# NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 SLI



## W1zzard (Jul 12, 2010)

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 460 has been released today with big success. The cards improve on power and noise, offering great performance considering the price. This brings up the obvious question: how do these cards handle SLI? At $460 total the 2-way SLI config is cheaper than NVIDIA's flagship GTX 480, but is it worth it?

*Show full review*


----------



## douglatins (Jul 12, 2010)

OMG AWESOME was waiting for this!

"....there is no reason to keep the GeForce GTX 480 around.", i haz a sad...
hat to do with my 480 now? Use it and sell the 5970 or sell the 480? Sell both and get dual 460s?

http://www.anvtech.com/calcul-1.html this calculates db of 2 cards, should be 32.0 dB


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 12, 2010)

Awesome review Wizz! 




douglatins said:


> OMG AWESOME was waiting for this!
> 
> "....there is no reason to keep the GeForce GTX 480 around.", i haz a sad...
> hat to do with my 480 now? Use it and sell the 5970 or sell the 480? Sell both and get dual 460s?
> ...



The card is great on SLi but why would you sell a 5970 for 2 of those cards? Since it outperforms GTX460 SLi in 99% of the games.  Let alone both the 5970 and GTX 480.


----------



## newtekie1 (Jul 12, 2010)

Wow, amazing results.  Great scaling results too!

Two full GF104 cores and we might have a setup that can rival an HD5970 in performance at a substantially lower price.



mdsx1950 said:


> The card is great on SLi but why would you sell a 5970 for 2 of those cards? Since it outperforms GTX460 SLi in 99% of the games.  Let alone both the 5970 and GTX 480.



Probably because the GTX460s in SLI are close enough to the HD5970 that the difference wouldn't be noticeable, but the extra $200+ in his pocket would be noticeable.


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 12, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> Probably because the GTX460s in SLI are close enough to the HD5970 that the difference wouldn't be noticeable, but the extra $200+ in his pocket would be noticeable.



Oh yeah. Totally forgot about the price.


----------



## btarunr (Jul 12, 2010)

This could well be the foundations of "GTX 495". The GF104 has another 48 CUDA cores that are locked in the GTX 460 (total 384), and the GPU/Shader domains seem to be clocking well.


----------



## mosheen (Jul 12, 2010)

Excellent review as usual. 

Hows the power consumption of these cards??
2x gtx 460 @>925mhz may even rival that asus ares  
Power usage may be similar too


----------



## _JP_ (Jul 12, 2010)

Great review W1zzard! 

Good to know nVidia is on the right track again.
And thanks for showing that two 460 can pack quite a punch for a semi-moderate price.
It will definitely be an option in my table for a future pc.


----------



## afw (Jul 12, 2010)

The best price vs performance card of FERMI  ... I think we would see some price drops pretty soon from the ATi side ...


----------



## arnoo1 (Jul 12, 2010)

holy shit that performance is awesome!
if you put two mis cyclone 1024mb in sli and oc the shit out of them, you will have one baddass pc,
damn those cards are fast


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 12, 2010)

afw said:


> The best price vs performance card of FERMI  ... I think we would see some price drops pretty soon from the ATi side ...



I hope to see some price drops as well, but i dont think as the competition of the GTX 460 which is the HD 5830 is almost the same price. But if nVidia release a high end card at a low price, then maybe ATis high end card prices will drop and eventually the mid range card prices will drop.


----------



## douglatins (Jul 12, 2010)

Its a bummer that only 2way sli is supported cause that would be a insta buy


----------



## theonedub (Jul 12, 2010)

btarunr said:


> This could well be the foundations of "GTX 495". The GF104 has another 48 CUDA cores that are locked in the GTX 460 (total 384), and the GPU/Shader domains seem to be clocking well.



In for one


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 12, 2010)

douglatins said:


> Its a bummer that only 2way sli is supported cause that would be a insta buy



That sucks.  Could have gone 3 way SLi for the price of a HD 5970 and had superior performance.


----------



## douglatins (Jul 12, 2010)

mdsx1950 said:


> That sucks.  Could have gone 3 way SLi for the price of a HD 5970 and had superior performance.



At least the dual 460 card will support quad sli. But i doubt it will cost 400USD, maybe 600.


----------



## yogurt_21 (Jul 12, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> Wow, amazing results.  Great scaling results too!
> 
> Two full GF104 cores and we might have a setup that can rival an HD5970 in performance at a substantially lower price.



that's what I was thinking, put two of these on on board with full 384 shaders enabled and see how it contends with the 5970.

it'd be nice for all of us if nvidia could put a contentder there as the 5000 series is still well above launch prices...10 months after launch. lol


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 12, 2010)

douglatins said:


> At least the dual 460 card will support quad sli. But i doubt it will cost 400USD, maybe 600.



It will probably cost more than a GTX 480.


----------



## douglatins (Jul 12, 2010)

This card will go up in price, just like the 5800 when first came out, I should be ordering 3 now


----------



## EastCoasthandle (Jul 12, 2010)

mosheen said:


> Excellent review as usual.
> 
> Hows the power consumption of these cards??
> 2x gtx 460 @>925mhz may even rival that asus ares
> Power usage may be similar too



I was wondering the same thing.  There are no power consumption figures nor heat/fan noise information either.


----------



## douglatins (Jul 12, 2010)

EastCoasthandle said:


> I was wondering the same thing.  There are no power consumption figures nor heat/fan noise information either.



300W peak for 2 460. That is PCIE specs limit, so all good


----------



## DRDNA (Jul 12, 2010)

Pretty nice! This card is better than I thought!


----------



## douglatins (Jul 12, 2010)

DRDNA said:


> Pretty nice! This card is better than I thought!



+1

@W1zz, how about changing Metro2033 to BC2 or adding BC2?


----------



## evillman (Jul 12, 2010)

Damn good results. 
Two of it overclocked to 900Mhz and it will outperform the 5970 for sure. But with 240 bucks on your pockets.


----------



## majestic12 (Jul 12, 2010)

Pleasantly surprised with how the GTX 460's did in SLI.  If my video card was one or two generations older and I had a standard ATX setup, this is what I would want to have in my rig.  Too bad they can't go triple or quad SLI...


----------



## W1zzard (Jul 12, 2010)

douglatins said:


> +1
> 
> @W1zz, how about changing Metro2033 to BC2 or adding BC2?



after this round of reviews i will start rebenching all cards with latest drivers, add new benchmarks etc


----------



## Selene (Jul 12, 2010)

Very nice review, cant wait to pick up a pair.


----------



## 1nf3rn0x (Jul 12, 2010)

douglatins said:


> Its a bummer that only 2way sli is supported cause that would be a insta buy



I bet later along the lines, they will release tri and quad SLi scaling, just like with fermi. Only tri was available, then eVGA got them in quad SLi.


----------



## dir_d (Jul 12, 2010)

its physically impossible on the card to do more that SLI unless they make a new model number say 475


----------



## douglatins (Jul 13, 2010)

dir_d said:


> its physically impossible on the card to do more that SLI unless they make a new model number say 475



Yep, it needs dual connector 460 has one only


----------



## popswala (Jul 13, 2010)

That was awesome. Not bad on the 460 sli. I like seeing at the end of the performance per dollar section. Makes me feel good having gts250 sli. lol. Funny how 460sli is a hair below 5970 and cost much less. That's you FTW right there. JMO.

hmm, few fps less or few hundred dollars less. you decide.


----------



## jamsbong (Jul 13, 2010)

douglatins said:


> This card will go up in price, just like the 5800 when first came out, I should be ordering 3 now



From the positive feedback of this forum and the reviewer. I this think card will be like the repeat of the 4770.
If you all remember, the 4770 was the first ATI GPU that uses 40nm manufacturing and it was a great overclocker with a low price. two of those cards is faster than a 4870 at most resolution!
That card became so popular that it was always out-of-stock. Moreover, it never drop in price (although it did not go up in price), while cards like 4870 and 4890 prices kept falling.

Some may say the the 5830 is a comparable card and a lower price. remember, throughout history Nvidia can always compete on the market share with higher price as long as they have a competitive card.

Just like I said before, 

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=126397 post 16

ATI better prepare for a fight.


----------



## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Jul 13, 2010)

this should be a glimpse of what a GTX495 can do


----------



## dir_d (Jul 13, 2010)

Bjorn_Of_Iceland said:


> this should be a glimpse of what a GTX495 can do



Yes but this still isnt good enough to overtake the 5970 though. If they can make a GTX475 with low tdp they might be able to upset the 5970. I know its coming but they need to hurry ATI isnt just gonna sit back and give them all the time in the world.


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 13, 2010)

dir_d said:


> Yes but this still isnt good enough to overtake the 5970 though. If they can make a GTX475 with low tdp they might be able to upset the 5970. I know its coming but they need to hurry ATI isnt just gonna sit back and give them all the time in the world.



+1

6xxx series in coming out in H1 2010, and the 6970 will be released in about another 10 months and BAM!The competiton is crushed! So they better put out the GTX 495 and start up on the GTX 5xx series.

P.S- I too am hoping to see a card that beats the HD 5970 by a mile.


----------



## Yukikaze (Jul 13, 2010)

GF104 really is the G92 of the new generation. Time to sell my GTX285s.


----------



## RONX GT (Jul 13, 2010)

It'll be interesting if they release  duel Gpu solution based on these 104 chip.

Any rating for this SLI setup from TPU? Also power consumption stats?? just 4 curiosity


----------



## Hayder_Master (Jul 13, 2010)

this is great review W1ZZARD, and seems it's best deal right now


----------



## Melvis (Jul 13, 2010)

Thats the best scaling ive seen from any Nvidia card to date, the best i saw before these was the 9600GT's, well done Nvidia im impressed. 

Also agree this is not going to cut it against the 5970 if they make a dual card set up, Close but not close enough, GTX495 will have to be two GTX470's at least, and it wont be long till ATI bring out there next series of cards, time is of the essence.  Knowing Nvidia they would want something that beats the 5970 in everything, not just 50% of games or less.


----------



## Yukikaze (Jul 13, 2010)

On the other hand, a dual GF104 card should cost a good deal less than the HD5970.

Price wars FTW.


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Jul 13, 2010)

WOW!!!  great card for a great price.  These will sell like hotcakes!!

GR8 RV W1zz :cheers:


----------



## 983264 (Jul 13, 2010)

2 GTX 460 is better buy than a single HD 5870 or GTX 480, but still I'm an ATi Fan... ^^


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 13, 2010)

983264 said:


> 2 GTX 460 is better buy than a single HD 5870 or GTX 480, but still I'm an ATi Fan... ^^



Lol. Not really. If you get 2x GTX460s you'll be limited to 2 cards. While HD5870 and GTX 480 can have upto 4 cards with extreme performance that will shit on 2x 460s


----------



## 983264 (Jul 13, 2010)

mdsx1950 said:


> Lol. Not really. If you get 2x GTX460s you'll be limited to 2 cards. While HD5870 and GTX 480 can have upto 4 cards with extreme performance that will shit on 2x 460s



Hehehe, if you've got the cash, then go for quad crossfire or quad sli, with 1xxx watt psu, but if you're out of the budget, then you want dual card configuration, then get this... It can match the performance of a HD 5870 in dual crossfire configuration, i think...


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 13, 2010)

983264 said:


> Hehehe, if you've got the cash, then go for quad crossfire or quad sli, with 1xxx watt psu, but if you're out of the budget, then you want dual card configuration, then get this... It can match the performance of a HD 58*5*0 in dual crossfire configuration, i think...



Fixed.  Dual 5870s out perform the HD 5970. And a single HD 5970 performs 10% more than 2xGTX 460s.


----------



## 983264 (Jul 13, 2010)

mdsx1950 said:


> Fixed.  Dual 5870s out perform the HD 5970. And a single HD 5970 performs 10% more than 2xGTX 460s.



Then, a single ARES will outperform a single HD 5970, then a Dual ARES will outperform a dual HD 5970, then what comes next???


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 13, 2010)

983264 said:


> Then, a single ARES will outperform a single HD 5970, then a Dual ARES will outperform a dual HD 5970, then what comes next???



4xGTX 480s. The most powerful combination of cards atm.


----------



## 983264 (Jul 13, 2010)

mdsx1950 said:


> 4xGTX 480s. The most powerful combination of cards atm.



4xGTX480's = Electric Bills maxed out.... Toinks... Peace V ^^


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 13, 2010)

983264 said:


> 4xGTX480's = Electric Bills maxed out.... Toinks... Peace V ^^



Not to mention, PC=Microwave.


----------



## qubit (Jul 13, 2010)

I've got a GTX 285, but since the GTX 460 is such a nice card that it makes me wanna rush out and buy it right away - and it doesn't even beat mine on performance! lol 

I guess DX11 gives me an excuse to buy it.


----------



## Tank (Jul 14, 2010)

suddenly i'm glad i procrastinated on buying a gpu...


----------



## link2009 (Jul 15, 2010)

One thing I don't understand is why is the 5970 getting less frames in Crysis at 2560x1600 compared to this review?

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire/7.html

What has changed? Did the drivers get worse? Is TPU skewing results?


----------



## beck24 (Jul 17, 2010)

Why such old drivers? The new ones are much better.


----------



## Cold Storm (Jul 17, 2010)

beck24 said:


> Why such old drivers? The new ones are much better.



Here we go again.. It takes a lot to do a review for a GPU.. Calculate the amount of benches that has to be done via one card. Then multiply it by the number of cards tested.. It's safe to assume that when time is given to "rebranch" the cards, the drivers will be updated and tests done again.
He's even said that when he has the time he'll be reamping it all.

On the note of the review it self. W1zz thanks for the reviews!


----------



## W1zzard (Jul 17, 2010)

latest for gtx 400, latest for hd 5800 whats wrong with that? and no, the new drivers make not much of a difference


----------



## WhiteLotus (Jul 17, 2010)

link2009 said:


> One thing I don't understand is why is the 5970 getting less frames in Crysis at 2560x1600 compared to this review?
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire/7.html
> 
> What has changed? Did the drivers get worse? Is TPU skewing results?



My answer for that would be that both tests used different Operating Systems, one Visa 32bit, the other 7 64bit


----------



## KrachB00Mente (Jul 20, 2010)

Whats the point in this review?
The Only Card it's compared to is the 5970...
Why not compare it with more SLI /  Crossfire Setups?
Nearly Useless...


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 20, 2010)

Lowman316 said:


> Whats the point in this review?
> The Only Card it's compared to is the 5970...
> Why not compare it with more SLI /  Crossfire Setups?
> Nearly Useless...



All the reviews practically use the same games for benching on the same rig, so you can just compare this review with another review.


----------



## Jamborhgini313 (Jul 20, 2010)

Nvidia is back baby


----------



## link2009 (Jul 20, 2010)

WhiteLotus said:


> My answer for that would be that both tests used different Operating Systems, one Visa 32bit, the other 7 64bit



I see what your saying but it doesn't really make too much sense to me.

The Windows 7 64-bit setup has newer drivers (10.3), more power (1200W compared to 800W) and the same components throughout.

Shouldn't it perform BETTER than its Vista counterpart? I thought 64-bit was supposed to optimize performance, not burden it.


----------



## _JP_ (Jul 20, 2010)

link2009 said:


> I thought 64-bit was supposed to optimize performance, not burden it.



To get some insight on that matter, see this, please.


----------



## link2009 (Jul 20, 2010)

_JP_ said:


> To get some insight on that matter, see this, please.



I thanked you, even though I re-read the article (I've read the article before).

That statement was more "matter of factly", than pure fact.

Even using the content in the article you've linked, it still does not make sense that the 64-bit version of Windows 7 would yield lower frame rates when compared to the 32-bit version of Windows Vista.

I also do not THINK that 6GB of RAM is more than enough, Crysis addressed it properly and that something else may be out of the ordinary.


----------



## _JP_ (Jul 20, 2010)

I wasn't aware that had already read it.
Sorry if it wasted your time. 
I do not have the propper knowledge to explain why it happens, but I know it happens.
Some performance drops depend on the driver that's being used. For example, while playing TrackMania my x1650 could pull 50fps with the catalyst 8.1 drivers (came with the CD) and now with updated 10.3 drivers (same graphics config) can only reach 41.5 fps (this being archived by the game's benchmark test).
I already stressed this by re-installing the drivers (8.1 and the 10.3) and there's still a difference.
Also, some games strangely tend to work, or perform, better in different OSes. Maybe due to the OS's resource management, like RAM addressing and/or better compatibility with the chipset (and it's drivers).


----------



## link2009 (Jul 20, 2010)

_JP_ said:


> I wasn't aware that had already read it.
> Sorry if it wasted your time.
> I do not have the propper knowledge to explain why it happens, but I know it happens.
> Some performance drops depend on the driver that's being used. For example, while playing TrackMania my x1650 could pull 50fps with the catalyst 8.1 drivers (came with the CD) and now with updated 10.3 drivers (same graphics config) can only reach 41.5 fps (this being archived by the game's benchmark test).
> ...



You didn't waste my time, I am capable of filtering information I don't need 

That is what I initially thought. It has to be a driver issue because the frame drop is too significant. 

It could be a number of things, I guess it's just how compatibility works


----------



## Konceptz (Jul 28, 2010)

Why no comparison to the 5770s?


----------



## mdsx1950 (Jul 28, 2010)

There should have been a comparison to 5830s.


----------



## sdk (Aug 7, 2010)

Question: how did you measure the company of heroes fps? Did you use the ingame benchmark with highest details???

I am asking this because I get 74 fps instead of 139 fps with my gtx260, overclocked gpu I get 78.5 fps. When I check my cpu usage it only reaches 100% for 2 very small moments whereas the gpu hits 99% a lot...

Asked a friend with the same cpu (e6750@ 3 ghz) but with a gtx275 to do the benchmark and again same results.. he reached 79.1 fps, thats no where near what has been reported in the benchmark. 

I was expecting cpu bottleneck but when checken the cpu usage that is apperently not the case.

So it is possible you used a different benchmark and or different quality settings.


----------



## W1zzard (Aug 7, 2010)

if i remember correctly there is a frame rate limiter (vsync?) in company of heroes


----------



## sdk (Aug 7, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> if i remember correctly there is a frame rate limiter (vsync?) in company of heroes



yes there is since patch 1.7 (I googled it).But that would limit to 60 (or 61.3). I started the game with -novsync. Max fps was 130-140.

So I still have some unexplained differences. Again i could imagine my 2007 cpu (although at 3 ghz) is easily outperformed by the used i7 @ 3.8 ghz. However then I do not get why my cpu usage doesnt shoot to 100%.

Maybe you disabled physx? Or nvidia physx @ the nvidia control panel (that reduces load on vga and increases load on cpu as I noticed in split second)?


----------



## Anarchy0110 (Aug 7, 2010)

One of the best multi-GPU setup that u can get at this kind of time right now


----------



## qazser (Aug 7, 2010)

I saw that review when it came out, and it's pretty good. 
This year I was saving money to buy at the year's end a new pc. And i think I want a setup like this. the benchmarks have convinced me.
There only 2 problems:
1.The gpu is going up with the price..and in Europe it's 100$ more expensive (compare 220$ with 220€).
2.For the CPU I prefer AMD, i've got a phenom II x3 710 and I want to hold it for the new system, but it's hard to find a "not expensive SLI mobi" with amd cpu support.


well, anyway, thx a lot for the review, it is great!


----------



## sdk (Aug 8, 2010)

qazser said:


> I saw that review when it came out, and it's pretty good.
> This year I was saving money to buy at the year's end a new pc. And i think I want a setup like this. the benchmarks have convinced me.
> There only 2 problems:
> 1.The gpu is going up with the price..and in Europe it's 100$ more expensive (compare 220$ with 220€).
> ...



Actually you can get it for 199,50 in europe (1GB version). euro - dollar is back to 1.3 atm, although of course taxes are a bit higher here.


----------



## Melvis (Aug 8, 2010)

M8 is going to get a set of these with his TAX money, so we will see how well they realy scale.
He is replacing two 9600GT's


----------



## qazser (Aug 8, 2010)

sdk said:


> Actually you can get it for 199,50 in europe (1GB version). euro - dollar is back to 1.3 atm, although of course taxes are a bit higher here.



WOW, 199,50 is very cheap..With this price I would buy it inmediatly...but where? In my local shops there are over priced...I remember in the European Reviews, the announced price for the GTX460 was the same as it was in dollars in USA (220$ and 220€ for the 1GB). So nvidia, or the distribuitors ignore the dollar/Euro convertion..Even with taxes I don't think that they have to sell it 100$ expensiver.

Well, if you say that the new price is 199,50€, i'll search in European online shops..because this price is awesome for this masterpiece of card heh.

Thx for the advice


----------



## sdk (Aug 8, 2010)

qazser said:


> WOW, 199,50 is very cheap..With this price I would buy it inmediatly...but where? In my local shops there are over priced...I remember in the European Reviews, the announced price for the GTX460 was the same as it was in dollars in USA (220$ and 220€ for the 1GB). So nvidia, or the distribuitors ignore the dollar/Euro convertion..Even with taxes I don't think that they have to sell it 100$ expensiver.
> 
> Well, if you say that the new price is 199,50€, i'll search in European online shops..because this price is awesome for this masterpiece of card heh.
> 
> Thx for the advice



http://www.alternate.nl/html/shop/productDetails.html?artno=JCXYF7&baseId=681266

More shops offer similar prices, I counted at least 9. With 19% Value added tax here, you must be able to find a similar  price in your country.


----------



## qazser (Aug 9, 2010)

wow, thx very much for the link 
(an example for the overpriced prdcuts in my city is the GTX465:
Local shop price:302€
Price on the online shop:189€
)

I think I have to buy it online..A shame for the ditribuitors on the canary islands T.T
P.S: On the canary islands there aren't any taxes xD, my luck..


well..it'll be better we end with the spam xD. For any other questions I open a new thread.

THX SDK, U helped me a lot to save my money ^^


----------



## blibba (Oct 9, 2010)

btarunr said:


> This could well be the foundations of "GTX 495". The GF104 has another 48 CUDA cores that are locked in the GTX 460 (total 384), and the GPU/Shader domains seem to be clocking well.



Why is there no fully fledged GF104 card on the market at the moment? Would it perform too similarly to a GTX470?


----------



## rogal877 (Oct 29, 2010)

hello what it's my problem in the sli of GTX 460 MSI CYCLONE 1GB??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5xg6W69gYI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmcUZvBq1I 

problem is the white colour's??? ;-((


----------

