Hardware Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 768MB and 1GB Graphics Card Review

Finally a worthy 8800GT replacement!

 

I wish this was the card nvidia released first... Already bought into my 5770.

 

i totally agree.. bring back the old bit-tech style where you evaluated the cards by showing the highest possible settings for each one

 

But you need to compares Apples vs Apples not Apples vs oranges :O

Either way i still can't see why anyone would buy this instead of a 5850, unless you needed CUDA or wanted 3D/PhysX, I've got a 5870, but if i could go back in time i would've got a 5850 and overclocked it up a notch..£100 more and you had CF.

 

Maybe because the 5850's currently sitting a good £60 above the GTX460. Different class of card.

It's not even that I'm thinking of. Just, in the conclusion, a little note to say "Well, it COULDN'T play Crysis, haha! Drop it down to high, and you can get X by Y resolution running just fine." Every other graph shows us what the card IS capable of. The Crysis graphs invariably show us what the card ISN'T capable of. That's not the information we need to make an informed buying decision.

 

No way! Setting all settings the same allows a true comparison of power.

 

Are you really sure? .....think hard about it now

 

Then its gonna be another 8800gts 320mb: obsolete before its time

 

£60 above? A 10 second google search gives me £207.

 

Well, I thunked about it, consulted many deities, had a go on my swing and...

Err, yes*

*barring unfair things like running out of VRAM at 1 billionxAA at 500000x50000 res.

 

At last a little competition so hopefully the HD5850 price lowers a little = buy

 

Just wanted to throw in a couple of comments in here.

First of all, those of you hoping for "refreshes" of the GTX470/480. What exactly would you like to have refreshed? The GF104 is still the same GF100, but cut (more or less) in half. It's NOT a new design or even "Fermi 2.0". This doesn't detract from the fact that the GF104 seems to be a pretty good mid-range chip, though.

Secondly, on the matter of a "Sapphire" GTX460, you might have better luck waiting for a custom card from Zotac, since Sapphire and Zotac are PCPartner's ATi and nVidia arms, respectively.

Oh, almost forgot... Palit and Gainward are also the same company (even more so since both only do nVidia products), so Palit cards will be identical to Gainward's offerings, save for some colour changes etc.

 

you see the ads running earlier up top.. it had a hand stroking shrek up and down

now I have a sense of humor but that was pretty obvious.. nvidia marketing never ceases to amaze..

I see what you did there! what's next a brown mouse coming out a hole in the wall with ati hanging over it get ready for huang and his speech soon (let's see how many times he says whoop ass!)

 

Disappointing review. Gigabyte was not tested. Gainward was not tested. An Zotac's thermla performance seems to be presented as the one of generic BBN GTX460,although it scored worst than Nvidia reference cooler. Are you planning to update it?

 

I am very tempted by two of the Palit Sonic Platinums in SLI to power 2d Vision Surround.

Looking at andandtechs results the GTX460 SLI setup seems to hold quite well with a HD5970 (I assume superior scaling accounts for this as a single GTX460 is slower than a single HD5850*), heck overclocked (to roughly the platinum levels) they can even hold close to HD5870 Crossfire.

Whilst I own a single HD5870 realistically I would have to get a second one to power 5760x1080 eyefinity properly.

Looking at the numbers GTX460 SLI Vision Surround would actually be cheaper than getting a second HD5870 and the relevant DP monitors (or normal monitors and the DP adaptor).
I think I will wait for some eyefinity / 2D vision Surround esque reviews before dropping money on either setup.




*HD5970 used as a proxy for the HD5850 CF given the relative performance.

 

You obviously didnt actually read the architecture analysis in BTs review. The GF104 is a modified architecture which reduces power draw and temps while keeping all the pixel power, so we want to see that revamp applied to the higher end chips too.

 

Link?

Cheapest I found was Linke Computer using Google shopping but follow that link and you find something altogether different. All the reputable shops dont get near that price.

£235.68 is the cheapest 5850 in stock at Scan
£232.64 is the cheapest 5850 in stock at Aria
£232.99 is the cheapest 5850 in stock at Overclockers

Considering Overclockers have the 1GB GTX460 on preorder for £179.99 that more than £50 difference.

 

Finally an nvidia card that's not overpriced. I see the 768mb is already down to £150, hopefully that'll drop a little further and drag the prices of the more expensive cards down with it.

 

Aria have a "Super Special" on the XFX 5850 for £223.24 at the moment.
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...aphics+Card+-+Games+Edition!+?productId=40691