Legit Reviews

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 728MB and 1GB Video Card Reviews

NVIDIA was late to the DirectX 11 party, but can their first DX11 graphics card below the $200 price point bring them back to the top? This is the sweet spot for the graphics card industry as most gamers are willing to pay $199 for a gaming graphics card that is able to play the latest game titles. Read on to see how the GeForce GTX 460 768MB and 1GB video cards perform!

"After using both the GeForce GTX 460 768MB and GeForce GTX 460 1GB the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is clearly the way to go for gamers. With most gamers running 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 resolutions the extra memory and increased bus speed is well worth the extra $30 MSRP. The GeForce GTX 460 1GB is also faster, cooler and less power hungry than the GeForce GTX 465 in our testing. This makes it the card of choice for anyone looking for an NVIDIA card under $300. After looking back at the benchmark performance numbers, we wouldn't understand why anyone would want the GeForce GTX 465 over the GeForce GTX 460 from the gaming perspective..."

Article Title: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB and 1GB Video Card Reviews
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1360/1/

Few things...
1: Thanks for including the 260+ (aka 260 w/ 216 SP).
2: Why lower the memory bit rate? My old school 260 has a 384 bit memory bus with faster bandwidth.
3: This product reminds me of the 6800 nu. Chance to unlock it to a 6800 GT, but in this case overclock the snot out of it.
4: Is it worth getting a MSI card? They actually have a nice product differentiation, Afterburner. On another site with the MSI card and Afterburner they had the core at roughly 930 MHz. Does MSI plan to add voltage increases to the RAM for a "total" overclock of their cards?
5: Since I'm limited to 1680x1050 and my current card still seems to handle all games adequately is the update worth it?
6: Due to money constraints and the aforementioned (#5) this is the only Fermi product that perks my interest.
7: My last three video cards have all been terrible overclockers (eVGA 7600GT w/ added Zalman VF 900 C, eVGA 8800 GTS 320MB, and BFG 260+). Out of the three the only one that clocked even 10 MHz past the stock setting was the 8800 GTS. I know that casual overclocking is a little skill but mostly luck. What are the odds of getting a "dud" that won't clock?
8: Refering to #2, what are the odds that this thing with a BIOS file (Rivatuner, etc...) can unlock any of the CUDA cores, polymorph engines, etc...? Or is this similar to other new tech where the other "features" are laser cut?
9: Since this card is new and performs better/on par with the GTX 465 what's going to happen there? Is the 465 going to get better or is the 460 going to go up in price?

I'll tackle the last two before I fall asleep...

1: Thanks for including the 260+ (aka 260 w/ 216 SP).

No problem

2: Why lower the memory bit rate? My old school 260 has a 384 bit memory bus with faster bandwidth.

They say you don't need a huge bus with GDDR5 as it's so efficient and running at such high speeds. The memory on a GTX 260 was GDDR3 running at 1053MHz on a 448-bit bus. You got 117.9 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The new GTX 460 1GB card has GDDR5 running at 900Mhz on a 256-bit bus. You get 115.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The two cards have roughly the same bandwidth. A 256-bit bus is cheaper than a 448-bit bus to make also.

3: This product reminds me of the 6800 nu. Chance to unlock it to a 6800 GT, but in this case overclock the snot out of it.

No unlocking as the GF104 core is the top end of this new core design. The fallout from this will likely be seen on future lower end cards.

4: Is it worth getting a MSI card?

most all of them are based off reference designs and the software is interchangeable on most.

5: Since I'm limited to 1680x1050 and my current card still seems to handle all games adequately is the update worth it?

What card do you have now? Are you wanting to play DX11 titles? If you do then yeah, if you don't then no.

6: Due to money constraints and the aforementioned (#5) this is the only Fermi product that perks my interest.

I agree with you 100% regardless of budget though.

Refering to #2, what are the odds that this thing with a BIOS file (Rivatuner, etc...) can unlock any of the CUDA cores, polymorph engines, etc...? Or is this similar to other new tech where the other "features" are laser cut?

The GeForce GTX 460 is running on the new GF104 core, not the GF100 core that the GTX 480/470/465 uses, so it is complete and nothing else can be enabled.

9: Since this card is new and performs better/on par with the GTX 465 what's going to happen there? Is the 465 going to get better or is the 460 going to go up in price?

I don't see the pricing changing as NVIDIA already set the MSRP and the cards are launched.

wow surprised how close the 768 is to the core 216 and how close the 1GB is to the 465(and beating the 5830 across the board)

Nice review! Got me convinced to get the 1GB model. Ready to pull the trigger, unfortunately, there's a serious lack of GTX 460 1GB cards. *sigh*

I think you could order from your manufacturer of choice's webpage.

Apoptosis wrote:The GeForce GTX 460 is running on the new GF104 core, not the GF100 core that the GTX 480/470/465 uses, so it is complete and nothing else can be enabled.

Then is this revision the equivalent to the 5900 series and the abysmal 5800 cards (referring to nVidia products here not ATi)? nVidia knew the card wasn't right so they release a new revision?

nope, this is just the cost effective die design for the mainstream.

But will it play Crysis?

Answer, no, not even in SLI.

It's a good card but won't play the tough games.

jnanster wrote:But will it play Crysis?

Answer, no, not even in SLI.

It's a good card but won't play the tough games.

Answer this question honestly. Did you really think Crysis was a good game? To me it was a huge disappointment. When it came out it was more of a tech demo than anything else.

I should just benchmark everything with Quake, Crysis and 3DMark

Major_A wrote:

jnanster wrote:But will it play Crysis?

Answer, no, not even in SLI.

It's a good card but won't play the tough games.

Answer this question honestly. Did you really think Crysis was a good game? To me it was a huge disappointment. When it came out it was more of a tech demo than anything else.

Not a Huge Disappointment. It's a sandbox FPS. It's not Deus Ex.
I was fortunate enough to play the game on my system (2 years after the game came out)
My system can sorta play it, maxed out.
Playing it at the most difficult level - using the suit in stealth and speed speed - combined with the great graphics - I have to say I liked it.
Wish it was more that just a stupid FPS where you actually cared about the characters/plot/thought...but as a FPS, it was fun to play.

Apoptosis wrote:I should just benchmark everything with Quake, Crysis and 3DMark

So the 460's have a hard time with Crysis(?), I kind of expected a little better.

Out of curiosity....How do the 460's do with GPU F@H?(avg. PPD)

Apoptosis wrote:I should just benchmark everything with Quake, Crysis and 3DMark

Crysis, whether liked or hated, has a special place in benchmarking.
It created stunning graphics that were unplayable by ALL graphics cards at the time.
It is, unfortunately, still unplayable by most graphic cards BUT has a great benchmark history.
I Agree, it is beating a dead horse.
BUT, if Crysis did anything, it created THEE benchmark standard, and might be still applicable today.

jnanster wrote: Crysis, whether liked or hated, has a special place in benchmarking.
It created stunning graphics that were unplayable on ALL graphics cards at the time.
It is, unfortunately, still unplayable by most graphic cards BUT has a great benchmark history.
I Agree, it is beating a dead horse.
BUT, if Crysis did anything, it created THEE benchmark standard, and might be still applicable today.

no. why use a horridly optimized DX10 game? thats why it was so stressful on GPU's it was simply horribly optimized and didnt even look that good, games like AvP and Metro 2033 make crysis looks like its built on DX8, hell, DiRT2 looks better. warhead is a little better than the original crysis, but its storyline is way too short so its a 'i beat it- now what? oh yea, never install it again' scenario

metro 2033 is 10x the game crysis was, gameplay AND graphics wise

Crysis made poor use of DirectX 10, but that's because it was in development as a DirectX 9 title for most of its development time. Crysis is a very optimized game in DirectX 9 mode and there is still no other game that matches it in what it does. Metro 2033 might have some more impressive lighting in some areas, but it's not as well-rounded as Crysis.

hark wrote:Crysis made poor use of DirectX 10, but that's because it was in development as a DirectX 9 title for most of its development time. Crysis is a very optimized game in DirectX 9 mode and there is still no other game that matches it in what it does. Metro 2033 might have some more impressive lighting in some areas, but it's not as well-rounded as Crysis.

have you played metro?

Metro 2033 does look a lot better than Crysis to me. But like anything my opinion isn't worth much. I think at the time MW came out it looked better than Crysis. Funny story I got to the ATOL mission in Crysis and got so frustrated with the game I uninstalled it. Crysis WH was a much better game and was only good for a long lunch break, think I played it for 3 hours to beat it.

Usually with any new DX feature it's not very noticeable. Are the graphics that much better with a DX 11 card? The only new "feature" I thought was extremely cool and a selling point in a new DX card was Doom 3. When you saw the heat haze and shot the monsters any they dissolved that was worth the price of a new card at the time.

OK, I give; I'll even shoot that dead horse again myself.
Haven't played Metro yet, is it a Steam activated product?
Metro looks impressive, should work on my system, I hope.

Still waiting for that overclocking result...

For those who are asking if it'll play Crysis, it's all about Metro 2033 now. And from what I heard, Crysis is badly optimized.