Gigabyte GV-N1030OC-2GI Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 OC 2G Graphics Card

I bought this GPU after doing hours of research. I had less than $100 to put into a PC that I had invested $127 into in hopes of reaching an FPS average that would allow me to play online racing and flying simulators without the latency that would hinder my ability to be competitive or cause grief to those playing on the same server due to my inconsistency in the game's sync. I bought an older Dell Optiplex 790 retired workstation PC from the FB marketplace for $100 that came with an Intel I7 CPU, 8GB RAM, DVD-RW, front multi card reader, 1GB GPU, and 300w PwrSply, but no wi-fi card, input devices, display or cords. I had a small junk pile of old keyboards, mice, cables, etc due to being very low income because of decisions made 25yrs earlier. Anyways, I get a lot of use from repairing broken things as well as giving new life to older items in which people have lost interest or have upgraded from. I found this and pulled the trigger with the order. While waiting on its arrival I installed 4GB of RAM for $23 to give me 12GB RAM. I also downloaded iRacing, War Thunder, Project Cars 2, and a lower level MS store flight sim in anticipation. With the original 1GB GPU, iRacing would run at 70FPS at the lowest settings which isn't suitable for dirt racing as dynamic HDR graphics are required to compete at any level. War Thunder wouldn't run at all on minimum settings without consistent tearing and lockups. Project Cars 2 would run barely on min while the low min req need flight sim would run but was full of lag with settings higher than midrange. After I installed and properly set up the drivers and config of the GeForce GT 1030 2GB I decided I had no idea what I was doing when reading stats. This GPU runs all the above games on at least medium settings without any lag or graphic degradation during play. I can run iRacing on their recommended cap of 84FPS with most graphical "extras" and aids on high while running car and track textures on ultra-high. I also use med resolution shadows, reflections, dynamic tire and track, and pit crews. I am amazed that I have a PC that I have less than $250USD invested yet it performs as well, if not better than most $500-$1100 "gaming PCs" sold in department stores. I have used this PC with GeForce 1030 2GB GPU for a while now without unwanted issues. I am so pleased I have built a custom sim racing cockpit, FFB competition-level racing wheel and pedals, flight stick(HOTAS), soundbar w subwoofer, BlueTooth and WiFi dongles, and a wireless mouse. I now have a decent gaming setup that I use for sim car, truck, FPV drone racing/flying as well as shooter games, streaming, mild video editing, web surfing, watching movies and bragging to those that spent 5X more for the same level of usefulness. my recommendations? Buy the damn card if you have a decent CPU, power supply, and amount of RAM if you want a mid-level gaming machine that doesn't cost more than it realistically should. You get what you pay for and a lot of times we often pay a lot of money to get ripped off on good products.

I received my GT 1030 OC from Amazon Warehouse Deals (AWD) today and promptly installed it in my 11 year old HP Pavilion Elite M9200t [Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66 GHz 2.67 Ghz, 8GB RAM, Win10 64 bit, PCIe 2.0}...piece of cake, and backward compatible with PCIe 2.0.As other reviewers suggested, I didn't bother with the enclosed CD-I went to the Gigabyte website to install the latest drivers & the Aorus Engine, mainly to monitor the temperature due to past video card overheating experience (no gaming).I'm replacing a seven year old EVGA GT 520 card that's been recently having a problem with the fan- it stops turning at inappropriate times and overheats (I used canned air & a vacuum a few times in the last two months to get out any dust particles that might be unseen, which helps for awhile ).Last week, I tried an open-box Gigabyte GT 1030 silent low-profile (from AWD), but within minutes, it seemed to be running quite hot, despite multiple fans in my PC, so much so that it did sudden re-boots of my PC several times. It also had such a tall heatsink that it was smashing the firewire plug on my motherboard. Not sure if that had anything to do with the hot temp & multiple re-boots. I had to send it back. My power supply is a 385W that isn't maxed out so it's not that.This GT 1030 SC isn't as tall as the fan-less GT 1030, so it's well below the firewire plug and has been running fine without any re-booting issues. The temp has stayed around 37°(C) with standard PC use (no gaming, just watching videos, web surfing, MS Office, etc).So far, this card seems like the perfect replacement for an old PC like mine or newer machine.NOT reflected in my review rating is that I went with AWD to save a few dollars over a new item. I'm not opposed to an open-box product if it works as it should. I'll admit, I was initially concerned about the condition of the card when I saw the box's condition, but the card seems to function fine. AWD's description of the item was accurate. Everything is running great! :o)UPDATE April 25, 2019: Three months later, this card is still working great on my 11 year old HP Pavilion Elite M9200t (no "gaming", just Microsoft Office 2016, graphics/photo editing, some video editing, Internet, machine embroidery digitizing & designing, etc.)

Ok so I have had this card for over 2 years now, and so far this has not given me one problem throughout the whole almost 3 years. Now at the time I bought it, it was not the current price but rather its $90 msrp, right now I would not recommend buying as it is $200 which can get you a used card that might be much better. So I bought this primarily for an upgrade from the integrated graphics my system had, which were hd 630 graphics, my system has an i3 7100 and 8gb of ram single channel. This card is great for older systems that need an upgrade, due to its low wattage only 30 watts, however I don't know if this can change if you set it to factory overclock. This little thing was a little beast! I to this day still use this. Now don't expect extremely high frame rates on high settings for more than 1080p. Games that I have played are Rainbow Six Siege, Fortnite, CS:GO, Valorant, Minecraft, Rocket League, Rogue Company and GTA V. All I can say is that this little card can run all of these games not on high or ultra settings, maybe set them to low/medium settings like on fortnite and siege, but truly a playable experience. If you just want to play a different variety of not that demanding games, this card does its job but please note this card is NOT meant to run triple A titles and if you are going to buy it for that, consider other options. So in conclusion this is a great choice for upgrading your old or maybe temporary build, however due to the inflation I would not recommend buying it for the current price right now which at the time of writing this review is around $200.