Difference between GT650 and GTX 650 videocards

[friscolives]

I currently have a GT630 video card (Geforce)

I'm thinking of upgrading, and saw a nice sale (I think its a good one) on a GTX 650 for about $140,) I'm not an expert on video cards by any stretch. Would this be a good improvement for running Second life? I'm sure sure what the difference between the GT and the GTX cards are, but usually the GTX seem quite a bit more costly.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

A sort of deep Google search found this site:

http://techtips.salon.com/difference-between-gts-gtx-nvidia-video-cards-29181.html

After reading several articles I arrived at the same conclusion that I've held for a very long time.........it really doesn't mean much beyond "bragging rights" for the hard core gamers.  Here's a summation that seems to be the concenus:

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Considerations

When choosing a video card, it's best to look deeper than the GPU number -- especially if you're trying to hit a "sweet spot" between price and performance. Take a look at the number of processor cores, the MHz speed of the GPU, the memory bandwidth and all of the other detailed specs. In general, however, whether the GPU is called GT, GTS or GTX makes very little difference.

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If you find a card that fits your budget and it happens to be a GTX then go for it....if not, you won't see any noticible difference between a GT, GTS or GTX.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

In the past NVidia used to make several versions of a card with the same number, GT, GTS and GTX. If I'm not mistaken the GT was the base model, the GTX the top one. The current line of NVidia cards doesn't have these different versions per card. There are two 650 and 660 cards, the 650/660 and 650/660Ti, which have different chips. Then there are the M versions for laptops. The lower end cards (up to 645) are called GT, the higher rated ones are called GTX.

I see some GT650 cards online, with DDR3 memory instead of the faster DDR5 memory in the GTX650. I don't see the GT listed on NVidia's website though and I don't see any comparisions between the two. In fact I can find so little about it I begin to wonder if it's actually a card that exists. I do see a GT650M with the DDR3, maybe that's it.

Whether upgrading to a higher end card will increase your SL experience depends on a lot of things. Generally speaking, the faster the card, the better your experience.You can compare the two cards you mention by looking at some benchmarks, this doesn't tell the whole story, but gives you better (easier to understand) information about its performance than looking at the specifications.

The GTX650 benchmark score is 1800, the GT630 780. Compare this to the (almost useless for SL) onboard HD4000 which scores 471 and the top scoring GTX680 with 5548 and I think the upgrade will make a real difference for you but it won't allow you to turn on shadows and other fancy stuff the entire time. The recommended 9600 (GT?) scores 758 btw.

Sorry for all the numbers I took them from videocardbenchmark.

[Paul Hexem]

The GTX is more powerful. But not enough to warrant upgrading if you already have the same edition GT or GTS.

[Teagan Tobias]

When I was looking for a video card I used this page.  A lot to look at and may help you.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

Not sure how up to date it is, did not see right away.