EVGA GeForce GT 1030 SC 2GB GDDR5 Single Slot Graphics Card 02G-P4-6338-KR

If you don't need a top of the line video card for gaming, this is an excellent choice. It's a quality card and is far superior to the two prior cards I had previously mounted in my old Dell 980 (EVGA Nvidia GT 610 and GT 630).I purchased the GT 1030 card because I wanted to eliminate the digital breakup I was experiencing whenever I streamed movies. But once it arrived I ran into a big problem. It would not fit into the mounting slot on my PC. Why? Because the heat sink for the CPU and the PS2 connection box were getting in the way. However, after studying the problem for a while I realized that if I modified the plastic casing on the card I could get it to fit.Luckily, this card was a return that I purchased from Amazon at a great price. So, I decided it was worth the gamble, knowing full well that if something went wrong I wasn't going to be able to return it.(Please note, this modification will void the warranty for the EVGA Nvidia GT 1030 — do it at your own risk.)HOW I MODIFIED THIS CARD TO FIT MY DELL OPTIPLEX 980 MTI knew this video card would work in my Dell 980 Optiplex MT, but I had a problem, the plastic case covering for the card kept it from fitting in the mounting slot.The head of the card would not fit because of the PS2 connection box on the motherboard. On the other end, I had a similar problem where it was striking the heat sink for the PC's CPU. My solution? Modify the plastic casing on the video card by cutting it and the card's heat sink aluminum blades.How do you do the modification?First, you need to remove the four screws that hold the plastic casing to the GT 1030. They are located on the backside of the card (see pictures). Once you remove them, the case will come loose except for the power connector for the fan. Be careful with the fan's power plug, it's hard to disconnect from the card but can be done if you use a jeweler's slotted screw driver to release it from the mount by pushing on the plastic spring holding it in place. Once it's disconnected, you are free to work on the case.You now need to remove the seven screws that hold the fan and the heat sink to the casing. With the plastic case released from the fan and heat sink, you can cut the case in two places removing about two inches of the plastic on each end (see pictures). I used a fine toothed hacksaw to cut the plastic case. I then used a Dremel (rotary tool) with a cutting disc to shorten the heat sink's aluminum blades on the back end by about 1 1/2 inches. Cosmetically, the card won't look so hot, but the important thing once reassembled it will fit.Reassemble everything in reverse order and then mount the modified case and heat sink back to the card. Once everything is back together mount it in your PC, boot up your computer and update the drivers. Windows automatically updated the drivers to version: 23.21.13.9135 dated: 3/23/2018. I also downloaded and tried the latest drivers from Nvidia, but they caused problems so I just stayed with the ones I had.Important Note:1. The bottom of the aluminum heat sink has "thermal heat sink compound." You'll need to have some just in case you accidentally remove it as you do the modification. It's available here on Amazon. It's cheap. When I did this modification, I decided the easiest think to do was to remove the compound and replace it afterwards during the reassembly process. Thermal heat sink compound is used to transfer heat from video card's CPU to the aluminum heat sink where the heat is dissipated and cooled by the internal fan.2. The 7 screws you remove from the fan and plastic casing are tiny. You will need a jeweler's set of screw drivers in order to remove them. Also, be careful not to lose them as they will easily roll off your work surface.3. The power plug for the fan is difficult to disconnect from the card — be careful when you pry on the tiny plastic spring. If you exert too much force on the connection point you can damage the mounting slot on the card.The GT 1030 has been in my PC for almost a week now and it's working flawlessly. I'll try update this review in six months.

My work PC was in need of some upgrades. It started out life, about 6 years ago as a very low end office PC , it's an HP 6305 SFF that came with an A4-5300B, 4GB RAM (single channel), and a 500 HDD. I intially upgraded the CPU to an A8-5500, added another stick of RAM (8GB dual channel), and a low profile Radeon 6570 so I could mess around with AMD's ill-fated Dual Graphics (APU + discrete GPU) tech. That setup served me well, it did everything I needed to do, and could even handle some light gaming. Given the age of the unit, I figured I was due for a replacement sooner rather than later, but unfortunately, I was informed that desktop replacements were not coming for the foreseeable future, and what we got is what we're going to have for a while now. Another round of upgrades were in order. I considered the RX 550, but the low profile models were $30 more than the GT 1030 and it's performance is about the same, a low profile GTX 1050, which was significantly faster, but nearly double the price, and the RX 560 which was also more expensive (and faster) but whose power draw made me nervous (60-80 TDP against a 240 watt PSU). So the 1030 GT it was, very low power draw, and a big performance upgrade over the old 6570. I also added an SSD, along with another 8GB (2x4GB) of RAM from some discarded desktops and now I've taken this thing about as far as it can go for the most part. The GT 1030 is about as fast as old GTX 460, which isn't much by today's standards, but it handles most older games and Source-based games just fine, even at 1080p. It's not going to handle new AAA titles with any grace or dignity, but for $70, it's an ideal upgrade for older office PC.

Before this I had a GT 730 and it couldn't run some games, with the GT 1030 pretty much all the games I play run at a playable FPS, even if I'm not setting any records.

I recently acquired an older Dell Optiplex i5-3470 SFF PC that was being thrown out and converted it to my HTPC connected to an Epson 1080p Projector. To modernize it a bit I dropped in another 4GB of RAM (taking it to 8GB total), a black friday 250GB SSD and this EVGA GeForce GT 1030 SC 2GB GDDR5 Passive, Low Profile using the included bracket so it would fit the SFF case. These upgrades (~$100) have made this feel as responsive as my day to day workstaion (dual xeon e5) and gaming PC (i7+1080ti) in most tasks and admirably when it comes to gaming.Given that the GPU is passively cooled I was very curious to see how it would perform thermally. While periodically checking temps in windows outside of games it was typically around 42-43C. For gaming thermals I ran it through it's paces in Unigine and a few games monitoring the GPU temps & clocks via MSI afterburner using complete factory default settings. Basically until the GPU hits ~83C the GPU core clock stays around 1.7GHz. Upon hitting ~83C it will begin to throttle the GPU clock down to around 1.5-1.6GHz and stay in that range while fluctuating from about 81-83C. Memory clock was pegged at 3GHz and never moved.Anecdotal game experiences:World of Warcraft: At settings 5 and foreground FPS cap set to 66 it held 60+ in most zones while I was testing. In the Auction house and Uldir 45-50 FPS seemed to be the norm. Completely playable.Overwatch: On High at 1080p with render scale set to 100% ~45-50FPS seemed to be the average. On Medium with auto render scale it stayed pegged at 60+In any event for a passively cooled GPU for a budget SFF HTPC this is more than I could have hoped for.