GeForce GTX 460 review (roundup)

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Overclocking the MSI GTX 460 Cyclone OC 768MB

 

Overclocking the MSI GTX 460 Cyclone OC 768MB

As most of you know, with most videocards you can apply a simple series of tricks to boost the overall performance a little. You can do this at two levels, namely tweaking by enabling registry or BIOS hacks, or very simply tamper with Image Quality. And then there is overclocking, which will give you the best possible results by far.

What do we need?One of the best tool for overclocking NVIDIA and ATI videocards is our own Rivatuner that you can download here. If you own an ATI or NVIDIA graphics card then the manufacturer actually has very nice built in options for you that can be found in the display driver properties. Based on Rivatuner you can alternatively use MSI AfterBurner which will work with 90% of the graphics cards out there. We can recommend it very much, download here.

Where should we go?
Overclocking: By increasing the frequency of the videocard's memory and GPU, we can make the videocard increase its calculation clock cycles per second. It sounds hard, but it really can be done in less than a few minutes. I always tend to recommend to novice users and beginners, not to increase the frequency any higher than 5% on the core and memory clock. Example: If your card runs at 600 MHz (which is pretty common these days) then I suggest that you don't increase the frequency any higher than 30 to 50 MHz.

More advanced users push the frequency often way higher. Usually when your 3D graphics start to show artifacts such as white dots ("snow"), you should back down 10-15 MHz and leave it at that. Usually when you are overclocking too hard, it'll start to show artifacts, empty polygons or it will even freeze. Carefully find that limit and then back down at least 20 MHz from the moment you notice an artifact. Look carefully and observe well. I really wouldn't know why you need to overclock today's tested card anyway, but we'll still show it.

All in all... do it at your own risk.

Now this was not really surprising, but as you can see, the card can overclock much MUCH higher and that has a very positive effect on overall performance. At default you'll easily lift the card over 800 Mhz on the core.

MSi however has AfterBurner overclock software and that allows you to apply GPU voltage increases. We did apply voltage tweaking here as this is an MSI product that officially supports it. Play around with that and you will pass the 900 MHz marker (!)

Original This sample Overclocked Overclocked + GPU voltage
Core Clock: 675MHz Core Clock: 725MHz Core Clock: 831MHz Core Clock: 927MHz
Shader Clock: 1350Hz Shader Clock:1450MHz Shader Clock: 1622MHz Shader Clock: 1854MHz
Memory Clock: 3600MHz Memory Clock: 3600MHz Memory Clock: 4200MHz Memory Clock: 4200MHz

Now we left fan RPM control at default in all circumstances. The card remained silent, even with extra GPU voltage which was set at 1.1 volts (maximum in AfterBurner 1.6.1). We reached an astonishing overclock, guaranteeing much better results.

Check it out, it is an insane overclock alright, and that shows in performance increases. Even with added GPU voltage our core temperature remained under 65 degrees C under load.

COD: Modern Warfare 2, maxed out image quality settings as before with 4xAA 16xAF

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