Nvidia Announces Three Versions of GeForce GT 730
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.
Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.
-
TechyInAZ how strange, I would get a r7 240 in a heart beat over that card since it only has a 64 bit bus.Reply
96 cuda cores! That is as many cores as in my old gt540M that I still use. -
dgingeri It sounds like the 96 core version is still the old Fermi (GT630 D5 and G5) while the 384 core versions are the Kepler version (GT 630 Kepler.) It also sounds a lot like relabeling the old GT630 for the GT730. Not a big surprise there.Reply -
dstarr3 Really think they should have made this fanless. Tiny little fans like those always make the worst racket.Reply
That being said, I can't wait for EVGA's FTW version with 2GB and the ACX cooler. -
derekullo All 3 of these cards are the same card in that they all will play games equally bad.Reply
I know this is not what the cards are made for, but Nvidia is hoping grandma will pay an extra $30 for a "prettier" display.
And while underhanded does make sense economically.
What does not make sense is why give 1 of those cards 2 gigabytes of ram when it has no reason to have 2 gigabytes of ram. Any game you try to play besides DOS games will run at super low fps without anti-aliasing. Nvidia could shave $20 bucks or so off the price or even just pocket it rather than give the card 2 gigabytes of ram. -
undersuit ReplyIt sounds like the 96 core version is still the old Fermi (GT630 D5 and G5)
It looks exactly like a GeForce GT 620. According to Wikipedia the clocks and the cores are the same. -
Free2play_noobs As a tech website we don't expect this kind of error from Tom's Hardware.It is GDDR5 not DDR5.Reply -
Jeffrey H Well also most boards right now can only support PCIe 2.0 as of this date, mine included since I have the GT 620 as well, but the issue right now is that in this economy, most people can't afford another $200 for a board with PCIe 3.0 and a higher end Video Card, the Economy is still not perfect in these times.Reply -
extide They are all going to be similar performance levels. THe 96 shader version is an older Fermi based GPU, so it has the "Hot Clocks" where as the 384 core versions are going to be Kepler based and not have the "Hot Clocks"Reply
This type of gig is pretty common on the low end SKU's, especially in mobile. -
Chris Droste i wouldn't even stick this in a machine to support an extra monitor these daysReply
maybe 3-4 years ago when USB display adapters were hokey black magic but in a world with $120 750s and $140 750Ti's and even a few hot deals on something like an old stock 7770, this is really just...profit bait?