Hardware Overclocking Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 460

I'll give a link to a resource thread I created on OCN.

I need to do a lot more tweaking with Just Cause 2... but other games I've tried (Burnout Paradise, Dirt2, GTR Evo) all do great. You need to be very careful about the setting used as Surround eats VRAM for breakfast and still wants more. Framerate will go from a happy 40fps+ to single figures if a game wants more than about 980MB of VRAM. Most of which do at 6064x1200 (bezel corrected Surround res...)

I really want to try cards with more VRAM, I think that would help a lot.

 

Screens need to be same res/refresh/sync polarity, so Portrait/Landscape/Portrait still isn't possible.

Yet.

 

I would like to see more benches in games, just one or two more. Crysis to me doesn't mean squat... it's so heavy on every card that the differences are minor.

Anyway, good review

 

Thanks for your reply.

Its interesting you mention VRAM as a potential limitation. HardOCP have done a roundup comparing Surround (GTX480SLI only) to Eyefinity (HD5870 1GB CFX and HD5870 2GB CFX) and found that the 2GB cards didn't provide any tangible benefits over the 1GB cards.

I can only assume this either means the HD5870's utilise their available memory better or they are simply not good enough at eyefinity resolutions to show any benefit extra memory would have (I note from the article that CFX & eyefinity scaling is terrible).

My ideal solution would be GTX470 SLI (Palit Tein cards) but the power consumption when overclocked would push my Corsair TX750 to the limit.

 

And you can overclock this much without games artifacting whatsoever? I have to *under* clock my EVGA Geforce 260 SSC's default shader clocks down by ~50mhz to stop it happening, heh.

 

I want to spend more on a single card and later grab another when the price drops... the problem with the 460 is it just isn't quite fast enough and the upper cards are just a bit to flawed.

if there was a gx2 card and 4x scaling could be sorted I'd be tempted.... at the moment I'm still (sadly) on the fence.

what chance a non gimped 460?

 

Hello all, long time lurker here! I currently have quite an old rig....amd 64 3500+ (just as an indicator!). Hoping that in the next few months I will be able to finally bring myself up to date. The 460 is what I am looking at preferbly the 1gb version. Just interested on others views about whether getting the card now would be worth it given how badly the cpu will bottle neck the rig. Currently have two 7800 gtx's. In the not to distant future I shall be looking at an i7 930.......blooming mortgage

Given I may actually need to wait even as long as 6 months before getting the rest of the components would the performance increase be worth it with the current system.

 

somebody should put 2 of those on a single card and rival the 5970 for half the price, rather than fiddling around with GTX 480 parts (ASUS)
I'd buy one

 

Well, I come to the VRAM conclusion as MSI Afterburner lets me watch VRAM usage in real time via my G15 LCD. The result is interesting: as long as VRAM usage remains below ~980MB, the framerate is smooth and even. Turn a setting up too far and have it go over that amount, and the fps nosedives. It's not an exact science there (only a correllation) as it doesn't always do it in every game - some start chugging around >900MB (Just Cause 2) but Dirt 2 and Burnout Paradise are solid and smooth until VRAM usage gets too close to the magical 1GB on the cards. Given that the GPUs use, what, about 24-48MB for framebuffer, it seems like it fits.

It's been reported in the past that ATi cards are more efficient with their use of VRAM than nVidia ones, but that was back in the days of the GeForce 6 and 7 series, so I don't know whether it holds true with the new architectures.

One thing for sure - just like it was originally with TripleHead2Go, Surround is a system killer. It'll take games that run absolutely perfectly at 2560x1600 and turn them into something more demanding than Crysis or Metro 2033.

 

What do you mean, gimped? That a shader cluster has been disabled? Dunno, I think they'd need really good yields before they did that.

What I'd like is the ability to do Tri-SLI, but that isn't going to happen.

 

Hmmm this is interesting and slightly worrying as JC2 is the game I want to play in Surround / Eyefinity at the moment.

It does look like I will have to stump up the extra for either overclocked GTX470 SLI (thus meaning a new PSU) or GTX480SLI (new PSU and case).

 

aye bang on, that is: Furmark is ****. Really its a poor substitute for gaming stability. My max oc did 1hour 20mins of crysis before i got bored, 3mhz faster and it flaked out after 20 mins. That last one was furmark stable btw :/

 

I know everyones been raving about these cards but is there any news on updates to the 470 or 480 using similar changes to the cards?

Nvidia have clearly done something right with the 460, let's hope they continue with the rest of the stable.

 

460 keeping catch up with 5870??? Wwwooooowwwwwww (as other post above me has said lol)

half the price.

Nvidia. stop producing 470/480. make tons of 460.

 

Well, so far I've narrowed down several setting as being the "big performance killers" in Just Cause 2.

SSAO: setting this on anything other than "OFF" in Surround 460SLI results in cities being single-digit fps. Forests are a bit better, but still chug badly.
AA: setting this to anything other than "OFF" in Surround 460SLI results in everywhere (but particularly cities) going at mid-teen fps.
GPU Water Simulation: takes too much attention from one of the GPUs so results in fps nosediving again.

I can have the rest of the settings up at max at get around 30-45fps (which is a little low but very playable). But JC2 looks horrible with lots of jaggies. I need to try a lower res and see what that does. I also need to try lowering some stuff off of High/Ultra High... but I don't want such a pretty game looking sub-par. Still, it's better than it being an unplayable slideshow I guess...

Bear in mind that at 1920x1200, GTX460SLI can turn everything all the way up to max (with 4xAA) and be quite happy at 80fps (64min, 122max) and can manage 93avg with the same settings as a 4870X2 got 50fps for. Surround is going to become the new way of testing whether a game really pushes hardware; RTHDRIBL and Furmark/Kombustor have nothing on Just Cause 2 or Dirt 2 in Surround with respect to GPU load and temps reached.

My real issue is while I want more performance (which will mostly be aided with a more powerful card) I don't want the heat, power draw or cost of 470SLI or 480SLI. I got these two GTX460's for ~£360... even the cheapest 470SLI setup is going to be £510. That's a big price gap...

 

I see no reason why you posted that, Hustler. Reported.

 

Thanks for the info.

Hmmmm is definately seems JC2 is a real Graphics card killer at Eyefinity / Surround resolutions.

Given that I find AA a must have now-a-days, I think I will have to stump up the extra to GTX480SLI to get JC2 playable at the settiings I want (I doubt even GTX470SLI would be good enough here although the lack of concrete reviews (evidence) doesn't help). The extra £500 over GTX460 SLI will hurt a bit though; I will need a new psu as well.

To be fair, you can now get 2 GTX470 cards for £470 from OCUK (£234 each on this week only) although as you say its still a big monetary step up from the GTX460 cards.

 

I found out that on Dirt2, too. I'd get the intro, then Ken Block's drivel and wonder why I was sat at a black screen. Then I tested JC2 to find out that didn't work either. Need for Speed Shift worked flawlessly though ??? Still got to test Dirt2 after having success getting JC2 to work.

 

I had a Corsair HX1000 runing my two GTX480 sli and it got really hot whlie gaming which is why I got the one in my sig.

It may have been the PSU was getting old but its working fine in my other rig so!

Just saying the GTX480's like alot of power since I got the 1250w they runing sweet.

 

I agree, the extra cost for an insignificant increase in frames makes it not worth it on a bang for buck case. I got a evga 460 OC 768mb card yesterday and it walks all over what my old 9800gx2 used to be able to do.