Nvidia has largely focused on catering to the upper-to-mid end of the market with its 10-series graphics card, but the latest entry helps it target gamers on a shoestring budget.
The new GT 1030 is a $70 card which primarily targets e-Sports gamers or users with 4K home theater setups, which sits at the bottom of the 10-series range. It will compete with the recently-launched RX 550, which is another $80 card targeting the same category of gamers.
Specifications
The card launches with 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM coupled with a clock speed of 1227 MHz, with a maximum of 1468 MHz. It has a 64-bit memory interface, just 384 CUDA cores as well as bandwidth of 48 GB/s. Other specs such as the transistor count are not known for now.
Tiny In Every Sense
Aesthetically, the card should fit in the most-cramped of systems, measuring just 4.7 by 6.7 inch. It has a rated power draw of 30W (power supplies of 300W are recommended) and comes with DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI 2.0b ports for monitors. There’s support for Vulkan, OpenGL 4.5 and DX12, but for obvious reasons features like SLI and G-sync are a no-go.
The card has been released for gamers already. Competing solutions from the likes of EVGA and Zotac are out too.
Targeting an eSports Audience
While both the GT 1030 and RX 550 target casual or eSports gamers who need power for little more than DOTA 2 or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, it is still recommended to save for a bit more and go for either the RX 460 or Nvidia’s own GTX 1050, which don’t cost a lot more but more than make up for their prices.
They’ll also be of much more use should you become a more serious player in the future. However, for movie setups at home, the value that they provide can be substantial.
wanna game get a console, PC would still cost you more.
Not necessarily. Rs25000-30000 can get you a decent computer albeit second hand, but it will get the job done for playing latest games. Consoles cost the same or a bit more than this actually. You can get good used mobo+processor combos, the only thing that eats a lot of budget is a graphics card.
I, myself, is a PC gamer, I cannot bring myself to gaming on consoles whatsoever. As they say, PC is a master race :P /jk
By that logic, you can easily pick a used console for about Rs. 15,000 often with a hard drive filled with games.
A PC for that low price would only be able to play games at the lowest possible settings (if it can play them at all) vs a console that usually deliver a graphical quality around the equivalent of High on a PC. And lets not forget a lot of games still don’t show up for the PC or are delayed and/or buggy at launch.
Console for Rs15000? Xbox One or PlayStation 4? Tell me when you can buy these for 15000Rs.
Even if you can, where’s the room for upgradability?
‘A PC for that low price would only be able to play games at the lowest possible settings (if it can play them at all) vs a console that usually deliver a graphical quality around the equivalent of High on a PC.’
^^ Haha good one, either you haven’t played on PC or just hates it.
And mind you, a PC at that range can easily run games on medium to high settings unless you want to run at a friggin 4K resolution which yours 15000Rs console cant even do smoothly I bet.
A bunch of games which don’t show up for PC? Oh please. What about the whole other bunch which just releases on PC or on both platforms? PC has its own exclusives like strategy games, free to play games, other online competitive gaming scene and I can go on and on. Do a short search on google and you can invalidate your own point yourself.
Your last point is moot. A game being buggy can happen on both PC and a console.
If someday your rig which cost you around 30K is not keeping upto your standards, you can swap the processor for an upgraded version or buy a new graphics card easily. Whereas, you have to buy a new console costing how much exactly?
Even if you buy a new console, an equivalent pricing PC can be a better alternative in the long term. It can last you more than 5 years easily whereas for the console you need to buy the next gen altogether. For PC you only need to swap out the part which is reaching its threshold and you are good to go for another year or 2.
Edit: To get Xbox One or PS4 with enough storage you need to dish out more than 30K for a used version. Just to play next gen games. Don’t even talk about older versions like PS3 or 360. Where as a computer in that price range can easily run the current gen games and the future one with ease.
he is right, you can compete against console with Rs. 30,000 “gaming” PC.
Quality of games the consoles are getting are much higher than PC could ever had. Console lasts 8+ years which is more than the midranger card of Rs. 20,000 and new RAM would cost you in long run and they too (graphics cards) get updates every 6 to 8 month leaving PC gamers wanting for more.
He is also right on “A PC for that low price would only be able to play games at the lowest possible settings”, cause the game DEVs are using consoles full potential these days, and the graphics on consoles comes out as the DEVs want you to see.
PC used to be king i admit, but now console are the real deal breaker.
My rig…i7 , 16gb, 2tb, 512ssd, OC 1080gtx, 22″ FHD and 55″4K screens, wireless logitech game / mouse / keyboard.
3.5lac rupees…..
Nothing is overclocked yet. n i get all the fps. its just beautiful.
BUT!!!!! i sometimes miss console. iv been playing PsOne Ps2 Xbox360 n then jumped to pc master. No more ill spend on Pc masterrace anymore. dream came true and over.
:) come back, Last of Us and uncharted 4 is waiting for you, GOW is also coming back wooo hooo!
Ek trf paisa khrch kr skte ho ap r dsri trf yad aya k bht khrch lya? Ajb bat ni kro bhai. Ap console hi lena ;)
I dont know from where you are getting these values but six to eight months? Even a budget card for 16K can last you longer than that very easily. And if you got high end card then be assured it will go for more than four years. I know what im talking about because I have been through these so called stages that console users like to point out to sweeten their argument.
The shelf life of consoles is getting reduced to around five years at most now.
8GB is enough for todays gaming needs. If you want later on you can put 4GB for around 3kRs but that would be an overkill. Useless point against memory.
Everyone in gaming scene knows very well that graphics on consoles are nothing when compared to PC. Before writing anything here, just google this graphics superiority you have mentioned then tell me if PCs cant compete with that. A good PC can. Anyways have fun gaming at locked 30FPS lol. You got what, a 144Hz monitor? Haha.
144hz is a gimmick, for gaming 72hz is enough.
Even competitive gamers are not using 144hz just some fps gamers on PC.
16k ka card aur bijli ka bill alag, no thanks. Mera load shedding wala ups bhi PS4 utha leta hai
Bijli ka bill? Are you kidding me? That is the best you can bring for this argument?
Jeez. Han Bhai loadshedding hmaray cards ki wja s hoti hai lol.
I am talking about budget gaming and PC doesn’t do that, ask anyone that PC tends to add up on bills
The amount of power required for a decent mid level gaming rig and console is almost almost same. Yay point zbdrsti ap bnana chahtay to apki marzi.
“budget” means gaming on the slim amount of money.
otherwise where’s “budget” when your bills are adding up
Ktni dair k liay ‘uthaleta; hai apkay PS4 ko? Yay bi btaiega zarur. Ktni dair gaming krlygain ap uspr? Sb light fans bnd krke chalatay hain? Lol.
yup plays it during 2+ hours of loadshedding with lights and fans on, now that’s the power PC can’t buy
pc master race here.
umm its cheaper to own multiple console over a course of year than to match a quality standard pc and upgrade it through same timeline.
leme give u one tiny example:
1080gtx nvidia costs more than ps4 pro. 1080gtx will stutter in 6 years. ps4 pro will not.
Lol 1080? I said it before you dont need a high end card if you dont game on 4K resolution.
My EVGA GTX 1070 FTW edition cost me $429 + tax (since I ordered from California) from Newegg.com. It was roughly equal to Rs. 47,000 in total. I don’t game in 4K so the 1070 is more than enough for me. But the GPU alone cost me that much.
I’m not even going to talk about the price of my i7 processor, the Z series motherboard, 32GB of RAM or Samsung NVMe SSDs because honestly my PC gets used for other workloads besides gaming, though the GPU was purely a gaming related purchase along with peripherals like a Razer Death Adder etc.
On the flip side, my Xbox One which I bought brand new a few years ago cost me Rs. 40,000 and I added an external WD 4TB My Book hard drive to it since I wanted more than the 500GB capacity of the console. The hard drive cost was about $100 + tax from Newegg.com I believe. But (unless something happens to it) the cost of console will stay the same for it’s life which is around 5-7 years. Much longer than the GPU. Hell my Xbox 360 is still going strong and it’s approaching 10 years.
Now, as for the Rs. 15,000 point, I bought a used 120 GB PS3 Slim in 2011 for Rs. 12,000 and a Dual Shock controller for Rs. 4000 (because the controller that came with the console felt soft) totalling Rs. 16,000. It also still runs perfectly after 6 years.
So when I said that you should rather spend Rs. 15,000 on getting a console instead of an underpowered PC, I was talking from extensive experience, not pulling facts out of thin air.
2011. PS3.
2017, talking about a PS4 or xBox One. You still have to spend more than 15K for PS4 or Xbox One. Why buy a previous generation console?
Why are you even mentioning your i7 and high end card? For what purposes actually? That high end gear is for those who love gaming at 4K and those aren’t people that fall into the ‘budget’ category.
An ‘average’ gamer of Pakistan can get a budget PC in low price. If he/she wants to go even lower than that, sure go ahead buy a PS3 or whatever suits your needs. ‘Hell’ my last gaming rig lasted me 6 years. The one I have now is still from that era but the card is upgraded. So yes, consoles and PCs alike can last a long time.
And in the end, it depends on one’s personal preference.
A mid range card, provided that you don’t a larger than life monitor, can last a good 4 years or so. That is my experience.
Try for yourself by camparing pc vs xbox 360 with latest games .
You seriously think a 20,000 – 30,000 range PC can play latest games? You can’t be serious.
Though Xbox One S and PlayStation 4 Slim are now usually available around $220-$250 with one or two bundled games. And they can play latest games.
actually you can’t build a PC for Rs. 30000 or less to compete with PS4 which is available for max Rs.27000.
I used to be a PC gamer but after starting the console gaming i am not going back.
Console gaming is so much better than PC gaming for so many reasons
Lol my build is in that range. Again, dont just ‘assume’ things cant be done if you haven’t done them.
List parts here and we’ll see
13k for a used system equipped with i7. And 1050 4GB for 17K. Ofcourse used. New to ap bi us wkt ni le skte the jb console release hua tha, Teen saal wait kro phle ap. Lol. You can easily do 720p gaming unless you are that guy which uses larger than life monitor but if you are that guy anyway, he ll have no problem dishing out some more dough, not for console obviously.
Ram? And i7 gen?, Windows pricing?
720p like I say is not a good alternative to console, Battelfield 1 wouldn’t run in even 720p on these specs, while console PS4 pro (Rs. 32,000) will run it on 1080p/4k hdr
Ram is 8GB. Windows 10. i7 960 1st gen. Overclocked to 3.6Ghz and this is still doing well without a hiccup in every game.
I have played BF1 run on this effing setup so please stop saying things like you know them for a fact and tried them out yourself. It runs without a hassle in 720P and 1080P walay hazraat wo hain jnke paas 22 inch s zyada ka monitor ho. Unko zrurat prygi 1080p or mra ni khyal koi budget gaming wala wo monitor use kryga. If someone has that big a monitor then I’m sure he doesn’t need to buy gaming rig/consoles according to his budget.
So it means that’s not comparable to PS4 which runs it on 4k HDR with the new patch update.
Jsne 4K resolution pr chalana h then it means he has a good monitor but I don’t think many gamers in Pakistan actually require 4K gaming rigs right now. But kher, jsko jo lena h le Bhai ksne roka h :P
P.S what I wanted to tell you is that i7 960 is what, atleast 5 years old? It still performs extremely well in today’s games, the only bottleneck that will be created is due to the card. Which you can easily swap out but only those people will want to who need ‘ultra’ in every setting and run games in 1440p or more than that resolution.
:) agreed
you can get a decent PC but you cant get exclusives Playstation like THE LAST OF US, UNCHARTED series, HORIZON ZERO DAWN, HEAVY RAIN, INFAMOUS, GOD OF WAR and so on… even PC got GTA 5 after a year, itni dair bad to new title bhi a jata hai… :D
Bs ek yhi exclusive wala point hai. Jnko shok h un games ka lele but they are not a big deal.
Somebody wants online competetive gaming then what? CSGO, Unreal Tournament, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, Ashes of Singularity, Descent: Underground, P.A.M.E.L.A., Serious Sam 4, Prey for the gods, Scorn, Agony, Observer, ARMA 3?
What about free to play titles and all those strategy games? Civilization VI which is exclusive for PC then what? These are just some games which are going to be released on PC exclusively, there are many more. Exclusivity is not a criteria here. Some games will be on PC only and some on console only.
Detroit: Become Human is coming too, excited *_*
u can’t compare pc to console. The graphics on pc are much higher then console. Console graphics are shit. I don’t have to pay for xbox live or ps+
Exactly. They buy a new console for 50K or more when it is launched and get carried away by next gen graphics while PC user is already enjoying them. Mind you, at more than 60FPS too :D
yup my gtx1080 works gr8 with my lg oled tv
Enjoy the left over buggy games PC have these days, leave the bigger release for the rest of us
Now you are just speaking gibberish because you know you don’t have any valid points left ^^
Anyways enjoy gaming. Don’t get too defensive.
Ab yay mat kehdena k agay bs consoles hi hngain or PC gaming ka wjood hi nai. Haha. Ajeeb bat krte ho bhai. Go ahead and even write k agay games bi apki consoles pr hi produce hngin.
Not saying that but the devs will prefer consoles, PC is not their main focus now. Sorry but it’s true. Ask anyone what games are the best in years and you will hear names like Last of Us and Uncharted 4.
I am not defensive as my facts are the real world facts.
PC used to be great but wanna go budget, go console
Budget console bhi ap jb new aiga tb lena, phr dhkygain ktna ka aya next gen console or us s kahin sastay me PC whi games chala rha hga. These are just moot points. If somebody actually knows how to shop for components, he can get them for a very good price.
Sure if you don’t want the hassle then by all means go for console gaming.
agreed, but it implies for PC as well, 6th gen i7 6700k is still Rs. 36+ K right now :O
Yep agr 7th gen ya 6th gen pr jao to phr Bhai direct console hi lena bhtr h isme koi comparison ni. Those processors are for enthusiasts who have no problem with cash.
Yep the whole gaming community revolves around console exclusives and everyone has a taste for them. /s
You see the generalization there, right?
these days, yes, you got exclusives that PC gamers want and then they start petitions too do it for PC.
BTW. have you seen “Detroit: Become Human”, i am aroused whenever i see it’s trailer
The weird trailer in which a doll or something like that is shown in water/sewers? If it is that one then yes that was a good trailer …
Again 60hz and higher framerates are gimmicks, not to mention the tearing, and high price you pay for those useless things
Higher lol, Xbox and PS4 both have free online play, PC too have stream which is paid
low-budget card.
Dear editor/writer, give prices in PKR as having a 10K card for games is not a budge card.