Best GT 640 Overclocking Settings Guide
If you’re looking for more performance out of the Nvidia GT 640, this guide walks through the exact overclocking steps and benchmarks that show how much extra speed this older mid range card can still deliver. The GT 640 may be from 2012, but with the right tuning it can push well beyond its stock numbers and even approach playable 1080p performance in lighter titles:
This is the Nvidia GeForce GT 640 and we’re going to overclock and benchmark it.
The GT 640 was a mid range card originally released in mid 2012. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of performance we can push out of this card and how it stacks up to something like the GT 730 we previously tested. This card feels like a solid 720p or 900p performer. However, with some overclocking, how far can we push this card toward reaching some playable 1080p numbers? Stick around because we’re about to find out.
So what are we looking at here. The GT 640 is based on the GK107 graphics processor, has 384 CUDA cores, and supports DirectX 12 feature set 11.0. This card runs at 902 MHz core clock and between 667 and 915 MHz memory clock. The card comes in both full height and low profile versions, single or dual slot, and features one or two cooling fans. The GT 640 comes with 1, 2, or 4 GB of DDR3 or GDDR3 memory. The example card we have here is the EVGA GT 640 2 GB dual slot.
So let’s get ready to overclock and benchmark this little card and see what kind of performance we can push out of it. The first thing we’re going to want to do is update the drivers. Let’s jump over to Nvidia real fast and grab the latest ones.
Now that our drivers are nice and updated, the next step is to install an overclocking program called MSI Afterburner. MSI Afterburner is a totally free tool that gives you a high level of control and monitoring over your graphics card. It’s made by MSI the company, but in no way do you need to use it with an MSI brand of card or anything like that.
Now that MSI Afterburner is installed, let’s run through the main settings we’ll be using for this card. We’ll be focusing on the voltage, clock values, and fan settings. We can see that the fan speed is currently set to Auto. You can switch this off and manually select the fan speed, but for this video we’ll just leave it on Auto.
We can change both the core clock and memory clock values from the middle section here. For voltage, you can see that the setting is grayed out by default. If you’d like to change the voltage, you’ll first need to go to Properties and then select the checkbox labeled “Unlock Voltage Control”. I’d recommend being very careful when changing the voltage and only doing it in small increments.
You can always reset your settings back to default by clicking the reverse arrow at the bottom. Once you’re satisfied with your changes, you can click the check button to apply them. You can save your current settings to a profile by clicking the Save button and then selecting a profile to save it to along the right side. Finally, you can have the current settings automatically apply at Windows startup by clicking the Windows icon in the upper right corner.
Now I’m going to put a list of known successful GT 640 overclocks on the screen as well as in the description. Every card is different, but this should give you a good starting point for finding potential overclock values that may work for you.
Now that we’ve locked in some potential overclock settings, we’re going to want to test them. We’ll be running through five programs with benchmarks to test our overclock for stability and performance.
What I’ll do first is run through all five benchmarks using just the stock settings to obtain base level performance numbers. Then I’ll select a minor initial increase in both core clock and memory clock values. I’ll then run through the Unigine benchmark tool over and over while increasing the overclock values slightly each time.
Once the settings have been pushed too far and I start seeing crashing, graphical glitches, degraded performance, or any type of odd behavior, I’ll switch back the settings to what they were just previously when everything was still running smoothly. At this point I now have a solid idea of where the sweet spot is for overclocking my particular card. I can either stick with those settings or try tweaking things just a little further.
After quite a number of tests, this particular card was able to reach a solid overclock of 155 MHz core clock and 200 MHz memory clock. This seems pretty good and appears to be in line with the other example overclocks for this card.
So let’s run through each of the benchmarks to see how well the GT 640 performed. First up is Unigine Superposition benchmark tool. Running at the 1080p Medium preset, the base results came in with a score of 1115. After overclocking, the score improved to 1330. This represents an increase of 19.3 percent. So things are looking promising so far.
Next up we’ve got CS GO benchmark map. Running at 1080p with all the settings turned down to the lowest values, the base test achieved an overall average FPS of 79.7. After overclocking, average FPS increased to 93.1. That’s an increase of 16.8 percent. Certainly some playable 1080p numbers even though this title is relatively light on the graphical requirements.
For the third test we have Grand Theft Auto 5 benchmark. Running at 1080p, 50 percent resolution scaling, and everything turned down as low as it would go, the initial average FPS came out to 90.7. After overclock, average FPS increased to 111.1. That’s an increase of 22.5 percent. An excellent improvement for sure, and you could easily push the graphical quality up quite a bit and still have a great experience here.
Test number four is Final Fantasy 14 Endwalker benchmark. Running at the 1080p Standard preset, base test results achieved a score of 3340 or Slightly Low rating. After overclocking, the score improved to 4062 or Standard rating. This represents an increase of 21.6 percent. An impressive improvement to be had here as well.
Benchmark five is Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 benchmark. Running at 1080p, 50 percent resolution scaling, and the lowest possible settings, initial results achieved a score of 2248. After overclocking, the score improved to 2626. This represents an increase of 16.8 percent. A solid improvement for sure, however with an average FPS of 29 it still may be just a bit shy of a playable experience here.
So there you have it. The Nvidia GeForce GT 640. Certainly an older card and well past its prime, but with the right titles and some overclocking this card can still be viable.
Do you have any experience with this card? If so, let us know in the video comments!
MSI Afterburner download page:
