GeForce GTX 460 review (roundup) - Introduction

GeForce GTX 460 768/1024MB group test with NVIDIA - MSI - Palit - eVGA - Gigabyte - Zotac
The color is green with NVIDIA's new mid-range DX11 series

I think it is fairly safe to say that the introduction of the GeForce GTX 470/480 certainly has not been a smooth ride for NVIDIA. Sales have been okay at best but there has definitely been some reputation damage done due to three key negatives with that product series. Heat levels, noise levels and power consumption have been haunting and plaguing NVIDIA ever since the release of these two cards. When the GTX 465 arrived things were already looking much better. But one thing can be said, the overall performance and overclockability of all of these cards have been top notch ever since day one of the release.

Today NVIDIA is releasing a second graphics processor based on the Fermi architecture, and that new GPU has had to adapt and adjust for the damage done with the 1st generation Fermi series. By releasing two SKUs today based on the new GF104 silicon, NVIDIA will very likely make this launch a successful one.

At the 200 USD level NVIDIA has placed the focus on a product series that performs at the level of the GTX 465 and Radeon HD 5830 (actually slightly better) yet produces two SKUs that are near silent (based on reference cooler), show normal GPU temperatures and hover around a maximum 150~160 Watt TDP (peak power consumption). And that from the get-go definitely already sounds a whole lot better. And you know what, it is, as this article will show you.

Add to that the fact that these two SKUs overclock incredibly well and we can safely assume that the GeForce GTX 460 series that launches today should become a really nice success. Especially when you bear in mind that every and any board partner will release high-clock SKUs opposed to reference clocked graphics cards.

As such, today we'll be looking at GeForce GTX 460. There will be two different models, one 768MB version and a 1024MB version. Have a peek below at what we'll look at today, then please head onward to the next page where we'll start up a technology overview and specifications briefing, after which we'll dive into an extensive photo shoot covering the products we are testing today, as we certainly received a bucket load of GeForce GTX 460 cards from NVIDIA's board partners. In this first roundup we'll look at eVGA's regular 768MB and SuperClocked 768MB editions, MSI's 768MB Cyclone edition, Gigabyte's 768MB OC edition, Palit's Sonic Platinum 1024MB edition and Zotac's 1024MB regular edition. All in all we've been busy benchmarking our guts off... that's six cards plus two reference... yep we'll cover eight GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards in this article.

Next page please.