ASUS ENGT430 Review

Testing:

The use of PhysX technology in games has been debated across forums since its introduction and really, the arguments are heated on both sides of the fence as to whether a proprietary PhysX API is in the best interests of the consumer or not. Both sides have their points and I am not here to debate those points but to show how the use of PhysX in-game affects game play when you add in a card of the GT430's stature as a dedicated PhysX card. I will use a few games that use PhysX heavily to improve both image quality and game play experience. I will run the games with PhysX enabled with and without the addition of the ENGT430 to see if the FPS impact is either positive or negative. I will use the standard OCC test system with a single GTX 460 as the primary card and the ENGT430 as the dedicated PhysX card for this test.

Mafia II

Batman Arkham Asylum:

What you can gather from these tests is that by adding a second card as the dedicated PhysX card you can see an improvement in FPS as the resolution increases versus running a single card. When I originally tested with the GT220 as a Physx card, I found it to be a liability when used in this capacity, but the ENGT430 does offer improved performance when used as a dedicated PhysX card.

Since this card is geared towards the media PC, a quick run through of its abilities was in order. Using the ENGT430 allows the CPU to NOT be the bottleneck when playing HD or Blu-ray content. CPU usage drops to 0% when the ENGT430 carries the decoding load. The movie Avatar played flawlessly from beginning to end.