Nvidia GeForce GTX 460: The Fermi We Were Waiting For

[jnanster]

Still can't play Crysis, not even in SLI. The game is nearly 3 years old. We still got a long way to go it appears.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I am hoping this brings prices down. However, I wonder if initially at least, this card will sell above MSRP, especially the 1GB version. Eventually it should force AMD to lower prices though.
Good for the consumer, but bad for AMD. Now they no longer have a clear lead in graphics cards and their CPUs of course are only competitive at the low end. Have to wonder about their future.

 

[megamanx00]

Looks like there are about to be alot of unsold GTX 465 cards

 

[jasonw223]

You really need to open up contests to those of us up here in Canada...

 

[zoemayne]

Wow finally this is something to consider over the ATI I wanted if the ATI inflation problem doesnt go away than im getting this. The best thing this card can do is bring prices down.

 

[elbert]

Nvidia should look at using 2 460 chips on a single card. A 2x460 2G could blow away a 480GTX. By the power numbers being lower than a 5870 I would guess this to a possibility. A 5970 is more or less 2x5870 thus power should be doable.

 

[skora]

This is great news. I love my 4850, but when the new monitor money comes in, I'm going green. Aside from the FPS, nVidia always has the right extras to enhance the gaming experience. Glad you mentioned TWIMTBP, a great program that shows forward thinking. PhysX is another perk until an open source standard gets adopted. But like you said, buyers want features they can use now, not later.

Chris, since you've had the experience of both eyefinity gaming and nVidia's 3D glasses, which did you like better?

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]brianmoz[/nom]"The GeForce GTX 460 768 MB, priced to match the Radeon HD 5830, is a little less attractive. The smaller frame buffer hurts performance at high resolutions with AA turned on, and a narrower memory bus translates into less bandwidth, consequently slowing things down in the rest of our tests. I’d rather spend the extra $20 and get the faster card, quite frankly."Im confused it gets the rare recommend buy but it seems like in the end he doesnt fully recommend it...[/citation]

There are two versions of the board. The 1 GB card is recommended, while the 768 MB version is less attractive, and not recommended. Sorry for the confusion!

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]TheGreatGrapeApe[/nom]Nice looking card will put pressure on AMD to reply, and a good review.Coulda used some non-traditional test like BluRay playback and some workstation apps or GPGPU stuff (not F@H which is architecture biased) just to mix things up a bit and see how they stack up for the non-gaming roles.[/citation]

Tried to get it going in the HTPC role, but as mentioned in the story, it's not ready yet. When everything gets "turned on," we might have Don revisit video playback on the latest AMD and NV cards, actually!

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]makf1127[/nom]Towards the end of the article the author said he, as a user of three monitors, thought bitstreaming would be a nice feature. I wasn't familiar with bitstreaming so I looked it up and what I found suggests that bitstreaming is for audio, so I'm just curious what does the lack of bitstreaming have to do with the fact that the author has three monitors? And what "productivity requirements" do the 5850 fulfill that the 460 does not? Thanks![/citation]

Up until now, AMD could do two things that Nvidia could not, which kept an AMD card in my HTPC and my desktop. 1) Bitstreaming high-def content 2) Triple-display output.

Nvidia answers the bitstreaming question here, though it's not enabled yet. But the GTX 460 obviously can't do three display outputs, which remains an advantage for AMD. Using three monitors on my workstation is a productivity-oriented advantage.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]LaloFG[/nom]Nice review!I'm glad Nvidia did this new core revision... because I hope ATI drop price of his graphics cards, I want to buy one, and I need it right now and cheaper hehe. (duh).Note: In "Test setup..." page, you mention 5850, 5830 and 5870! (must be 5770, not 5870).[/citation]

Correct, thanks for the catch!

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]FreeBeak[/nom]Why in the work do you test a mainstream $200 card with a $950 CPU? How about a test in a mainstream system without over clocking![/citation]

The point is to keep the GPUs from becoming bottlenecked. If it helps, think of the CPU as a $250 processor overclocked to equal a $1,000 chip =)

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]skora[/nom]This is great news. I love my 4850, but when the new monitor money comes in, I'm going green. Aside from the FPS, nVidia always has the right extras to enhance the gaming experience. Glad you mentioned TWIMTBP, a great program that shows forward thinking. PhysX is another perk until an open source standard gets adopted. But like you said, buyers want features they can use now, not later.Chris, since you've had the experience of both eyefinity gaming and nVidia's 3D glasses, which did you like better?[/citation]

Well, for normal desktop use, I'll take one card that can output to all three screens. That's AMD.

For gaming, Nvidia has the equivalent of Eyefinity with Surround. So I'd say NV has the advantage overall with the addition of 3D Vision Surround, so long as you're willing to buy two cards to achieve it.

 

[yose3]

i ma buy this one and replace my GTX 260

 

[warezme]

[citation][nom]lashton[/nom]the 5830 i think is a better card, hell you can get a 5770 super-clock it and thats the same speed as a GTX460 for a fraction of the price![/citation]
what's to say the 460 couldn't be super clocked as well considering it appears to run very cool hinting at much headroom.

 

[hangfirew8]

This preview article fails to compare to the previous generation GTX 2xx cards, which means everyone upgrading from a 260/275/280/285 has no clue whether this card is an upgrade or a side-grade.

Perhaps this oversite can be addressed in the full article promised.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]HangFireW8[/nom]This preview article fails to compare to the previous generation GTX 2xx cards, which means everyone upgrading from a 260/275/280/285 has no clue whether this card is an upgrade or a side-grade. Perhaps this oversite can be addressed in the full article promised.[/citation]

Well, the previous generation fails to support DirectX 11, meaning we'd need a completely different set of benchmarks to compare both generations fairly. Good story idea, though! Take care,
Chris

 

[andrewcutter]

hi came across the recview from bit tech. the only place i saw this
"Granted, the HD 5850 outperforms the GTX 460 1GB at high resolutions such as 2,560 x 1,600, but these cards aren't aimed at people with expensive 30in monitors. The GTX 460 1GB has it where it counts: at 1,680 x 1,050 and 1,920 x 1,200 with AA enabled it comfortably beats the HD 5850 for performance, value for money, or both."
granted that these are factory over cloacked. but you can get a probable 40 mhz more...
At anadtech the 460 slis were playing with 5870 cf and 5970...
SLIs seems to be very interesting.....450 $ to abt 650$ or so..

 

[nerdbox]

Would have liked to see the 5870 represented in this test. It Rocks!

 

[trevorvdw]

[citation][nom]ares1214[/nom]actually, i like ati and all, but id take the 460 1 gig version over the 5770 anyday, way more bang for buck[/citation]

The 1 gig 460 is $229 (and also out of stock), $30 more expensive than a 5830 and $80 more than a 5770 on Newegg.

 

[nerdbox]

I Would have liked to see the 5870 represented in this test. It's always nice to see how it stacks up as the benchmarks and drivers are updated/changed over time. Thanks!

 

[Assmar]

I was unaware that Just Cause 2 was a DX11 title.

 

[the-real-link]

Great review! Will they translate these power-saving specs / temps and such into the higher 470 and 480 models? As nice as this GF 104 chip is, as was mentioned even if it's 100% active (and parts aren't turned off), can it really compare to the original GF 100? While I'm all for knowing a high performance card will generate heat and higher temps, it'd be amazing if Nvidia did knock 480 temps down by the margins shown on the graphs here.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]the-real-link[/nom]Great review! Will they translate these power-saving specs / temps and such into the higher 470 and 480 models? As nice as this GF 104 chip is, as was mentioned even if it's 100% active (and parts aren't turned off), can it really compare to the original GF 100? While I'm all for knowing a high performance card will generate heat and higher temps, it'd be amazing if Nvidia did knock 480 temps down by the margins shown on the graphs here.[/citation]

Real,
I don't think you'll ever see this approach GTX 480-class performance. However, it is important to remember that there seems to be plenty of headroom, along with an unused SM onboard still. There is room for Nvidia to design something faster using this architecture if it needs to.

 

[rohitbaran]

Welcome back nVidia. Finally, some challenge for ATI. But they should price it below $250 for it to be effective.