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

[killerclick]

I'm still waiting for Larrabee, Intel's going to pull it off I'm sure of it!

 

[JackFrost860]

I bought a GTX480 when it first came out! Don't i feel foolish now!

 

[balthasar85]

[citation][nom]blackpanther26[/nom]still uses more power than the ATI radeon 5970.[/citation]
Are you sure?
HD5970 Idle=168w Full=476w
GTX460sli Idle=160w Full=470w
Two of 460 need less watt than 5970


CIAWA

 

[balister]

Very good article. Something I would like to see tested would be a tri SLI 460 vs. an SLI 470 (as prices are about the same).

 

[Computerrock1]

These things are beast

 

[Reynod]

The results are just too good to be true.

Good article crash !!

 

[dennisburke]

Any reason Metro 2033 wasn't included? I thought Metro was the new measuring stick of games.

 

[rohitbaran]

GTX 460 is to GTX 480 what the 8800 GT was to the 8800 GTX.

 

[Guest]

I don't know what Newegg prices you're looking at for the GTX 460, but they're currently selling for only $207 shipped today. Newegg is offering 10% off of the Palit 1GB GTX 460 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261075) with the promo code EMCYVNV39 and free shipping.

 

[Computerrock1]

[citation][nom]dennisburke[/nom]Any reason Metro 2033 wasn't included? I thought Metro was the new measuring stick of games.[/citation]

Metro is horrible put together, its another crysis in the sense of resource hogging and ability to use them, so they stopped using it.

 

[Computerrock1]

Why did they use sparkle cards? Generally I would stay away from sparkle the best I could, they are the diablotek of graphics cards.

 

[Poisoner]

ATI should fire that other former nVidia guy they hired and use that money to buy out the guys who make sli work. Unless the huge scaling is PCB related.

 

[bildo123]

[citation][nom]dragonfang18[/nom]But you lose the power to upgrade... At least I can still save up for another 480 down the road when I need an upgrade.[/citation]

At that point you might as well just get the next gen card. Whatever it may be I'm sure it wouldn't take much to be any better than a 480.

 

[wolfram23]

Unbelievable SLI scaling!

 

[scook9]

So a pair of GTX 460x2 boards would be the combo to get!

Now they just have to make those....I am sure it will happen, just like the 4850x2 that was very popular

 

[jasonpwns]

Plus, these cards easily fit into mid atx cases versus the bigger versions which may require you to find case room.

 

[yankeeDDL]

What this article proves is that AMD/ATI strategy of smaller chips, paired, is better than one large chip.
As a customer, I'm glad to see that Nvidia reached the same conclusion and is finally able to compete with AMD: for the past year, if you knew about graphics, you wouldn't have bought Nvidia cards over AMD/ATI.
I'm looking forward to see what response will come from those guys to such good numbers of the 460!

 

[jojo11]

[citation][nom]balthasar85[/nom]Are you sure? HD5970 Idle=168w Full=476w GTX460sli Idle=160w Full=470wTwo of 460 need less watt than 5970CIAWA[/citation]

Newbie question about these idle watt and Full watt. did you point these watts out because of heat from higher watts or higher electricity bills that is concerning? again newbie question. thanks

 

[Guest]

What this article proves is that AMD/ATI strategy of smaller chips, paired, is better than one large chip.

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.

 

[maydaynomore]

Nvidia just kicked AMD's ass, and i'm an AMD fanboy...

 

[sandmanwn]

[citation][nom]maydaynomore[/nom]Nvidia just kicked AMD's ass, and i'm an AMD fanboy...[/citation]

Guess I could say congrats for finally getting a full product line out to compete but since its been a year and the other shoe is about to drop at ATI... I'll just smirk a bit.

 

[utengineer]

This is impressive considering NVIDIA will probably release a dual GPU card and a 485 next. NVIDIA is a good company and you shouldn't doubt their ability to compete in any market. Yes they were slow to release DX11 cards. Why, they wanted to do DX11 correctly. Patience rewards usually.

 

[shaun_shaun]

just amazing SLI scaling !!!!

 

[Guest]

AMD Sucks! i7 930 + 6gb ddr3 1600 + dual GTX 460 1gb OC is the sweetspot of awesome gaming power and price!

 

[marraco]

Is very interesting to read about those cards with an overclocked 6 cores CPU.

Nonetheless, older tomshardware articles show that less powerful processors profit more from different cards than top of the line processors.

So it would be interesting to know if less powerful processors have the same results with 2 460 against one 480. Also, non X58 motherboards should have poorest SLI scaling.
How do compare in AMD or i5 systems? Makes it sense to do 460 SLI on i3, or a single more powerful card makes sense?

The bad news about the 460 are that since it is not allowed to use triple SLI, it means that Nvidia have no plans to deliver a competitive card on nearby future.