Nvidia has quietly announced its new GeForce GT 730 graphics card. Well, we'd be wrong when we say a graphics card, as there will actually be three different versions of the card, all of which are wildly different from one another.
The first model of the card is one that comes with 96 CUDA cores and a 128-bit memory interface driving 1 GB of DDR3 memory. The GPU is clocked in at 700 MHz, and the memory at an effective frequency of 1.8 GHz.
The second and third models will both carry 384 CUDA cores clocked in at 902 MHz. One of these will carry 2 GB of DDR3 memory running over a 64-bit memory interface at a frequency of 1.8 GHz, while the other will address just 1 GB of memory, though this is DDR5 memory. It will still run over a narrow 64-bit bus, though.
We especially do not understand why the first model with just 96 CUDA cores is called a GT 730. This will only cause confusion among customers. All of these cards run over a PCI-Express 2.0 interface though, and are probably geared towards customers who need a discrete graphics card for the most basic desktop tasks on older systems, as a lot of on-die graphics solutions are likely to outperform these cards anyway.
Expect AIBs and AICs to come out with multiple versions of the card, in all shapes and sizes, including single slot and low-profile cards. No word on exact pricing yet, though we'd be surprised if these cost more than a small number of ten dollar bills, depending on the model, of course.
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