MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC Video Card Review: Best Settings | Overclocking – MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC Video Card Review: The Best Choice! – Last year, NVIDIA announced the GeForce GT 1030 graphics card, which actually revived the ultra-budget GPU segment, which has not seen any updates since the GT 730, presented back in 2014.

Should gamers pay attention to the “junior” NVIDIA video card? Let’s take a look at the MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC as an example, by the way, this is one of the most pumped versions of the GeForce GT 1030 on the market.

GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC Video Card Specifications

GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G Packaging and equipment

MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC is packed in a fairly simple and small box made of thick cardboard, the front part of which carries a minimum of information, only the name and logo of the manufacturer. All basic information, including appearance, technical characteristics, as well as the main features are placed on the back of the package. The package bundle is extremely simple: only instructions for installation and configuration and a CD with drivers.

External appearance and internal structure

The Aero ITX line in the top segment is the most compact video cards, but in the case of the GeForce GT 1030, this is the “largest” representative built on this chip, and this is even for the best. Aero ITX among half-width video cards looks clearly the favorite, the video card case is made of black matte plastic, it has a large fan with an impeller diameter of 80 mm.There is no metal backplate on the reverse side, but in this case it is not at all scary, the weight of the video card is small and there can be no question of any bending.

There are only two HDMI and DVI-D video outputs on the interface panel, and it’s a pity that there is no DP, but there is the MSI logo.A spicy moment in this accelerator is the absence of a warranty seal, in any case, I did not find it, which means that over time, you can change the thermal interface and clean the heatsink from dust without any obstacles. In general, the process of disassembling the MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC is extremely simple, after unscrewing four screws and disconnecting one connector, we get full access to the printed circuit board, but about it a little later.

Let’s talk about the cooling system; to create an air flow, an Ong Hua HA8010H12F-Z fan is installed, the maximum rotation speed of which is 3000 rpm and, looking ahead, I will say that it does not have to work at maximum.The cooling radiator is made of a single piece of aluminum, its weight is 91 gamut, the thickness of the fins is 0.5 mm, the distance between the fins is 2 mm, there are 27 fins in total, and due to their not dense arrangement, they are perfectly blown out even at low fan speeds.

There is simply no reference design for the GeForce GT 1030 PCB, and MSI has developed its own PCB design for this video card. However, the layout of the elements is quite standard. On the printed circuit board there is a graphics chip GP108-300-A1, not far from it there are two Micron memory chips with a capacity of 1 gigabyte. The graphics chip received one phase of power supply, and this is more than enough, because the TDP is set at 30 watts.

GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G : Testing

Test stand

Gaming performance

For the GeForce GT 1030, we did not invent a huge gaming test, but we expanded the number of indicators, now, in addition to the minimum, average and maximum FPS, you can see 1% and 0.1% of the minimum FPS. Based on testing, this card is perfect for eSports disciplines, and if you get tired of running CS: GO, then it is quite possible to run modern AAA titles on the minimum graphics settings.

GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G: Overclocking and operating temperatures

Let’s start with the factory mode, we used the FurMark stress test for half an hour to warm up the MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC. Room temperature during testing ~ 27-28 ° C. Even everyone’s favorite “donut” could not heat this video accelerator above 45 ° C, and this is an absolutely ideal operating temperature. Overclocking MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC practically does not make sense, since this video accelerator is overclocked from the factory, and even with the addition of +100 MHz to the frequency of the graphics chip and +300 MHz to the memory, it remains stable, but the maximum boost that we managed to fix , was 1822 MHz in games and 1417 MHz in FurMark, which is almost equal to the factory operating mode and the temperatures remain the same. Quite simply, performance is limited by the Power Limit.

Noise

Passive cooling mode in MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC is not provided and the fan is always on, but even under load its rotation speed barely exceeds 1000 rpm, while the noise is generated at the level of 29 dBA, which is slightly higher than the background noise in the apartment in big city. If you raise the fan speed to 100%, which, especially, makes no sense, the noise noticeably increases to 44 dBA.

Mining performance

Cryptocurrency mining is a popular topic and we could not ignore it, but I hope miners will at least bypass the GeForce GT 1030, but we checked the performance of this card in the popular NiceHash mining program. The data is current as of 12.03.2018.

GT 1030 overclock Software

From the proprietary software, everyone’s favorite MSI Afterburner can be noted. Outstanding utility for overclocking a video card and its detailed monitoring.

GPU BOOST 2.0

A technology developed by NVIDIA called  GPU Boost 2.0 at the software level controls the temperature of the GPU, and at an acceptable temperature, it can increase its performance. In simple words, it “overclocks” the video card.

As you know, version 1.0 was focused on using the maximum power consumption, which was achieved in especially demanding games, and the temperature of the GPU did not play a special role. The maximum clock frequency was determined based on the relative voltage. Thus, version 1.0 could not prevent the situation when, even at non-critical voltage, the temperature increased excessively. The new version 2.0 contains all the known functions of the 1st version, but at the same time it also allows you to set a higher voltage, and, accordingly, a higher clock frequency.

DOWNLOAD DRIVER FOR GEFORCE GT 1030

The entry-level GeForce GT 1030 graphics card hit retail in May 2017. This page contains the current official drivers for the specified model, produced by any companies – ASUS, MSI, Palit and others. Consider the edition and bitness (32-bit or 64-bit) of your Windows system before downloading the software.

Please note that drivers for laptop video cards will not work for regular desktop video cards, respectively, and vice versa. Below is the latest version of the driver, and if you need earlier versions, check out all the available the official website.

After downloading the file in a standard way, run it on a computer with a GeForce GT 1030 graphics card, accept the NVIDIA Software License Agreement and follow the further installation instructions.

Impressions and conclusions

Comparing the cost of the GeForce GT 1030 in stores, you can come to the conclusion that the “pumped-over” version of the MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC, on average, is more expensive than models with a passive cooling system by 800-1000 rubles, but in this case this overpayment is more, than reasonable. We get an unusually cold video card even in games, and its factory overclocking is at the highest level and practically runs into the power limit. No shortcomings were found in this model during testing.MSI GeForce GT 1030 Aero ITX 2G OC Wins Editors’ Choice Award Based on Test Results!

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