Without any fanfare, Nvidia has gone and added an affordable line of graphics cards with Pascal underneath the hood. The new GeForce GT 1030 is not going to dominate the benchmarks, at least not against existing Pascal cards, but it could attract HTPC builders and perhaps esports players as well.
The GeForce GT 1030 sports 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 64-bit bus and 384 CUDA cores. It has a boost clock of 1,468MHz and supports resolutions up to 7680x4320 at 60Hz. Connectivity will vary by manufacturer, though Nvidia's reference design includes DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b with HDCP 2.2, and dual-link DVI (one each).
Part of the pitch here is that the GeForce GT 1030 is an inexpensive upgrade over integrated graphics. According to EVGA, a GeForce GT 1030 tested on system with a Core i3-6100 CPU offers twice as much gaming performance as the integrated graphics found on Intel's Core i5-6600 processor. That claim is based on a 3DMark 11 benchmark run.
EVGA offers three different SKUs. They include:
- GeForce GT 1030 SC Passive Low Profile
- GeForce GT 1030 SC Low Profile
- GeForce GT 1030 SC Single Slot
The single slot card is a full-height part with DVI-D and DVI-D output and active cooling. Both of the other cards are low profile and feature HDMI and DVI-D outputs, one with active cooling and the other with a passive cooling block. Only the GeForce GT 1030 SC Low Profile models is currently in stock—EVGA has it on sale for $75, down from its $80 MSRP.
Models from several other hardware partners are available on Newegg, including MSI, Gigabyte, and Zotac. Pricing ranges from $70 to $100. That puts the card in competition with AMD's Radeon RX 550.
