GEFORCE GT 640 is the first model based on Kepler architecture, which used GK107 instead of GK104 GPU. The area of the GK107 chip, containing 1.3 billion transistors, is 118 mm2, which is significantly less than that of the GK104 with 294 mm2.
Although the GeForce GTX 660 has a lower price and power compared to top-end video cards, there is still too much space between them and budget GK107-based boards, which is being filled by the recently announced GeForce GTX 650 Ti video card.
Following the recent introduction of the GeForce GTX 680, NVIDIA is introducing a Kepler architecture graphics card (read more about this architecture in the GeForce GTX 680 review) with two GK104 processors. The release of the GeForce GTX 690 can be called a huge step towards two-chip solutions. Thanks to the latest production technologies and the new Kepler architecture, the GeForce GTX 690 includes two full-fledged video chips.
The GeForce GTX 670 is designed for those gamers who plan to run the most demanding 3D applications at maximum settings, high resolutions, and FSAA enabled. Those who want to get all the functionality of the older GTX 680 graphics card, but at a lower price.
The GTX 650 provides almost all the features of the older solutions of the GeForce GTX 600 line in games and is quite capable of showing an acceptable level of performance even in modern DirectX 11 games at the most common resolution of 1920 × 1080 at medium and sometimes high settings.
Immediately after the release of the GeForce GTX 680, many users began to wait for the release of less powerful and expensive options, such as the well-known GeForce GTX 460 and GTX 560. But NVIDIA was in no hurry to release anything based on new chips, only based on the top GK104...
Compared to previous NVIDIA cards that occupied the niche of the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, it was in a unique position. Both the GeForce GTX 460 and GTX 560 Ti were based on GF114 chips, while the GTX 480 and GTX 580 used GF100 and GF110 processors with a significantly larger number of computing units.
The NVIDIA GPU Kepler architecture was built from the ground up not only for maximum performance in the latest DirectX 11-enabled games, but also for optimal performance per watt. The new streaming multiprocessor structure is twice as efficient as the previous generation multiprocessor structure, and the new geometry engine builds triangles twice as fast.
