Introduction

About one month ago, NVIDIA released their GeForce GT 640 Series without much fanfare. The new GT 640 is based on the company's award-winning Kepler architecture, but uses a smaller, less powerful graphics processor than the GK104 GPU, we've come to love on GTX 670, 680 and 690. GT 640 also does not feature NVIDIA's boost clock algorithm which dynamically adjust clocks to increase performance if the card is running below its TDP limit.

The GeForce GT 640 is based on a 28 nm GK107 GPU, with a CUDA core count of 384. Unlike its high-end brethren, the card uses cheaper, but slower DDR3 memory, which you would also find on your mobo's memory modules, for example.



ZOTAC's GT 640, is one of the few single-slot GTX 640 cards on the market, which means it might be interesting for HTPC users. Clocks have remained at the NVIDIA default of 891 MHz GPU and 900 MHz memory. While there are variants with 1 GB memory, ZOTAC has put 2 GB on the card, whether this makes much sense is something we will know at the end of the review. Price-wise GT 640 is definitely not cheap, with a current retail price of $110 there are many options to consider, cheaper and more expensive.

Packaging

Contents

You will receive:

• Graphics card
• Driver CD + Documentation
• DVI Adapter

The Card

ZOTAC's card looks like any other lower market segment card, there is no fancy cooler, heatplates or much else that would draw your attention.


The card is using a single slot cooler.


Display connectivity options include two dual-link DVI ports and one mini-HDMI port. You may use all the outputs at the same time, thanks to NVIDIA Kepler's new display output controller. The orange port is a DVI-I port and the white port is a DVI-D port, and only the orange DVI-I port can be used to with an adapter to provide a VGA signal.

An HDMI sound device is included in the GPU, too. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible which includes HD audio and support for Blu-ray 3D movies. Audio signal transport is supported on all three outputs.


Some other reviewers had problems finding a mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter that fits the ZOTAC GT 640. I had no problems, as you can see in the image above.


An SLI connector is not present on the card, SLI is supported via the PCI-Express bus.


Pictured above are photos of the front and back, showing the disassembled board. High-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc., please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.