14 DAY TRIAL // Considering its performance level, it strikes me as a bit odd seeing so many GT 430 based cards coming to the market, but nonetheless Sparkle has just announced that it will launch a new GF108 based low-profile graphics card that comes with 512MB of DDR3 video memory, making its solution a lot more affordable for consumers everywhere.
If you actually come to think about it, this does indeed make some sense since the GT 430 wasn't a high performance graphics card to begin with, settling with just being a somewhat better alternative for integrated graphics, so going for just 512MB won't affect performance a great deal.
However, this will allow Sparkle to make a cheaper board, one that could prove to be a great solution for HTPC systems where gaming performance isn't that important to begin with.
To make this a lot better suited for this role, in addition to its low-profile PCB, Sparkle's card also comes with a quiet cooling solution (at least according to Sparkle), the company going with a high performance thermal compound to offer better cooling and prolonged operation life.
Apart from that, all the usual features that come standard with GT 430 graphics cards are there, including an HDMI 1.4a output that supports 7.1 digital surround sound and 3D frame packing.
Based on the GF108 core, the GT 430 features no less than 585 million transistors and comes with a total of 96 CUDA cores and 16 texturing units, the core being clocked at 700MHz while its shaders operate at 1400MHz.
However, unlike regular GT 430 graphics cards, Sparkle has cut the memory interface in half, now this coming in at 64-bit.
Unfortunately, no details about pricing and availability were released, this new GT 430 not being listed on Sparkle's website when this article was drafted.