ASUSGeForce GT 1030 2GB GDDR5 low profile graphics card for silent HTPC build (with I/O port brackets)

I needed a PCI x4 GPU for a server build and this worked perfect. Slim single slot design and only needs a x4 PCI. Gets warm but not hot and is passively cooled.Great card for the price.

I have used the GT1030 in a number of older PCs to give them a bit of a boost over the iGPU, these cards offer a significant boost to these systems and only take up a meagre 30W on average.Beware though; some PCIe slots will only provide 25-30W of power so this card may be a touch too much for those systems, I suggest checking the specs for your system board power ratings. However, some manufacturers don't provide them so you may have to do a bit of digging around the internet to see if anyone else has the answers you require.Overall, this is a great card for the money and used in the right places it can lift a flagging system to new heights. It is never going to be a direct competitor for full-on gaming cards, but in some games, it does pretty well, and for the most part, will allow you to play most games on low/med settings and in office applications and general use it gives a significant boost over onboard graphics on older devices.

Easy install if you remove the old software and your current driver from device manager beforehand. The default NVIDIA setting for colours are a bit washed out so I went into the Change Resolution section and changed the 'Output dynamic range' to Full and the Brightness and Contrast to 45%, also set it to Full in the advanced section of the 'Video colour settings'. Looks great now with nice dark blacks and a better colour range. Works very well in less demanding titles like the indie games or ones that are a few years old, runs very quiet even during gaming.You can get an RX 570 or GTX 1060 3GB for about the same price atm, but I would need a new PSU and could not even find an adapter for my proprietary mobo power sockets, so opted for the GTX 1050 Ti. Tried an ASRock RX560 at first but it stuttered on all games and video and I found the AMD software a bit 'glitchy' to use i.e. not responding when first opened to Gaming section and found the update always told me I needed to update to the same version of Crimson. Also when I did update it corrupted the software and I had to install it from the new download file.Considering the GTX 1660 6GB is about twice as powerful and can be bought for around £200 then £150 for the 1050 Ti seems a bit much. But if you have limited power (in my case just 200W) then the 1050 Ti is a good option, but now the GTX 1650 is a better 75W PCIe only card and costs about the same price atm.Update 16.05.2020Having done more research it seems I could have gone for the RX570 (120W) or the 1060 (120W) I mentioned. A 200W PSU will be ok with these cards in my OEM system. A system like mine would draw about 185W from the wall with a GTX 1060, so at the PSU after its 20% loss in efficiency it would be about 150W. Just to be sure the GTX 1650 Super (100W) would be a great buy atm. Of course you would need a 6 pin connector from the PSU, my PC has a socket on the MOBO for this purpose.

Key points:No cables required - Massive bonusCompact sizeExcellent quality for priceGot this to try and rescue my other PC which is 8 years old now, I was thinking perhaps it's just too old to upgrade, the last graphics card was a Geforce GT 340! So old that the drivers have not been supported since 2016! WOW kept blue screening the whole PC on lowest settings.I thought I would try this as it's the same size as the old card and to my utter surprise it worked. Not only that but it runs on almost the highest settings with decent FPS ranging from 40-60.As above there were no cables required and I chose this because it was the same size as the old card so it slotted right in, if you have a similar card to my old one I would highly recommend this as an upgrade. It is of course dependent on the other components of your old machine, with mine the graphics card was the weakest point by far but If everything in your old machine is that far behind it may not be worth it of course.I'm really grateful this worked as I was looking at new PCs which I can't really afford, I would of had to of got a budget gaming PC which would of just been a disappointment and this upgrade has allowed me to get similar performance to a budget gaming PC.

this card has been a quiet loyal servant for few years now, i'm using it a htpc and very happy with it, it handles everything without any issue , including some light gaming

Completely satisfied with the graphics card!. Just the ticket, & not too expensive!

I have an old Core i7-860 PC (no iGPU, that old!) which used an ATI Radeon card (HD 5770). A recent update from Win 10 bricked the PC, and I found by trial and error that the ancient AMD Catalyst driver was at fault. I had pulled out the card and ran the PC headless using RDP but was agonisingly slow to update the screen. I fitted this easily (10s, into the now vacant PCI-e 16 2.0 slot) and this has brought life back into the old PC.I don't game, so not sure how fast or slow it is in 3D. However it is blissfully silent, which I really value, and the fastest passively cooled discrete GPU card I could find with current (actively updated) Win 10 drivers. It is fast enough in 2D compositing that screen updates via RDP is instantaneous.Is the card worth £90? No; articles on established hardware sites have the card at around $60 in the past but as the only card I could find whilst passively cooled and not something from 20 years ago (ATI Rage Pro!), will have to do.I would make sure you get the GDDR5 version, rather than the DDR4 version which is reported to be markedly slower.

It's quiet and good looking and still has what it takes for 1080p E-sports. 4gb not really enough these days not for modern main titles. Value well it's about the same price as it was on release so not great but still affordable. Doesn't need a high wattage PSU so that's a saving. Yeah not bad for what it is.