when the GT 440 was released, it was considered the cheapest solution with the lowest rates in its line. Only by installing the GDDR-5 memory into the outdated architecture did the card fail to conquer a new level. Even overclocking will not help you get the right FPS for a comfortable game.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 630 is best suited fornon-gaming system, which is devoid of the integrated graphics core. And in this case, you can even describe several advantages of the board: low energy consumption with automatic frequency reduction in idle time; silent work thanks to the high-quality cooling system. A graphics accelerator is also suitable for a gamer who has missed one or several generations of games and wants to enjoy a product that was released several years ago.
And yet if you are looking for a cheap video card, the pricewhich does not exceed $ 70, it is impossible to recommend the GT 630 even for a game with the lowest quality settings. It is better to look at AMD video cards: for example, HD 6670 and 6750 even today show a decent level of performance.
