NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 SLI

[W1zzard]

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?

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[douglatins]

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]

Awesome review Wizz!

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

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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_]

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]

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

 

[arnoo1]

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]

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]

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

 

[theonedub]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[EastCoasthandle]

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]

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]

Pretty nice! This card is better than I thought!

 

[douglatins]

Pretty nice! This card is better than I thought!

+1

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

 

[evillman]

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]

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]

+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