NVIDIA Launches Fermi Based GeForce GT 610, GT 620, GT 630 Into Retail
by Ryan Smith on May 19, 2012 8:00 PM ESTWhile we were off at NVIDIA’s GTC 2012 conference seeing NVIDIA’s latest professional products, NVIDIA’s GeForce group was busy with some launches of their own. The company has quietly launched the GeForce GT 610, GT 620, and GT 630 into the retail market. Unfortunately these are not the Kepler GeForce cards you were probably looking for.
| GT 630 GDDR5 | GT 630 DDR3 | GT 620 | GT 610 | |
| Previous Model Number | GT 440 GDDR5 | GT 440 DDR3 | N/A | GT 520 |
| Stream Processors | 96 | 96 | 96 | 48 |
| Texture Units | 16 | 16 | 16 | 8 |
| ROPs | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Core Clock | 810MHz | 810MHz | 700MHz | 810MHz |
| Shader Clock | 1620MHz | 1620MHz | 1400MHz | 1620MHz |
| Memory Clock | 3.2GHz GDDR5 | 1.8GHz DDR3 | 1.8GHz DDR3 | 1.8GHz DDR3 |
| Memory Bus Width | 128-bit | 128-bit | 64-bit | 64-bit |
| Frame Buffer | 1GB | 1GB | 1GB | 1GB |
| GPU | GF108 | GF108 | GF108/GF117? | GF119 |
| TDP | 65W | 65W | 49W | 29W |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm |
As NVIDIA was already reusing Fermi GPUs for GeForce 600 series parts for the OEM laptop and desktop market, it was only a matter of time until this came over to the retail market, and that’s exactly what has happened. The GT 610, GT 620, and GT 630 are all based on Fermi GPUs, and in fact 2 of them are straight-up rebadges of existing GeForce 400 and 500 series cards. Worse, they’re not even consistent with their OEM counterparts – the OEM GT 620 and GT 630 are based off of different chips and specs entirely.
At the bottom of the 600 series retail stack is the GeForce GT 610, which is a rebadge of the GT 520. This means it’s either a GF119 GPU or cut-down GF108 GPU featuring a meager 48 CUDA Cores and a 64bit memory bus, albeit with a low 29W TDP as a result. This is truly a rock bottom card meant to be a cheap as possible upgrade for older computers, as even an Ivy Bridge HD4000 iGPU should be able to handily surpass it.
The second card is the GT 620, which is a variant of the OEM-only GT 530. With 96 CUDA cores we’re not 100% sure that this is GF108 as opposed to the 28nm GK117, but as NVIDIA currently has a 28nm capacity bottleneck we can’t see them placing valuable 28nm chips in low-end retail cards. Furthermore the 49W TDP perfectly matches the GF108 based GT 530. Compared to the OEM GT 620 the retail model has twice as many CUDA cores, so it has twice as much shader performance on paper, but because of the 64bit memory bus it’s going to be significantly memory bandwidth starved.
The final new 600 series card is the GT 630, which is a rebadge of the GT 440. Like the GT 440 this card comes in two variants, a model with DDR3 and a model with GDDR5. Both models are based on GF108 and have all 96 CUDA cores enabled, and have the same core clock of 810MHz. At the same time this is going to be the card that deviates from its OEM counterpart the most. The OEM GT 630 was a Kepler GK107 card, so this rules out getting a Kepler based GT 630 retail card any time in the near future.
As always, rebadging doesn’t suddenly make a good card bad – or vice versa – but it’s disappointing to once again see this mess transition over to the retail market. We hold to our belief that previous generation products are perfectly acceptable as they were, and that the desire to have yearly product numbers in an industry that is approaching 2 year product cycles is silly at its best, and confusing at its worst.
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MrSpadge - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
Trinity is more than a match for these low end cards. ReplyCeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 26, 2012 - link
Yes it appears trinity is a slight bit faster than a GTX 525, but so what ?You know how many millions of Athlon 2 / pentium D / Pentium 900 / Cedar Mill / Phenom / Phenom 2 systems are out there with an empty PCI-E slot in them - that could use a DX11 vid card where Trinity can't fit any of them at all ever ?
I'm kind of sick of the mindset that is about this place, where the only thought that comes to mind is ripping away with the clueless singular notion that fps in a game compared to any amd fan spew gpu of the moment is what counts even when no comparison in any dream world is pertinent, and added to that the endless ranting about nVidia making money or deceiving everyone.
It's just amazing how all of you are so much more intelligent than the rest of the world, that after an article you can spew out some amd fan piece, then proclaim everyone else is fooled because you the brightest bulbs on earth know all the tricks...
Man what a downer you people are. Really, what a freakin downer.
None of you ever seem to have a system you could use a card like one of these in. I say you probably all have a core2 or lesser around that could, but you're too busy bashing and ripping to even think. Maybe with your vast experiences you've never even opened your walmart box and have zero clue it has a 16X pci-e slot ready and waiting.
Yes, the top end Trinity is likely faster, so go buy the non -existent $800 + laptop and tell us how bad amd is spanking a $40 Dx11 card.
Surprisingly, when it's cheap as dirt, the usual amd fanboy reaction is massive greed kicks in and they drool to yank one off the shelf somewhere especially if some other release will drive the price down to pauper pleasing level.
Wow guess I freaked out. Good job amd fan.
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tipoo - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - link
They already are. Trinity will already be ahead of these for sure, and the HD4000 is probably ahead of them too, at least the bottom two. ReplyCeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 26, 2012 - link
Not with DX11.Amd dropped support on the HD4000 too.
Great job amd fan. Reply
Taft12 - Friday, May 25, 2012 - link
For volume yes, but the profit margin is tiny.It might take 100 sales of the GT 610 to equal the profit on a single GTX 680 sale. Reply
shriganesh - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
That's just plain cheating! It can't be accepted! They can't argue the performance level is same. TDP, new features (directX, openGL), 28nm etc Replymarc1000 - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
Nvidia sells marketing. They build the biggest/fastest chip to create hype and then sell whatever small chip they got in stock because a lot of people thinks that a GT630 card will run a game like the 680 card, because they are from the same company.I am still waiting for a U$ 200/250 card on 28nm and 150w TDP from nvidia to choose between it and the AMD cards. Unfortunately, AMD has a 28nm gpu on the market on that price but Nvidia doesn't, so my choice is still AMD.
The sad part is that AMD went for compute this generetion and Nvidia did an unexpected move going for raw performance on the 680 and won the race too soon. So the best card of this generation is one that does not exist. :-\ Reply
wiyosaya - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
"Nvidia sells marketing."Agreed! It is marketing bling, and IMHO, they are doing it too often. Like $2,500 tesla cards so that you can get the double-precision compute performance that should be in the 680. Reply
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 26, 2012 - link
Well, there's a whole lot of jelly spewing from you two.Too bad amd is a failing and bailing and firing hole of losses, unable to pay for driver teams let alone fly 200 people all over the world 24/7/365 to gaming companies to make our PC gaming experiences better.
Amd uses a telephone and email to "help gaming companies" that's how pathetic and broke they are - ROFL.
In fact, if they had a clue, they'd listen to you two, if even a tenth of your hate filled diatribe repeated as often as the sun rises against nVidia is remotely true, it's sound advice for actions amd needs to implement immediately, if not sooner.
Instead, we have amd failing, flailing, and driver teams bailing out the sinking ship, always behind, always unable to get to stable. They're like a broken addict with a dysfunctional lifestyle.
The reason nVidia can sell craploads of cards to OEMs and shelf markets is because they have a great reputation and their driver bundles are awesome - absolutely spectacular - and so simple to not screw up - so easy to fix if anything like a virus chews through them - that's a huge value for OEMs and end users.
It's huge.
It's huge for tech support costs - as in costs very little.
It's huge for entrepreneurial techies who can make a proifitable upgrade for their customers, quick, easy, and error free and without future troubles.
There's a LOT of REASONS beyond your spewing hatred, ones amd should take note of and attempt in vain to duplicate. Reply
ericore - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
Graphics chip manufacturers aren't making tons of money, and if you can get away with selling rebranded chips to OEMs and uneducated consumers then by all means. Still, not everyone wants to shell out over a hundred for a graphics card; it's an undesired precedent since it states you must pay over X amount for new technology. A more eloquent way of doing it, is have limited stock on next gen low end since you'll want the more advanced tech for high end cards anyways, and when you run out of stock for your new gen low ends, then sell the rebranded version. And to sweeten the deal, as far as OEMs are concerned just sell them rebrands haha. Reply