Nvidia GeForce GT 640 Review: Cramming Kepler Into GK107
Afox sent us its rendition of the new GeForce GT 640, based on Nvidia's GK107 GPU. This one slots in under the existing GeForce GTS 450 to do battle with AMD's Radeon HD 6670. Does the Kepler architecture deliver, or is a $100 price target too high?
Test Setup And Benchmarks
We're comparing Afox’s GeForce GT 640 DDR3 to the similarly-priced competition, including the Radeon HD 6670, 6750, and 7750. In addition, we have a GeForce GT 440 GDDR5 and GTS 450 to factor in. Because a number of these boards are actually retail products featuring custom specifications, we wanted to assure you that they've all been set to their reference clock rates in order to create the fairest contest possible.
Both a minimum/average frame rate chart and a frame rate-over-time chart are included for each resolution, as we think the combination of these delivers a great overall picture of actual performance. Frame rates over 60 FPS are only captured in the minimum/average chart, allowing us to hone in on sub-60 FPS performance when it comes to scrutinizing frame rates over time to see where things get choppy.
| Test System | |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E), 3.3 GHz, Six Cores, LGA 2011, 15 MB Shared L3 Cache, Hyper-Threading enabled. Overclocked to 4.25 GHz |
| Motherboard | ASRock X79 Extreme9 (LGA 2011) Chipset: Intel X79 Express |
| Networking | On-Board Gigabit LAN controller |
| Memory | Corsair Vengeance LP PC3-16000, 4 x 4 GB, 1600 MT/s, CL 8-8-8-24-2T |
| Graphics | Afox GeForce GT 640902 MHz GPU, 1 GB DDR3 at 891 MHzZotac GeForce GT 440 GDDR5810 MHz GPU, 521 MB GDDR5 at 810 MHzMSI N450GTS Cyclone (GeForce GTS 450)850 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 980 MHzReference Radeon HD 6670800 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1000 MHzReference Radeon HD 7750800 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1125 MHzXFX Radeon HD 6750700 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1150 MHzAll overclocked cards reduced to reference specification for testing |
| Hard Drive | Samsung 256 GB (SSD) |
| Power | ePower EP-1200E10-T2 1200 W ATX12V, EPS12V |
| Software and Drivers | |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 7 x64, Service Pack 1 |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Graphics Drivers | GeForce: 301.42 WHQLRadeon: Catalyst 12.4 WHQL |
| Benchmarks | |
| Battlefield 3 | Campaign Mode, "Operation Swordfish" 60-Seconds Fraps |
| Crysis 2 | Adrenaline Crysis 2 Benchmark Tool 1.0.1.13, Times Square, DirectX 11 |
| Aliens vs. Predator | Version 1.0.0.0, DirectX 11 Benchmark |
| Metro 2033 | Full Game, Built-In Benchmark, "Frontline" Scene DX9, High, AAA, 4x AF, No PhysX |
| DiRT 3 | V1.01, Run with -benchmark example_benchmark.xml |
| The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | Update 1.4.27, Celedon Aethirborn Level 6, 25 Seconds Fraps |
| Diablo 3 | Single Player Mode, "Old Tristram", 40 seconds FRAPS |
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Prev Page GeForce GT 640: Nvidia's Entry-Level Gambit Next Page Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3Don Woligroski was a former senior hardware editor for Tom's Hardware. He has covered a wide range of PC hardware topics, including CPUs, GPUs, system building, and emerging technologies.