EVGA GTX460 SLI Review
3D Mark Vantage and Unigine
Published: 16th September 2010 | Source: EVGA | Price: £135.11 |

3D Mark Vantage
Wow. That is a shock. We hoped at best that the SLI setup would be close to the GTX480, but even at stock it's comprehensively better. It also scales very well being 6000 ahead at Performance, 4000 at High and 2000 at Extreme. Our overclock also manages give impressive results too, although at Extreme we can see the point at which the limitations of the architecture combine with the high anti-aliasing and detail levels to slow the gains down.
Unigine
If 3D Mark was impressive, then Unigine made us stop in our tracks. The average frame-rate is nearly double that of the GTX480 when we overclock the 460s. In anybodys book that is a great result especially given how demanding Unigine is.
Zero Anti-Aliasing
8x Anti-Aliasing
Once the settings are bumped up to the maximum though we see the limitations that the card has when it comes to shaders and cores. The frame-rate drops dramatically, even the overclocked 460s falling underneath the GTX480.
Is this limitation replicated in gaming?
Most Recent Comments
*reads* cheers fellas !
Ahh, brilliant as always
I actually rather like the look of those cards too (eats some humble pie) as the stickers on them are quite tasteful and not overdone and gaudy.
Will stick with my 5770s (and hopefully soon AMD's 9800GTX for Physx) but if these had come sooner (7 months sooner) I would have had no qualms about grabbing a pair (ooer).
Thanks again for the reviews lads, Stepster will be very pleased. He can gloat even more on MSN now
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/2...0033ghz.th.jpg
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o_0 after seeing this I really wanna know how a pair of 470s would fare. |
Very interested in seeing the results for a pair of 470s though !
The 470's will be even hotter though and a lot louder lol.I will need to get sound dampening foam for my case to absorb some of that fan noise until I can afford better coolers for the GPU's. The reason for my upgrade is newer games are starting to push my GTX280 now and the motherboard , CPU and ram upgrade is for the video conversions etc.
I've been looking at the GTX 460 but am holding out for now as there aren't really any games I've got into that require that sort of power (I mostly play cs:s on my 8800gts)
I know a guy who just got a 5850 who has been telling me it owns the GTX460
I have been looking around for waterblocks for the 460 and looking at the stock coolers the RAM doesn't seem to be actively cooled so would guess you could get away with a non fullcover block and some heatsinks on the RAM?
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cool video I've been looking at the GTX 460 but am holding out for now as there aren't really any games I've got into that require that sort of power (I mostly play cs:s on my 8800gts) I know a guy who just got a 5850 who has been telling me it owns the GTX460 I have been looking around for waterblocks for the 460 and looking at the stock coolers the RAM doesn't seem to be actively cooled so would guess you could get away with a non fullcover block and some heatsinks on the RAM? |
Overclock the 460 and is will walk all over the 5850.
Unless you have 5870 money the 460 is the card to have tbh.
Either way, I'm psyched to try these in SLI. I'm interested to see what 2 - 1GB cards will score.
Got one of those EVGA's 768Mb as well........hmmmm.
As always nice review!
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Then you have both completely missed the point of this review tbh. 480 = nuclear hot & fudging loud 470 = nuclear hot & fudging loud 460 = cool calm and collected..... |
If you let the drivers manage the card it sticks the fan speed to about 40%. Definitely not audible. Temps will hit as high as 93C though.
I'm using a Gigabyte reference card btw.
Enjoyed the review btw. Those 460's make me want to go sli just to mess with it.
oops sorry for doubles posting]
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But how does a pair of 460's work at 2560x1600 compared to a 480? |
Well at very high resolutions and image quality settings the cut-down nature of the underlying architecture can limit the frame-rate so if you're after absolute performance then you might need to look elsewhere.
Most likely not so good.
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Then you have both completely missed the point of this review tbh. 480 = nuclear hot & fudging loud 470 = nuclear hot & fudging loud 460 = cool calm and collected..... |
Quiet performance is great, but hot smoking blistering is fun (so long as *I* dont have to live with it)
That's why I sold one of the 3870x2 today haha. Other one's sold too to a mate, and Thuban here we come (when I get the Noctua).
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With the GTX460 being the sensible choice of the Fermi range, we had to take a look at the performance of a pair, courtesy of EVGA. Continue Reading |
it is shame they are limited to 2 way SLI tbh
if i had a bigger PSU then i would get one for phys-x heck if it was big enough i would get a third GTX460 for phys-x
hmm wonder if my 750w PSU could handle a 450 as well then :/
that would be bad ass
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yeah doesnt even break a sweat mate the psu is stone cold, yeah it might be possible what kinda amps does he new corsairs have? |
25A, 25A, 62A, 0.5A , 3A
if you could get a single slot 450 then it would be the idle phys-x card
As Stepy said, if you want a third one by all means get one, but use it for the right reasons (folding or Physx)
It'll look the same as triple SLI but it'll actually work and so something contsructive.
You need to remember that when game coders make games they usually do them for the masses. Dual core support, half decent GPU. They don't take into account fanatics who turn their PCs into nuclear power plants. There's no reason wasting time and money on those people as they are a massive minority
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its just a pointless card mate and its priced £10 less than a 460 but is miles and miles off in performance and as soon as uve bought it will be worth nowt, ppl in the know wont be buying this card at all |
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-Palit-GTS-450-40nm-3608MHz-GDDR5-GPU-783MHz-Shader-1566MHz-192-Cores-DL-DVI-I-D-Sub-HDMI
You need to remember that happy hour is done. Cheapest 460 I can find now is £125. That's pretty much bang on £30 more, and the 450 will highly likely be just as good for Physx..
I will buy into the aesthetic argument though. Adding an odd one out will pretty much wreck the look
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never said i wanted 3 way sli just said it was a shame they were limited |
See also the 5770. Great as Crossfire, total waste of money in trifire/quadfire.
Price to performance? yes, 460 SLI is in a league of its own. Triple SLI? worse than two, much more expensive.
At that price I am actually tempted myself ! £89.99 del.
I have the 8800 Ultra, but it's so big and so hot I don't know if I trust it in a 5770 sandwich. What I would like ideally is a single slot 450 if they come up with one.
Also it won't go under load. My 8800 Ultra idles at 62c. With Physx pounding out it reached.. Wait for it.... 62c.
The core itself is not used at all during Physx calc and it's for no other purpose..
However, trying hard not to drag this OT I am going to pipe for a GTS 240. No point paying double (literally) for a 450 as I am not using any of the functions, plus I want single slot. I want to leave my radeons breathing room as I want it better than now, basically.
I bought EVGA's cards, but now I can buy MSI ones much cheaper, so is it worth it to swap them?
For me it looks like EVGA pulling hot air outside of the case, MSI don't - what to do.I like cool and quiet, but Quiet is more important for me.
Stepy had one, wait for him to come on and he can tell you how the temps are.
but just wait till stepy comes online


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