Amazing SLI Scaling: Do Two GeForce GTX 460s Beat One GTX 480?

[Chris_TC]

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]You lower middle class people make me sick. Why should anyone buy anything other than a dual socket i7 980X with four 5970s? Oh yeah, you're poor. Well enjoy your "sweet spot" trailer trash...[/citation]
The i7 can't be run in a dual socket configuration. Nice try at trolling though.

 

[coldmast]

Great review, it is very good to see that the scaling on the GTX 460 SLI easily trumps the Radeon 5830 Crossfired and get close to the Radeon 5850 Crossfired (on some games it even surpases). Just when I thought I had my next card picked out...

 

[killerclick]

[citation][nom]Chris_TC[/nom]The i7 can't be run in a dual socket configuration. Nice try at trolling though.[/citation]

It's usually called satire. Unfortunately spending around $1000 (2 x 460GTX + i7-930 + 6gb ddr3 1600) for what's essentially a toy is out of the question for 90% of people on the planet so I just exaggerated what the guy I quoted said.

 

[williehmmm]

I think we need some 2D surround screen, single screen 3D Vision and 3D surround benchmarks, in comparison with some eyefinity benchmarks. Just to see if all that extra power can get used and where it may fall short.

I'm running a x2 470 in sli and the driver updates keep giving me more & more performance. Well done Nvidia, the 460 sli looks the perfect balance of price and performance.

 

[Assmar]

Brilliant article, guys. It brings up the value issue like bad seafood. I'm running an AMD platform because I felt that if the 5870 was the fastest card when I bought it, then it should last me longer, and later on when the 6XXX series is released and prices drop, I can throw in another one.

But nVidia scaling just flips the script with their scaling. If they start making more affordable cards with their effing class SLI scaling, my future purchases might look very different.

 

[zorky9]

those are fugly cooler shroud designs though

 

[jerreece]

Want to Trade 1 GTX 470 for 2 x GTX 460...

Seriously, I think it's safe to claim that GTX 460 SLI destroys GTX 480. Very impressed.

 

[Poisoner]

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]You lower middle class people make me sick. Why should anyone buy anything other than a dual socket i7 980X with four 5970s? Oh yeah, you're poor. Well enjoy your "sweet spot" trailer trash...[/citation]
LOL why aren't you banned yet. You can't put four 5970s for a total of eight GPUs. It would suck anyways with the way the 5970 scales.

 

[gti88]

$460 + $150 PSU Just for what?
To play Crysis? It doesn't make sense.

 

[yankeeDDL]

[citation][nom]stm1185[/nom]Well if that is AMD's strategy then they really need to get off their ass and fix xfire's horrible scaling and bring it on par with Nvidias.[/citation]

Agreed. It would be interesting to understand what are the theoretical limitations of SLI and Xfire scaling. For SLI it really seems 2X and it looks like Nvidia is quite close. For Xfire the limit may be lower ... or maybe AMD needs to do a better job at getting it to scale. Which is weird, considering that AMD has based its strategy on the multi-GPU solution for much longer than Nvidia.

I would have loved to see two 5830 and 5850 added to this article. Why comparing 460 in SLI (cost ~$460) against the 5870 (cost ~$379)?
Fact is, AMD does not have any offer at $460 so chances are that the 2x5850 will be faster, while the 2x5830 will be slower.

 

[chriskrum]

What I take from this is that at 1920x1080 all of these cards deliver good frame rates without SLI or Crossfire (and most of them more the 60fps on most games with exception of Crysis which isn't that fun). I've got the same fascination with benchmarks as everyone else on this sight but there just aren't games out there that justify the expense of a second card.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]chriskrum[/nom]What I take from this is that at 1920x1080 all of these cards deliver good frame rates without SLI or Crossfire (and most of them more the 60fps on most games with exception of Crysis which isn't that fun). I've got the same fascination with benchmarks as everyone else on this sight but there just aren't games out there that justify the expense of a second card.[/citation]

Yet. Once we start seeing some more DirectX 11 titles that are really making use of Tesselation the need will be there. Right now only Metro 2033 really needs 2.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]It's usually called satire. Unfortunately spending around $1000 (2 x 460GTX + i7-930 + 6gb ddr3 1600) for what's essentially a toy is out of the question for 90% of people on the planet so I just exaggerated what the guy I quoted said.[/citation]

Yeah and 90% of the people on the planet are looking to build a pc. Obviously the diy pc crowd is implied.

 

[avatar_raq]

Wow. Impressive SLI scaling that puts ATI driver team to shame! I'm starting to doubt my plan for another 5870! Also no wonder nVIDIA made the 460 incompatible with tri and quad SLI...3 of this beast may obliterate any other high end graphics setup and render it not needed..It would even prevent nVIDIA from releasing the rumored (and expected actually) dual G104 card! I can't help but to dream of 4 fully fledged G104 on 2 cards in my system..

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]DjEaZy[/nom]... they maybe should make an GTX 460 x2....[/citation]
There has been much speculation regarding the GTX490, a possible dual gf104 card. With 2 fully activated 384 SP cores, it would certainly be capable of reclaiming the performance crown from the HD5970, seeing how the GTX460 SLI already performs on par with it.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]AndrewCutter[/nom]source : new eggcheapest 5850,s http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102884 2 will cost 570 $cheapest 460,s (1 GB) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814125333 2 will cost 460 $.so the price diff is abt 110 $. Is the performance numbers so great that it can justify the price diff?[/citation]
...no. At max settings the 1GB GTX460 in SLI often performs on par with the HD5850 in CrossFire, sometimes outperforming it by a significant margin.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3809/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-the-200-king/6

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]moricon[/nom]I just want the 5850 to come down in price already, £190 WILL BE THE SWEET SPOT![/citation]
Sorry, but it doesn't look like that will be happening any time soon...

http://news.softpedia.com/news/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-480-Also-Get-Cheaper-147845.shtml

 

[Darkerson]

Ill probably get thumbed down for this, and thats fine, but I just gotta say I think this card is a step in the right direction, but to me, thats like taking a step up the stairs after stumbling all the way down the staircase. I guess its because I still hold a grudge against nvidia for all the shenanigans theyve pulled over the last couple years, varying from rebadging certain forms of their cards as something "new", to all the faulty chips that were going into laptops and whatnot, and then them trying to deny anything was wrong (not suprising, but still) to what was at the start a very lackluster launch on the 400 series. Yes, the 460 is a nice card, and Im sure it will sell by the fistful, but I dunno, it will take more then this to win me back over. Yes, I know, AMD/ATI isnt perfect, but they have been making great strides lately in just about all areas that they compete in, and even if this year is only going to be a tweak to what came out last year, It will still be pretty nice.

 

[eyefinity]

They scale pretty well but it's still the same old SLI problems like microstutter and not working sometimes.

The 460 is a decent card at a good price, but I honestly would advise anyone not to SLI or crossfire any card. I've been there, it's not worth it, trust me.

 

[czarmurphy]

Wow... What a gamechanger...

I have seriously been deadlocked into buying into two Radeon 5850s crossfired for months. But this article just blew my mind. 90% scaling?? And efficiency actually increases?? My planned setup would never even be able to compete with this! Kudos to nVidia for turning the tide and proving to me that you guys still know what you're doing! Man.. I think I'm in shock..

 

[liquidsnake718]

Yeah thats actually good to know, much like the 577o in Crossfire, I still believe you should spend on a great single gpu first and eventually SLI or crossfire THAT for an EVEN BETTER dual GPU setup... makes sense to those that have a good card and can afford it right? Save up ppl or work harder....

 

[eddieroolz]

Seriously impressed with the amazing SLI scaling that Nvidia has managed to achieve here!

 

[JonnyDough]

Now if we could just do away with NV's ass-backwards naming schemes.

 

[Stardude82]

Now how well does the 460 scale with a PCIe x8-x8 configuration?

 

[rohitbaran]

So, GTX 460s are going to eat away GTX 480 market. Well, what market did it have anyway! Nice card nVidia. Let us see if the upcoming offering GTS 450 is also as good in its class.