When it comes to low-cost entry-level video cards, most of the recommendations lead the buyer to choose the most worthy representative of the budget segment in terms of price-quality ratio - the GeForce GT 630 chip. A morally obsolete chip is still considered the sales leader for building many non-gaming platforms. In this article, the reader learns what is so special about this video adapter, and a review of the model, customer reviews and experts will help you get to know the video card better.
Market positioning of the accelerator GeForce GT 630
Recently, there have been some changes in the computer equipment market: the integrated graphics core has migrated from the motherboard to processors and has risen in price in a rather strange way. Now, in order to build a platform for a home use device or an office computer, you need to purchase an expensive processor and a motherboard (with video outputs) that complies with this standard. The graphics card GeForce GT 630 for economic reasons will be cheaper for the user, and the performance of the system as a whole will be several times higher. That is what is the key to successful sales of this chip. In order to somehow diversify the market with affordable devices on this graphics core, the manufacturer presented customers with an improved modification of the video card, giving it the “REV.2” marking, but due to the increased cost, its demand in the domestic market is very low.
Acquaintance with the graphics accelerator
The video card GeForce GT 630 features clearly not gaming, but they are enough to provide video transmission to the screen and provide the user with the opportunity to play their favorite toy at the minimum settings.
- GF108 graphics core built on a 40-nanometer process and has 585 million transistors;
- the number of stream processors - 96 pieces, texture units - 16;
- the core operates at a frequency of 810 MHz;
- DDR3 memory operates at a frequency of 1800 MHz on a 128-bit bus (1024 MB);
- DirectX 11 technology is supported, and the declared power is 65 watts.
If we compare the technical specifications of the GeForce GT 630 graphics card with integrated chips, it turns out that they are almost identical. A distinctive feature when buying, first of all, is the price of a discrete video adapter and the presence of three mixed video outputs (VGA, DVI and HDMI). For most buyers, it is the presence of analog video output that is the basis for the acquisition.
Mobile device market
Do not forget that inexpensive video adapters are very popular among manufacturers of budget laptops. According to statistics, the graphics core in a mobile version based on the GeForce GT 630, the characteristics of which are nevertheless adapted for games, are in great demand among the population. The GF108 graphics core, unlike competitors and more expensive solutions, consumes little power and, therefore, has low power dissipation. Thanks to such indicators, the GT 630M chip has become one of the best solutions when creating inexpensive laptops.
In mobile devices, along with the technical characteristics of the clock frequency, memory capacity and its speed, modern technologies (CUDA, PhysX and others) are popular. This chip supports all this at the hardware level, which is what attracts a potential buyer.
Nvidia Company Policy
All users are well aware that video card manufacturers do not provide their products with their own logo to the market, giving such an opportunity to well-known global brands. However, for many readers, a review of the GeForce GT 630 may lead to video cards from Nvidia itself. There are no explanations on the official website of the manufacturer, however, many representatives of other companies claim that the manufacturer simply sells its video adapters, which, due to the high cost, were ignored by well-known video card manufacturers (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and others).
As a result, the GeForce GT 630 video adapter, built on the basis of the GF108, has a more efficient GDDR5 memory bus with high potential for overclocking (the standard memory frequency is 3200 MHz). He immediately attracted the attention of customers with his affordable price and competed with all similar products from other manufacturers.
Products based on the GeForce GT 630
The largest assortment of devices based on the GT 630 chip under consideration is from a Taiwanese manufacturer - ASUS. In the budget segment, these products are positioned as the cheapest among analogues. Video card ASUS GeForce GT 630 with passive cooling and two gigabytes of memory on board has been holding the leading position in the Russian market for several years. The manufacturer emphasized the noiselessness of his product, which attracted the attention of customers.
Since the power consumption of the video card is 65 watts, in addition to the graphics core, there is nothing to bask. Therefore, a conventional aluminum radiator without a fan perfectly copes with cooling even during acceleration. By soldering 4 memory modules, the manufacturer attracted the attention of the buyer with an increased volume of up to 2 gigabytes of RAM. An inexpensive office solution will definitely interest designers and graphic work program enthusiasts.
Entry-level gaming solutions
Even with good overclocking of the graphic core, decent performance in games should not be expected from the GeForce GT 630 chip, reviews of the owners of this device confirm this fact. However, many users still manage to achieve good performance in games by increasing the frequency of the graphics core and memory bus. Here everything already depends on the proper cooling of the video card, because exceeding the standard characteristics leads to a large heating of the crystal.
The same Taiwanese ASUS representative is pushing the owners of their products to overclock by installing an active cooling system using proprietary technology based on an aluminum radiator and copper tubes to remove heat. The main feature of this manufacturer is the modification of the printed circuit board. Instead of standard capacities, ASUS technologists installed solid-state ferrite drives, which abound on video cards of an expensive segment.
Offers of other market participants
Oddly enough, on the GeForce GT 630 graphic chip, customer and expert reviews are only positive, regardless of the representative on the market under whose brand the products are presented. So, in the domestic budget niche at an attractive price, users will find video cards Gainward, MSI, Palit and many other well-known manufacturers. The difference between them is only in the appearance of the cooling system. None of the brands tried to improve the performance of the device by changing the printed circuit board. It is up to the buyer whether this is good or bad, the main thing is that all users will be satisfied by purchasing a decent low-cost solution from their favorite brand.
Finally
You do not need to rely on the gaming qualities of a GeForce GT 630 video adapter. In fact, this is a regular video card, which is designed to provide a monitor connection to a personal computer. All other characteristics, such as gaming, are a kind of bonus that the buyer receives as a gift when buying the cheapest video adapter on the computer market.
A distinctive feature of the video card based on the GeForce GT 630 is the availability, noiselessness and low power consumption. Accordingly, for enterprises and home use, this product will be the best choice of the future owner.