[DEAL] MSI GT430 (Fermi) $25 AR + shipping

CpTHOOK Wrote:I felt fanless was important to try and eliminate as much noise as possible.

that is very true...but for me, from my sitting area to entertainment center i cannot hear case and gpu fans. with proper audyssey surround sound calibration, it takes all the environment noises (ceiling fan, htpc fan, tv fan, avr fan, cricket, etc) into consideration too!

bluray Wrote:With proper audyssey surround sound calibration, it takes all the environment noises (ceiling fan, htpc fan, tv fan, avr fan, cricket, etc) into consideration too!

Didn't realize that, learn something new everyday! Don't own Denon anymore, but Pioneer has a similar calibration system! Guess I will wait till everyone is out of the house and recalibrate sometime this evening.

CpTHOOK Wrote:Didn't realize that, learn something new everyday! Don't own Denon anymore, but Pioneer has a similar calibration system! Guess I will wait till everyone is out of the house and recalibrate sometime this evening.

actually, i own onkyo network avr instead and its audyssey calibration microphone system is slightly more advance than my previous pioneer elite avr. it calibrates more sitting locations too.

if you usually watch tv with ceiling and ac on, i'm suggesting turn them on when calibrating the surround system. in my new home, i can hear ac and ceiling fan more than any electronics fans in the entertainment center. that is why i'm not worry about case and gpu fans at all!

if you're really into soundproof, you can visit this site- acoustical surface. i used to installed bass straps and other soundproof materials in my previous home theater room.

wsume99 Wrote:The problem with review sites is that they often don't do a very good job of testing power consumption with a real-world HTPC configuration.

For example, the x-bitlabs review of the G540 linked above published power consumption numbers with an ATI Radeon HD 6970 and 880w PSU installed in the system! The advertised TDP of the HD6970 is 250w and the GT430 is 49w. Now I don't think that TDP is a very good way to estimate actual power consumption (it is usually an overestimate) but I feel pretty comfortable in saying that the GT430 would use way less power than the HD6970. Even so, at 100% CPU load the G540 had a total system power draw of 70 watts even with that beast of a GPU idling in there.

Let's try this another way, let's just total up TDPs (which as I already said is probably an overestimate)...

G530 = 65w
GT430 = 49w

Total = 114w

That leaves 36w for the MB and SSD. Like I said before, it might be close but you should be fine. Especially since the G530 won't even come close to actually drawing 65w at full load. Again we are talking about a full CPU & GPU condition. How often do you think you're going to even be in that state?

I'd be willing to bet money that a G530 + GT430 + MB + SSD + picoPSU would not draw more than 120w at full CPU & GPU load.

Thanks for this analysis, I hoped the 150W power supply that comes with the Antec ISK 310-150 would be enough, and now I'm convinced.
But I wasn't convinced this video card would actually fit in that case after reading a thread on HardForum. I waited to order until my case/mobo came in and now I see the card is out of stock at newegg.

But I'm glad I waited as the manufacture lists "Card Dimension(mm): 176 x 73 x 34 mm". And measuring from my motherboard's PCI-E expansion slot to the end of the case it's only 25mm wide.

I noticied this card for $37, but couldn't find the dimensions.

Yes! Mine came in themail today. Will report back.

htpc guy Wrote:Yes! Mine came in themail today. Will report back.

Nice!.... another thing I noticed when I sleep my pc and wake it up, it will turn on but the screen stays blank and I can not reset it by pressing the power button or anything. I have to do a hard boot on it.

It used to be fine with my other GPU card. Maybe it's something else?

It don't really matter much since I don't use the sleep mode.

Beer40oz Wrote:It used to be fine with my other GPU card. Maybe it's something else?

Check out the MCE Standby Tool, has some settings for NVidia cards and waking up from sleep. Might help, might not...

So far this card is pretty sweet.

Took my HTPC from a Windows Experience Index of 3.2 to 5.5. I know its sort of an arbitrary number but its cool none the less.

Before installing this I was running on board graphics (ATI) via htmi out. Now with the GT430 playback is great, system is much more responsive and I was surprised that it speed up the gui in XBMC. I haven't tweaked the playback settings at all and they are excellent. Now its time to upgrade to a new receiver with HDMI so I can really take advantage of this thing.

htpc guy Wrote:Before installing this I was running on board graphics (ATI) via htmi out.

i'm not a fan of igpu because it is mostly lack of power.

htpc guy Wrote:Now with the GT430 playback is great, system is much more responsive and I was surprised that it speed up the gui in XBMC. I haven't tweaked the playback settings at all and they are excellent. Now its time to upgrade to a new receiver with HDMI so I can really take advantage of this thing.

now, you're ready to playback bd in 1080p with dts-hd and truehd.

here is an affordable solution- Onkyo HTX-22HDX Ultra-Compact HD Home Theater System.

OK To who ever got this MSI GPU

I was able to go to sleep and resume windows with my old gt210 and some other cards.

Now this gt430 wont resume windows back from sleep. The screen stays black and nothing brings it on. I have tried everything online to trouble shoot this but no luck.
I have to force shutdown my pc to bring it back to life.

I installed my gt210 back just to see if it will work.... and guess what I't resumed back from sleep correctly.

So this is a problem.

Please let me know if you are able to resume from sleep with this MSI GPU...

It may be that is why so many other people have trouble resuming back from sleep on there htpc's.....