GeForce GT 740A vs GT 520 PCIe x1
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | not rated | 931 |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Power efficiency | no data | 3.85 |
| Architecture | Fermi 2.0 (2010−2014) | Kepler 2.0 (2013−2015) |
| GPU code name | GF119 | GK208 |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Release date | 13 April 2011 (13 years ago) | 26 August 2013 (11 years ago) |
Detailed specifications
General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 48 | 384 |
| Core clock speed | 810 MHz | 980 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 292 million | 915 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 40 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 29 Watt | 33 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 6.480 | 31.36 |
| Floating-point processing power | 0.1555 TFLOPS | 0.7526 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 4 | 8 |
| TMUs | 8 | 32 |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Interface | PCIe 2.0 x1 | PCIe 3.0 x8 |
| Length | 152 mm | no data |
| Width | 1-slot | MXM Module |
| Supplementary power connectors | None | no data |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | DDR3 | DDR3 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 1 GB | 2 GB |
| Memory bus width | 64 Bit | 64 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 900 MHz | 900 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 14.4 GB/s | 14.4 GB/s |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x VGA | No outputs |
| HDMI | + | - |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (11_0) | 12 (11_0) |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | 5.1 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| OpenCL | 1.1 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | N/A | 1.1.126 |
| CUDA | 2.1 | 3.5 |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 13 April 2011 | 26 August 2013 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 1 GB | 2 GB |
| Chip lithography | 40 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 29 Watt | 33 Watt |
GT 520 PCIe x1 has 13.8% lower power consumption.
GT 740A, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 2 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.
We couldn't decide between GeForce GT 520 PCIe x1 and GeForce GT 740A. We've got no test results to judge.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
