Dropped "Full"-DVI-I vs DVI-D-support-only for GT 1030 ispainfull/mistake. (Thx to convertors still interesting though)

Hello,

Right now I am computing on a very nice LCD monitor which has VGA as best connection option.

(I tried VGA to VGA cables and DVI to VGA cables both work nicely and after the monitor is told to "auto-adjust" the screen becomes crystal clear).

The monitor does have some issues displaying this page, it blinks:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/clock_phase.php

Not sure if it's a driver/web-browser bug or monitor issue, probably last.

My Dream PC from 2006 was updated somewhere in between then and now with an asus GT 520 which overall has some pretty awesome connection options:

It has "full" DVI support (analog and digital and dual link for max dvi resolution) which can be seen here1 and here2:

here1:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

here2:

https://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/...ILENTDI1GD3LP/

Besides from having full DVI support it even has HDMI 1.4 and VGA !

So that's a huge ammount of possibilities of connecting monitors and even a/v receivers and possibly other audio equipment.

Now the main problem with the Asus GT 520 is it's slow, it has low bandwidth, low ammount of transistors (slightly less than 300m) low ammount of cuda cores.

ENTER GT 1030 one would say/think.

The GT 1030 is a much newer processor which is very similiar. Asus even released a new graphics card which is very familiar:

Asus GT1030 with GDDR5 2gb memory, I kinda "wanted" this card to try and play Spacehulk Deathwing Enhanced Edition on my old AMD X2 3800+ and see how that would go.

So I want over to analyze exactly what connection options it has. I still need to figure out if PCI Express 3.0 graphics card will work in older slots though.

However I noticed a problem with the Asus GT 1030 actually multiple:

1. First of all the VGA connector option is missing.

2. Second of all the DVI-A is GONE.

This means DVI-I to VGA cable is probably un-usuable cause it has 4 pins which will probably not fit into DVI-D slot and perhaps this graphics card also does not support the analog signal on the DVI-D.

So clearly VGA/ANALOG is missing from this GT 1030 which I consider a huge/big mistake by NVIDIA probably.

There are plenty of still decent VGA monitors out there which are still great for gaming.

Now what makes this even more "hurtfull" is that there do exist DVI-D to VGA CONVERTERS.

Which seems to be a special box which converts the DVI-D signal to VGA.

(I have not explored the possibility of HDMI to a/v receiver and then back to VGA monitor... this would be weird to do and electronically a bit risky, ok just explored it receiver does not have VGA out).

Another possibility is HDMI to VGA CONVERTERS.

However these converters do add to the price and transport costs.

They can be between 13 to 40 euros which is a very steep price.

The ASUS GT 1030 looks like a nice upgrade, but because of the missing ANALOG support it's not really ?!

So this is the painfull design decision ?! Why release such a card which is probably well suited for 1280x786 and 1380x1024 and whatever low end/cheap LCD monitors support but then not include VGA compatibility.

Very painfull design decision. I wonder how much production costs NVIDIA and Asus safe by leaving out VGA/ANALOG connection options ?!?!?!?

Anybody know ?!?!?!?!

I would not be surprised if lots of stock keeps lieing on the shelves cause this kinda makes it less attractive to buy.

The card itself is already 85 euros, with adapter it would be close to 100 euros...

That is a bit much for an upgrade for old monitors and such.

Also I am not sure what the quality of the image will be when using DVI-D to VGA CONVERTERS.

May have to youtube this to see if they are any good.

Would hate it if image quality would be blurry... right now it's crispy as **** yep.

I am guessing the Asus GT 1030 does not come with any convert cables or adapters or whatever.

What I can't tell is with what cables any other extra's it comes ?

Probably monitors usually come with these kinds of cables.

Well guess right now I am kindy bitching about this a little bit... hmmm let's see oh yeah and then there is the PCI Express 3.0 question...

Let's see...

Which also kinda raises the question if my old socket 939 winfast motherboard
can even handle such big bandwidth ?!

Hmm but this bandwidth is probably from GT 1030 RAM to GT 1030 processor... so that should not be an issue for the processing speed of the GT 1030.

I have been very displeased and frustrated with the slowness of the GT 520.... the GT 620 and GT 730 didn't give a big enough performance increases from looking at the numbers.

But the GT 1030 is very interesting. The speed up graphics wise will be rhougly 10x that of GT 520 which is very interesting.

I don't want a graphics card purchase to force me to buy a new monitor. I want to buy the new monitor when the time is right. I first have to decide if I will let the old monitor be repaired... which I probably will... just to see what the problem was... maybe just a bad capacitator.

In that case the DVI-D might come in handy... but only if I have the cables for it...

Will check:

Here is where it gets weird. The DVI cable of the HP L2335 1920x1200 is missing this horizontal wide pin.

Very strange... the wikipedia article does not show this pin setup ?!?!?

Clearly an omission and missing detail on this wikipedia article.

Will have to look into why this pin is missing and how important this is...

VERY WEIRD.

OH I see now. One is MALE pin connector on cable/plug and one is FEMALE... no pin...

So never mind that.

This is not clearly explained on this wikipedia article. The female connector should not be displayed with this pin... or a hollow pin. The female is clearly missing the pin and instead has a hole again not clearly displayed on wikipedia article...

Anyway back to PCI express 3.0 graphics card and winfast motherboard PCI 2.3 compliant it says hmmm...


NVIDIA's website by the way was working very badly with firefox... seems like a server side issues... could barely see there GT products... only GTX products... suxxx... totally not interested in overheating GTX/RTX crap for the moment.

GT passively cooled is were the honey is at for me for now =D

Also advise how to upgrade old systems for these new products could probably boost there sales by quite a lot... so they are clearly lacking in that regard... but I guess this is part of the fun of trying to upgrade a system cheaply =D

According to this article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

It says under PCI Express 3.0 that it was planned to be backwards compatible ?!

My issue with this is the word "PLANNED". Is PCI Express 3.0 actually backwards compatible with PCI Express 2.0 ? or even PCI Express 1.0 ?

I am not sure if the PCI Express ports on winfast motherboard are actually 2.0 or 2.3 or something like that it says pci 2.3 complaint does that mean pci express 2.3 compliance as well ? The difference I notice here is the word "express" ? Hmmm...

Getting the details right is important... people in general suck in details.... but the details can bite you in the ass.

For now my assumption again something that can bite people in the ass is that this PCI Express 3.0 GT 1030 will work on pci 2.3 compliant motherboards ?

If so then I will check youtube videos if available for these DVI-D to VGA converters... to see image quality..

And then I will have to strike firmly over my heart... and spent 13 ****ing euros and additional shipping costs... to buy this CONVERTER -.-

But could be cool to have such a fast graphics card working with old vga stuff... just in case I ever need it Probably not... but for now I do need it for this old monitor... nice to have backup/old connection options. Still have some old vga monitors lieing around... could be whicked to play on them sometime... but for now... it's all about trying to speed up the graphics of this game and see if it will help.

This purchase would be a very interesting experiment for me to see how much of todays games is decided performance wise by graphics cards and not so much CPU.

I know the CPU is also being heavily taxed... so perhaps the frame rate will not go up much... but at least the graphics will be much better and sharper which is a good thing... and I am also slightly hoping better FPS... if not then a new PC will ofcourse be required... but will post pone that until chiplet designs become available with hopefully sub 100 nanosecond latency... and much better chip security on motherboard... cause currently this scares the **** out of me.

Hopefully 2019 will bring more secure processors and more secure motherboards/chipsets but I have great doubts about that and it will probably not happen and therefore upgrading this older system is therefore an interesting option and holding out with my cash until better/more secure systems are available.

At least then I can continue gaming a little bit better.

If issues are not fixed with CPU/motherboard/chipsets then my prediction is maybe some whacko is going to make an OS running completely inside a graphics CARD LOL.

Anyway enough drivel...

I now have to go massage my mind... if I really want to spent 85 euros on the GT 1030 which does look very juicy...

If I do get the HD 1920x1200 monitor fixed it will have a huge impacts on getting things running smoother like webbrowsers at least so I believe... this believe could be a bit wrong though... perhaps it was a bit of disk fragmentation too...

However youtube videos will be much better watchable... even 720p at 60 fps is too much for the GT 520... it could do 720p at 30 fps but youtube does not offer that option unfortunately.

With GT 1030 I expect 720p at 60 fps to run smoothly maybe even higher. This is not based on any research... that is just my expectation... though it's mostly ment for gaming... maybe I should look into this as well... just to be sure...

Cause watching 480p on a GT 1030 would kinda suck.

I would not be surprised it it can even do 1080p.

I will look into this as well... but for now stopping this post because it's getting too long

I might be interested in RT 1080 or whatever... a graphics card in GT fashion with ray trace support... but this is probably too much to ask for right now cause this technology is simply too new... but only nvidia knows if raytracing on lower resolutions and GT is possible.... haven't seen one yet.

Biggest issue is software stack... windows 10 required... not a chance in hell I am going to use windows 10 right now on old computer... but maybe in future...

In that case waiting for an RT version might have been nice... but then I can keep on waiting and waiting... replacing with RT right now does not make any sense cause I have no plans to update to windows 10.

This would only happen if new computer is up and running well... and then this could be a year from now or more.

So now one thing left to do and that is examine GT 1030 video decoding performance

If the video decoding performance is good then it's kind worth the 85 + 15 converter bucks + transport costs.

Kinda hate this price... but WTF... kinda sick of slow ass GT 520 performance.

Also people watch out for the DDR version... that one is slow and junk... definetly wanna skip that one.

Lost of GT 1030 products probably still available.

This might be your last chance to upgrade your old systems with a nice passively cooled graphics card so you never have to worry about DUST in your graphics card ever again... still need to worry about CPU though and power supply and rest of system ! But less overheat danger from GT cards... though even these can cause high temperatures if not enough case ventilation so beware !

But at least no frying if your motherboard warns or shuts down on time !

Will be interesting to see true GT 1030 temperatures... hmmm...

Bye for now,
Skybuck.