The days of a single component for every aspect of your home theater are coming to an end. HTPC’s or home theater personal computers for those of you that are abbreviation challenged, are drastically taking over the living rooms of many people these days. Why? Because they do everything! They play DVD’s, BluRay’s, digital music and video. You can watch streaming TV shows and movies. There is Netflix, Hulu, and several other online services out there for all of your watching needs. So what is the back bone of these HTPS’s technology? Simply put it is HTPS cars like the two we will be checking out today the Sparkle GT 240 and the GT 430 Let’s see which one is the right choice for your next home theater PC:
Provided by: Sparkle
Price:
GT430: $69.99
240GTS: $94.99
Closer Look:
Specifications and Features:
GT240:
| Model number : | SXT2401024S3-NM |
| Graphics Processing : | NVIDIA GeForce GT240 |
| Processor Cores : | 96 |
| Core Clock : | 550 MHz |
| Memory Type : | 1024MB DDR3 |
| Memory Interface : | 128-Bit |
| Processor Clock : | 1340 MHz |
| Bus Type : | PCI-Express 2.0 |
|
GT 430:
| Model number : | SXT4301024S3LNM |
| Graphics Core : | NVIDIA Geforce GT 430 |
| Processor Cores : | 96 |
| Core Clock : | 700 MHz |
| Memory Type : | 1024MB DDR3 |
| Memory Interface : | 128Bit |
| Processor Clock : | 1400 MHz |
| Bus Type : | PCI-Express 2.0 |
l Microsoft DirectX 11 support
l Blue-Ray 3D Support
l Nvidia Geforce Drivers
l NVIDIA CUDA technology with CUDA C/C++,DirectCompute 5.0 and OpenCL support
l NVIDIA PhysX technology
l Hardware Video Decode Acceleration
l TrueHD and DTS-HD Audio Bitstreaming Support
l PCI Express 2.0 support
l Dual‐link DVI-I connector
l HDMI 1.4a connector
l Dual-link HDCP-Capable
l OpenGL 4.0 support
Conclusion:
I have to say both cards performed better than I ever would have thought. Even though on the Gaming side the GT240 does have a slight edge the addition of lossless audio support that the GT 430 offers makes it s strong HTPS competitor plus it is a much lower profile. I would have to say that these cards are performing excellently and for their price point make a great choice for a casual gamer that is looking to get the most out of his HTPC build.
Would I recommend these products? Yes, they are both great choices if you want more from your audio go for the 430 but if you want a better gamer pick up the 240.
Pros:
- Price
- Lossless Audio (GT430)
- Decent frame rates (GT 240)
- 1GB (Both)
- HDMI (Both)
Cons:
- None Really
