ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 Pro Reviews

Bringing things to a conclusion, when Ganesh and I began working on reviewing the Zotac GeForce GT 640 DDR3 we set out with two cards and two different goals. I would take a look at gaming performance and physical characteristics while Ganesh would be free to focus on the HTPC side of things. Unsurprisingly we have come to two very different conclusions. From a gaming standpoint the GeForce GT 640 is unremarkable if not flat-out bad. NVIDIA’s GK107 GPU may have a lot of performance potential, but its first desktop iteration as the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 does not. The decision to equip it with DDR3 clearly bottlenecks the card just as it has done to previous generation entry-level cards. So this is by no means a new problem, but it’s a recurring problem that always has the same solution: buy GDDR5. With that said, NVIDIA and their partners will no doubt sell GT 640 DDR3 cards by the truckload – make no mistake, having lots of VRAM moves lots of cards – but if you’re fortunate enough to be reading this article then you’re probably well aware of the performance difference between DDR3 and GDDR5.

GeForce GT 640 is NVIDIA's first low-end product based on their new Kepler architecture. It introduces the 28 nanometer production process to this segment, and also brings many other architectural improvements. Unfortunately NVIDIA's boost clock algorithm is missing, which helped GTX 600 series gain some extra performance when competing against AMD's offerings. Our benchmarks conclusively show that GT 640 is not a graphics card for gamers. While it can handle some basic gaming at lower resolutions and low details, it has a hard time competing even with cards at a similar price point. ZOTAC's choice of 2 GB of memory instead of 1 GB makes very little sense from the perspective of an enthusiast user. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint though, because people still buy cards that have big numbers written on the package. Unlike many other GT 640 cards, ZOTAC's board comes in a single slot form factor, which makes it attractive for the media PC crowd. Instead of going for a full-size HDMI output, ZOTAC chose to use a mini-HDMI output, adding a second dual-link DVI connector to the card. While other reviewers reported issues finding an adapter for the mini-HDMI output, I had no such problems, it would still be nice if ZOTAC had included a mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter in the box. Thanks to the NVIDIA's energy efficient GPU design, power consumption and heat output are very limited. Actually, GT 640 is one of the most power-efficient solutions for multi-monitor and Blu-ray playback, because NVIDIA's driver goes to the lowest possible power state with recent drivers, something that's missing from AMD cards. On the other hand AMD cards feature ZeroCore power, which will help reduce power consumption for media PCs that are always on, to download content for example.