NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 Review @ [H]

pffft, never mind, found my answer!
 
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I am glad Nvidia has released this part. Cooler, quieter, highly overclockable, and solid performer. Sounds like Nvidia was keen to release a part that could finally compete with ATI on value. That, in turn, finally makes Surround a more viable option for a larger segment of the market (cheaper cards, less powerful PSU required, acceptable noise levels with two cards).
 
RooK said:
Indeed I would.

As a consumer, I would like to see all the latest cards (no matter the price point) side by side. Its how you guys used to do things, but then "things" changed.
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So has the playing field. Using the same methodology from a near a decade passed when the rest of the world has changed is borderline negligence. It was a lot easier to run benchmark near a decade past when demo's weren't tuned to lie and there wasn't a ton of games to review.

If you want lots of canned benchmarks which don't tell the truth...anandtech will be glad to take your page hits.
 
heatlesssun said:
Sure, this is always the case, but in the case of Surround AMD has its work cut out for it. 480 SLI is handing 5870 CF its ass in multi-monitor which lets face it, who was expecting that with the SAME 480 that was launched in April? Fermi is simply more powerful and scalable than what was being said by most in April. The single 480 didn't get a Gold award, SLI was a bit better, then Surround comes out and Kyle said what the best gaming experience he ever had. Fermi has gone from too this and too that to too much for the 5000s.

Of course AMD will have a better product out the door than the 5000s in time, but my point is look at Fermi today and look at it know. I remember a post right at Fermi launch with some kind of burning flesh video as a joke labeled "3x GTX 480 Review". The only thing that's getting burned now are games at 5760x1080 with that setup.

This is a case of the first impression being pretty wrong overall I'd say.
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I think our first impressions were DEAD ON. Let me quote from our Fermi Review. And we gave 480 SLI a Silver Editor's Choice Award as well.

GeForce GTX 480 SLI clearly provides a better gameplay experience than the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970. In the dual-GPU competition, we felt GeForce GTX 480 SLI provided the best experience, but it will certainly cost you. It will cost you a lot of money, and it will cost you by requiring a high powered hardcore enthusiast system to support it, again costing you more money. If you are a gamer, and you want the best performance you can get right now, GeForce GTX 480 SLI is where it is at. Just beware of all the consequences of running such a configuration. We are frothing at the bit to get into some NV Surround gaming with a GTX 480 SLI setup!
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But make no mistake about it, in most cases today, this setup is HOT, LOUD, and is a POWER PIG. I think you still need to look at the big picture.
 
At $199 this is comparable to the HD 5850 when it was first released at $249. A definite buy. Watch Newegg.com, these will be sold out in a day or two.
 
RooK said:
Indeed I would.

As a consumer, I would like to see all the latest cards (no matter the price point) side by side. Its how you guys used to do things, but then "things" changed.
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I hope you find some other hardware sites that fill your needs.
 
DASHlT said:
And everyone tells me that people with Q6600's and E8400+ CPU's dont need to upgrade...
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Q6600s are holding up a lot better though. Games like GTAIV and Bad Company 2 perform much better with more cores. Took a while, but the "Should I get a 6600 or 8400" debate from a couple years ago has not been resolved :D
 
Awesome! Been looking forward to this review!

The GTX 460 Def lived up to the hype. I predict this will be the card that finally causes ATI to lower some prices in the mainstream segment!:eek::D
 
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but the [H] review seems to have higher idle power usage for the GTX 460 than other reviews. Most reviews I've looked at the GTX460 is equal or lower power consumption than the 5830, but [H] was 20W higher. Just seems a bit odd...
 
Great review. Well I certainly agree that this is a fantastic product. The price point is really incredible. And going back and looking at your earlier reviews of the top end cards framerates in various games, I think I would buy two 460s and run them in SLI as opposed to one of the top end cards.

And I think this will be one incredible value for Folding.
 
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Very nice!

I am seriously considering selling the 470 GTX and going 460 X2. What is holding me back though is that at the end of the day if SLI doesn't work or has stutter issues i'll have less performance.
 
qdemn7 said:
Great review. Well I certainly agree that this is a fantastic product. The price point is really incredible. And going back and looking at your earlier reviews of the top end cards framerates in various games, I think I would buy two 460s and run them in SLI as opposed to one of the top end cards.
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I was thinking about this as well, 2 in SLI might perform like a 480! Once there are some rebates or deals to be had, this card is going to represent a wonderful value in a SLI config. I'm sure when Hardocp gets some time and resources they would do a SLI review, but hey I bet no one would mind if someone decided they wanted to buy a couple and slap them together for us on the forums!! :D
 
After all the hate I've seen on the fermi cards I almost caved and got an ati..but I just couldnt bring myself to do it. I was going to wait and see if somebody won one at quakecon or something that they didnt need and buy it from them. But now team green decided to release a product that was just right for me so I ordered one.

8800 GTS gets to go away finally..its had a good run!
 
Kyle can you do a benchmark on Arma 2 OA on this card in SLI and comparing it to a single 480gtx please?
 
Good job Nvidia. Finally a $200 mass market card that I can slip into my son's rig to replace his HD 4850 and not feel like I was ripped off.
 
Good card! Too bad I don't like Nvidia's business practices. Come on price drops.
 
What does exist currently that is bi-GPU on a single card (Nvidia)? Anyone know? I know Galaxy have announced the 2x470 (and also a 470+240) on a single card but not sure when they will release those, maybe they thought it will be better to wait for 2x460.

I never wanted to go 2 cards SLI but if they come up with an affordable 2x460 on the same card, it may be a great deal, low power, low noise, low heat solution.
 
There is no dual GPU Fermi card yet. And based on precedent, when it comes out, it certainly will not be "efficient." You always sacrifice cooling ability when you squeeze two GPUs onto one PCB or one PCI-E slot.
 
jonneymendoza said:
Kyle can you do a benchmark on Arma 2 OA on this card in SLI and comparing it to a single 480gtx please?
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Mark has the cards, not sure if he has them set up now or not. He is starting on a big article today. Might send him a PM and ask nicely. :)
 
Rhialto said:
What does exist currently that is bi-GPU on a single card (Nvidia)? Anyone know? I know Galaxy have announced the 2x470 (and also a 470+240) on a single card but not sure when they will release those, maybe they thought it will be beter to wait to go for 2x460.

I never wanted to go 2 cards SLI but if they come up with an affordable 2x460 on the same card, it may be a great deal, low power, low noise, low heat solution.
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That dual card you saw from Galaxy was Proof of Concept only, no production planned. We were told that NVIDIA is not releasing the needed code to make it actually work. So don't hold your breath.
 
Matrices said:
There is no dual GPU Fermi card yet. And based on precedent, when it comes out, it certainly will not be "efficient." You always sacrifice cooling ability when you squeeze two GPUs onto one PCB or one PCI-E slot.
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I'm sure dual 460 not overclocked would give great results...
 
I think for the 1st time 2 cards in SLI might be better than 1 card of same speed.

With GTX 460 SLI we will be able to play in triple monitors right?
 
Nice power/temps/performance at the price. I'm debating on spending the $230 for this or drop $179 for a 5830 in my GF's rig. Hmmm...judging by the OC results, I could probably just set it to 800+mhz and forget it on one of these.
 
After further digesting this review, I think this is the first review I do not like from [H]ardOCP. The review left me looking elsewhere.

I disagree on disregarding a 470 comparison. Part of the issue with SLI/CFX set ups is that not everything works and some games may never end up working properly with these set ups. At these times is when you switch to single card mode. The SLI-460 performance per Anand's review looks almost too good (better than 5970.) However, on the assumption of 1% error, SLI with the 460's seems like quite the bargin. The 460's deficit from a 470 is the penalty you pay when SLI does not work at all.

Considering the SLI performance I really wanted to see the deficit from the 470 when you have to go single card mode. This review left me with more questions than answers. At the end of the day, at least to gauge what the difference in price nets you going from 460 to 470 (while considering power/thermals/noise.) Not to mention how much easier it will be to cool a pair 460's.

On a different note, I can totally see a 460-hybrid X2ish card. (463? 475?)
 
SpeedyVV said:
I think for the 1st time 2 cards in SLI might be better than 1 card of same speed.

With GTX 460 SLI we will be able to play in triple monitors right?
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You could have a point in regards to multi-monitor gaming. That said the pitfall of multi-GPU is that doesn't always work which is why I never SLI lower end cards but if you want Surround on the cheap it would be hard to argure against the 460s, assuming its multi-monitor performance is analogous to its single monitor prowess.

SpeedyVV said:
Uhmm, I wonder how a pair of GTX 460s will compare to my 5870????
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Two 460s are beating a single 5870 AND a single 480 consistently in the reviews that have those numbers, Guru3D, Anandtech, etc..
 
The power conssumption figures for Galaxy in load seem out of order in the table. Especillay as the text below doesn't say the same thing ,neither points to how big the difference is.
 
That may be a big assumption since the video RAM is more limited, particularly on the 768 MB model. I'd wait to see hard numbers before buying it on the theory that it's great for Surround at a given resolution.
 
martinmsj said:
After further digesting this review, I think this is the first review I do not like from [H]ardOCP. The review left me looking elsewhere.

I disagree on disregarding a 470 comparison. Part of the issue with SLI/CFX set ups is that not everything works and some games may never end up working properly with these set ups. At these times is when you switch to single card mode. The SLI-460 performance per Anand's review looks almost too good (better than 5970.) However, on the assumption of 1% error, SLI with the 460's seems like quite the bargin. The 460's deficit from a 470 is the penalty you pay when SLI does not work at all.

Considering the SLI performance I really wanted to see the deficit from the 470 when you have to go single card mode. This review left me with more questions than answers. At the end of the day, at least to gauge what the difference in price nets you going from 460 to 470 (while considering power/thermals/noise.) Not to mention how much easier it will be to cool a pair 460's.

On a different note, I can totally see a 460-hybrid X2ish card. (463? 475?)
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Sites that use benchmarks instead of real games can get away with many more comparisons because benchmarks take hardly any time to run, compared with the way we do it. We buy real games from real stores (and real Steam) and play the games just like you guys would. There is no smoke, and there are no mirrors with the way we do it. There is no automation, and there are no benchmarks. We play games. We do not play benchmarks. Anyone in the Norman, OK area is welcome to come and watch me do this to see how it is done, but I will warn you that you will likely become quite bored in a shockingly short amount of time.

The downside to that is it takes a lot of time. Because of that, we just can't make as many comparisons as benchmark sites. So, we have our defined focus. We compare cards of like price ranges to see which is the better value.

I'm guessing this won't be the last GTX 460 we're going to see at [H], though....
 
After looking at several reviews I think that if you don't care about NVsurround/eyefinity and play at 1920x1200/1080, it looks like a better card than a 465 or even a 5850 specially when overclocked.

at 1080p it almost takes blows with the 465 and when OC at 800mhz+ it can even take on the 5850. Quite a feat for a sub $250 card.

Also it looks like OC cards are not worth the extra cash. Reference models can OC as much if not better.
 
Mark_Warner said:
Sites that use benchmarks instead of real games can get away with many more comparisons because benchmarks take hardly any time to run, compared with the way we do it. We buy real games from real stores (and real Steam) and play the games just like you guys would. There is no smoke, and there are no mirrors with the way we do it. There is no automation, and there are no benchmarks. We play games. We do not play benchmarks. Anyone in the Norman, OK area is welcome to come and watch me do this to see how it is done, but I will warn you that you will likely become quite bored in a shockingly short amount of time.

The downside to that is it takes a lot of time. Because of that, we just can't make as many comparisons as benchmark sites. So, we have our defined focus. We compare cards of like price ranges to see which is the better value.

I'm guessing this won't be the last GTX 460 we're going to see at [H], though....
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Just because I said "The review left me looking elsewhere... " Doesn't mean I got what I needed or enjoyed reading others etc... There was no substitute for [H] unfortunately. :)

Seriously, just on the thermals alone I want to throw out my 470.

Hope this second evaluation comes "soonish." Oh and where's that Asus Ares review?! :D
 
Mark_Warner said:
Sites that use benchmarks instead of real games can get away with many more comparisons because benchmarks take hardly any time to run, compared with the way we do it. We buy real games from real stores (and real Steam) and play the games just like you guys would. There is no smoke, and there are no mirrors with the way we do it. There is no automation, and there are no benchmarks. We play games. We do not play benchmarks. Anyone in the Norman, OK area is welcome to come and watch me do this to see how it is done, but I will warn you that you will likely become quite bored in a shockingly short amount of time.

The downside to that is it takes a lot of time. Because of that, we just can't make as many comparisons as benchmark sites. So, we have our defined focus. We compare cards of like price ranges to see which is the better value.

I'm guessing this won't be the last GTX 460 we're going to see at [H], though....
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What!!! NO EXCUSES Play, play and play and when you feel like you had enough, then play some more. Does is look like we care of you carpall tunnel sindrome?

:D:D
 
martinmsj said:
Just because I said "The review left me looking elsewhere... " Doesn't mean I got what I needed or enjoyed reading others etc... There was no substitute for [H] unfortunately. :)

Seriously, just on the thermals alone I want to throw out my 470. (55 compared to 93)

Hope this second evaluation comes "soonish." Oh and where's that Asus Ares review?! :D
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There is this rare bird called sleep which I am sometimes required to catch. ARES is coming, and patience is a virtue.
 
Stoly said:
After looking at several reviews I think that if you don't care about NVsurround/eyefinity and play at 1920x1200/1080, it looks like a better card than a 465 or even a 5850 specially when overclocked.

at 1080p it almost takes blows with the 465 and when OC at 800mhz+ it can even take on the 5850. Quite a feat for a sub $250 card.

Also it looks like OC cards are not worth the extra cash. Reference models can OC as much if not better.
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well 5850 ocs pretty damn well either :D amd just needs to lower 5850 price to original msrp and all this 460 hype will end or may be launch there new series cause its about time
 
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