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

I am at a time in my life when I have more work than time most days and that doesn't leave a lot of time for gaming. That being said, I do use 3D applications like Blender in my work and occasionally I will sit down for a short gaming session. The computer I have came with Integrated Intel UHD Graphics which is not bad for basic tasks but would fall short on things like rendering graphics, modern games, etc.I picked up this card because it seemed like a reasonable trade-off between price point and performance. My Blender projects render well with this card, but I am doing small scene renders not making a movie or anything like that. I have played a couple of games, Arma, 7 Days to Die, etc and the games played smoothly with no noticeable lag.The card was easy to install and neither Windows 10 or Linux (Mint and Manjaro) have had any issues recognizing the card and installing the correct driver. The card is running at a comfortable 35° C right now even though I have a bunch of programs running as well as my browser.

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.