Best GTX 460 card on Amazon

[mgunteruga]

Hey there,

I am relatively new to the PC Modding community and need some help finding the best GTX 460 card on Amazon. There are so many different options with different memory, overclocked and not, etc. I am really wanting to stick with EVGA as the manufacture as they have always had excellent customer service and warranties.

If you helpful people wouldn't mind going over to Amazon and helping me find the straight up pound for pound best EVGA GTX 460 card, I would greatly appreciate it!

THANKS!

Mike

 

[davcon]

None they are all sourced from LambdaTek who sell them cheaper directly.
I would choose a model with external exhaust as well.
http://eu.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?family=GeForce+400+Series+Family
http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop/index.pl?origin=skinflint11.9&prodID=B581696

 

[BloodyBonzai]

I assume you are going to use this card for gaming among other things. One very important aspect that you should consider is the amount of VRAM on the video card. Games such as Crysis on max settings with antialiasing turned off use a little more than 1GB of VRAM at 1920X1080 resolution, and more VRAM will be used at higher resolutions, and even more if you want to turn on antialiasing. This means that your card is going to be bottlenecked in any of the Crysis games, grand theft auto 4, metro 2033 (you need a 580 for this game anyways), and a few others. Then if you were to turn up the antialiasing, it will use up even more VRAM. If you are in fact a gamer, then I highly suggest taking the jump up to the GTX470, it has that additional VRAM to get you by with more processing power for about $50 more. Games such as Bulletstorm, Dead Space 2, and many others will be fine with 1GB VRAM cards, but there are a handful of games that will be majorly bottlenecked by the VRAM when you crank up those settings, not to mention games coming out in the near future. Also, there is a 2GB VRAM 460, but that is overdoing it unless you have a 2560X1600 resolution monitor, especially considering a game that would use up more than 1.5GB of VRAM would probably require too much processing power to run well on a 460. I am basing this information on my experience using an evga GTX 275 1792MB (about as good as a 460, but with more VRAM) of VRAM on a 2560X1600 LCD where I am receiving poor framerates from games that typically use over the 1GB of VRAM anyways due to lack of processing power from the GPU, and I am holding off until the next lineup of video cards that will hopefully have more VRAM than the 580, especially considering my 275 has more VRAM than evga's 580 cards.

Most importantly, make sure you get the limited lifetime warranty which you can identify by the last two digits of the part# being AR. MAKE SURE YOU REGISTER THE PRODUCT WITHIN 30 DAYS OR YOUR WARRANTY WILL DEGRADE. I will list the part#s for a 460 and 470 below:
The 460 is: 01G-P3-1373-AR
The 470 is: 012-P3-1470-AR

 

[Toxxyc]

@ BloodyBonzai,

I have a GTX460 (single card) with 1GB GDDR5 VRAM. Trust me, I can run Crysis at 1920 x 1080, 8 x AA with all other settings maxed, and I'm not maxing my card. AA is the thing using a lot of VRAM, not as much resolution. The GTX275 isn't as fast as the GTX460, but it comes close. Also, VRAM isn't everything. Getting 1GB of VRAM or 2GB of VRAM will perform just as well in games as a card with 768MB of VRAM but with a bigger bus width (EDIT: Setting the AA higher will obviously affect this, with the bigger memory gaining the upper hand then). This is why you cannot simply compare a bunch of cards based on their VRAM capacity.

Then, comparing manufacturers based on amounts of VRAM is also incorrect. In terms of cards available on the market, all GPU's run at the same reference speed, they all have the same amount of VRAM and the bus widths are all the same. For example, you can't say that a Brand A GTX460 is better than a Brand B GTX460 because it has more memory, bigger bus width or a faster reference GPU. You CAN say, however, that because Brand A uses a more refined card, better cooler and they put the card together better, they are able to factory overclock the card higher than the Brand B card, and as such it will perform better.

The GTX 460 is still a very viable purchase, even on brand new systems, specially if you are considering the coveted SLI setup. The Fermi architecture in the GPU makes for insane scaling when compared to older cards at a fraction of the price of the new ones. Two GTX460 1GB cards will beat 99% of single cards on the market at the moment, including the impressive GTX580 SOC. The 2GB of VRAM in two sockets makes for insane transfer speeds, creating epic power and speed for a lot less $$ than a GTX580 SOC. I've still got a GTX460 (MSI Cyclone 1GB), and I play Crysis at the settings mentioned, with framerates doing everything I want them to. I can run ANYTHING on my setup, so the GTX460 is still doing strong, 1GB of VRAM and all...

 

[deathengine]

I have to agree with Toxxyc. the GTX 460 runs most anything maxed out. Metro 2033 can make it chug in spots but still very playable.
Though i have since upgraded to 460 in sli and its even better now.

 

[BloodyBonzai]

LoL, ANYTHING?!?!?! Install Grand Theft Auto 4 and get back to me when you are unable to run max settings at 1080p because you dont have enough VRAM. Which btw, when strictly speaking about GTA4, my 275 is better than your 460 due to the VRAM. I know that a 460 is a bit faster than a 275. I know that you cant simply compare cards based on VRAM because VRAM is only worth considering up to a certain capacity and then it is worthless. But I do know that if you want to be prepared for games that are coming out in the future that can potentially use up more VRAM than what your card has, then gettin the extra VRAM on the 470 is the better way to go, plus you have more processing power. The VRAM difference between 1080p to 1600p is about 100MB, which is considerable if you want to run that on a card with only 1GB or you want AA instead, or both. Regarding Crysis, I have a friend with a regular evga GTX 460 1GB, not superclocked or anything, hooked into a sandy bridge setup running at 4.5Ghz. Yes he is able to run it without AA on a 1050p, but there are portions of that game that get rather choppy. That is a game that pushes the capacity of the VRAM DEPENDING on your settings. Regarding not being able to say that Brand A of the same card is not better than Brand B (1GBVRAM) of the same card even tho brand A has 1.5GB VRAM, is complete BS. If I want to run my games at 1600p with AA, brand A is definitly gonna go farther than brand b will, and therefor brand A is the better card. Anyways, my point in my initial post is that a 460 WILL play most games that are currently out, but games are using more and more VRAM and that will hurt your fps if you do not have sufficient VRAM. So it would be a smart idea to spend the extra $50 and get the extra 250MB the 470 provides plus the extra power to help avoid any near future problems of not being able to run a game due to insufficient VRAM. As far as a single GTX 460 in metro 2033, def not playable: http://www.techspot.com/review/309-geforce-gtx-460-sli-performance/page7.html My final piece of evidence showing that it is probably a good idea to get a card with over 1GB of VRAM - http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/780310-how-much-vram-do-you-need.html

 

[joe28gamerz]

toxxyc im im with u geezer my gigabyte 1gb gtx460 ROCKS !! soon be goin sli not because i need to because WELL imagine the cards weve got dueled !! BANGIN !! lol