OC3D Review: nVidia GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 Review

[tinytomlogan]

At last, nVidia have brought DirectX 11 to the masses! Or have they?

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[Runebeard]

Best thing I've seen NVidia do all year imo. If I were looking to upgrade whilst staying in the green camp, this is the obvious choice. Will you be getting in a 1GB version to test and compare as well?

 

[tinytomlogan]

I would have thought we would yes matey, but Ive got nothing secured as we speak. Will deffo happen soon though.

 

[silenthill]

Great review, well done Mul, great price too from CPL at scan and overclockers the cheapest is 152£ seams that nvidia have come up with actually something worth buying but ATI will definitely bring their prices down on certain cards to compete with this card so don’t be hasty guys.

 

[Runebeard]

Awesome dude! Thanks very much

 

[thestepster]

this is definitely of massive interest to me on both fronts (thanks to tom and mul for the folding@home bit) does 10k overclocked on an OEM card im lookin at the asus with the volt mod for a bigger overclock and gettin 2 of them to run sli in games when i eventually turn off f@h for some gamin, another thing i was thinkin what was the power consumption of the cards when they were overclocked i was reading some pretty high numbers on other sites and it would definately need a new psu if its true

would also love to see how these compare to a gtx480 when they are in sli

once again guys amazing review and has basically cemented my decision on buying 2 of these

EDIT: there is 2 brands of this card i was reading on futuremark u might want to avoid the palit and gainward ones (palit owns gainward?) they are what seems to be strangly shipping without ANY VRM heatsinks?

 

[alienware]

Hurrah, good show !

It's about time (I mean Nvidia, not OC3D)

EDIT. Where are my manners today?

Thanks Mul, and thanks to Tom and OC3D for making this happen. I really look forward to the reviews on here (especially when Bryan is beating the crap out of a graphics card, takes me right back to our 9800/5950 rival days )

 

[alienware]

EDIT: there is 2 brands of this card i was reading on futuremark u might want to avoid the palit and gainward ones (palit owns gainward?) they are what seems to be strangly shipping without ANY VRM heatsinks?

Notice at the time of release they were the cheapest. They are obviously designed for out of the box users who do not intend to overclock them at all and thus, perfectly adequate. No such thing as a free lunch, as they say, and peformance will cost you.

That said, even out of the box these are good enough.

 

[thestepster]

Notice at the time of release they were the cheapest. They are obviously designed for out of the box users who do not intend to overclock them at all and thus, perfectly adequate. No such thing as a free lunch, as they say, and peformance will cost you.

That said, even out of the box these are good enough.

only way that argument is valid is if the OEM ones dont ship with them either and not to mention the most expencive one at £210 is an overclocked gainward one

 

[alienware]

Well if the card is not a reference cooler then tbh Gainward and Palit can pretty much do what they want. They're obviously buying 'vanilla' boards and then whacking on coolers.

I'm not a big fan of Palit any way. They did a version of the 9800GT with a tiny flower cooler and pathetic ram coolers. Again, this is all fine if you intend to keep them at stock but that's where it ends.

IMO the best looking one for playing around with is the Asus. It doesn't look the nicest but it has heatpipes poking out and everything. Looks the best for Overclocking.

Also to mention something pointed out by Mul...

"Due to logistical issues with our original GTX 460 supplier, we had to request a nVidia Reference GTX 460 sample instead. While this is not really an issue, I must warn that there are no pretty photographs of decorated packaging or accessory sets "

To be completely honest mate I like the virgin reference cards. I think they look more mean. Once a company starts putting stickers on them they lose all their charm hehe. Mind you, I'm a bit of a Ratrod flat black man myself, so that may be why. But when the 5770 released I tried everything to get the reference plain ones with the ATI logo on the fan. At least that way you're not paying for some dumb sticker with a semi clad woman accross it lol.

 

[alienware]

Infact Steps, look at how Palit have cut an X shape out of their design (the shroud). That's been done for no reason at all other than to save on plastic. And it all adds up mate.. I used to work in R&D and you would gasp for breath if you realised how much that all costs

 

[thestepster]

there coolers do look custom (the shroud and fan anyway) but the thing is the pic i seen there was miles of room in there and they could have fitted them and they know that there cards gonna be overclocked to hell cause nvidias not as mainstream as ati its more for the ppl in the know? even the most non computer savvy person can these days and these are the cards a lot of green team fans have been waitin on and if this one

yeah there cutting costs kinda looks daft aswell cause the cards not what u would call substantially cheaper

totally agree on the asus being the best non 1gb about and the vmod shows numbers around the 930 core which can differ obviously but thats awsome so thats how i want one of those and illl gladly pay the extra for it

 

[alienware]

Yeah definnitely man. Of course to you and I those heatsinks make all the difference.. And yeah, they may only be a few quid cheaper but it all counts when you are a small OEM making machines in batches.. All adds up man.

I said this to AMD the other day (where's he been? he's so quiet haha) but the amount of people who actually overclock their systems is very small tbh. So for the most part some one would buy a machine with a 460 gtx in and not care about overclocking/volting and so on.

 

[thestepster]

Yeah definnitely man. Of course to you and I those heatsinks make all the difference.. And yeah, they may only be a few quid cheaper but it all counts when you are a small OEM making machines in batches.. All adds up man.

I said this to AMD the other day (where's he been? he's so quiet haha) but the amount of people who actually overclock their systems is very small tbh. So for the most part some one would buy a machine with a 460 gtx in and not care about overclocking/volting and so on.

but if there going to be building machines with the cheaper end of the gtx460's they will go for an nvidia OEM mate as they are as stated at the start £139.99 as opposed to the £145-150 price mark for the palit ones so there's a £5 saving on each then if the oems come with the proper cooling on the vrm then its a win win for them as they will handle the heat just as well and the ram stays cooler

 

[alienware]

I'd much rather have the Nvidia OEM card. Best looking of the lot IMO. And you're not paying EVGA £50 to put a sticker on it

 

[siravarice]

Great review Would two of these be faster than say, a 470?

 

[thestepster]

I'd much rather have the Nvidia OEM card. Best looking of the lot IMO. And you're not paying EVGA £50 to put a sticker on it

they will overclock just aswell as a palit one so there is no benefit to the palits as a cost perspective

the asus where as its totally custom pcb and cooler with volt moddin

Great review Would two of these be faster than say, a 470?

much faster mate i think they can maybe touch the gtx480 when they are in sli

 

[tinytomlogan]

As with all of these cards just buy the one that you like the best, the PCB on them atm is all the same. The only thing to consider is voltage tweaking options and coolers.

 

[thestepster]

As with all of these cards just buy the one that you like the best, the PCB on them atm is all the same. The only thing to consider is voltage tweaking options and coolers.

pretty sure asus has a custom pcb?

 

[tinytomlogan]

No mate they are all the same. Asus always tries to use the ref design, the Voltage tweak is just a bios change.