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Efficiency, Price, And Performance Value

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Our previous page showed that added performance generally requires added power, though the performance differences were far greater than power differences. Let’s see how the overclocked cards compare to the reference-clocked card by way of efficiency.

Overclocking improves efficiency by allowing much more “work” to be done at similar power levels. The most likely reason for Palit’s huge lead is a reliance on GPU voltage that’s similar to Nvidia’s reference design voltage.

Jetway drops out of the retail price chart for two reasons: First, its sample is non-retail. Second, even if Jetway had sent its retail KN460EW1GV-A, a lack of availability in the U.S. market would prevent us from assigning a Web price to the chart. We hope to see Jetway graphics products reach U.S. vendors in the near future.

Ignoring added-value items like extended warranties and in-box games gives us a simplified value chart above. Of course, that chart will be meaningless to overclockers, as GPU temperature is a better metric for judging how far they might be able to push these cards.

That is to say, we’re not willing to completely dismiss added value, especially when it comes to warranties and support. So, which card would we pick?

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Tamz_msc 08/30/2010 8:03 AM
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Good article.

TheStealthyOne 08/30/2010 8:06 AM
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I really am a fan of ASUS' DirectCu/TOP cards.

I can't decide between the 460 and 5850 versions :P

Tamz_msc 08/30/2010 8:18 AM
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I would have liked noise benchmarks.

beans4you 08/30/2010 8:26 AM
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just installed two gigabyte 460 cards in my brothers new setup, they are pretty nice! can't hear them even with the 2 fans on each and they run around 25/29 C idle, this is as far as I've gotten with tests :p

falchard 08/30/2010 8:40 AM
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Lmeow 08/30/2010 8:40 AM
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Wow. Jetway's 33 % overclock is nSane... especially on what seems to be nVidia's reference cooler.

I wonder how many cards can reach that 900 MHz with acceptable noise and voltage levels.

El_Capitan 08/30/2010 8:48 AM
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This review is trying to tell us what? Higher overclocked cards give better performance? Duh?

It would have been better to see each card overclocked to it's most stable overclock first, then test the cards with all the benchmarks.

I read CPU magazine's article comparing the GTX 460's, and same conclusion. Palit is the fastest, but MSI's is the quietest and coolest.

I've been looking into getting a pair for SLI. Those that don't have extra space between their PCI Express 2.0 slots should go for the EVGA Superclocked because of the external exhaust. Those that do have space like me and prefer low noise would be better off the MSI's. Performance-wise, they're all great overclockers (every card in this review can overclock higher than Palit's factory overclock). Honestly, you really can't go wrong with any of these cards.

vixiv 08/30/2010 9:33 AM
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El_Capitan :
Honestly, you really can't go wrong with any of these cards.



Basically.

void 08/30/2010 9:51 AM
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I have one gigabyte card and very happy with it. Almost complete silent at idle. and not much noise at 100% fan speed. 50% fan speed is enough to keep it around 60c in games

amgsoft 08/30/2010 9:55 AM
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If you are going to use the cards in PC in your home, the less noisy and the coolest is often the best choice.

IzzyCraft 08/30/2010 9:58 AM
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Quote :MSI has become famous for its Afterburner software, but the core voltage adjustment doesn’t work with this particular card


I'm fairly sure that one does support overvoltage but you have to check "unlock voltage control" and "unlock voltage monitoring" then restart the program, only reason i note this is that only a few 460's support any kind of voltage control, not that it needs it for an impressive overclock.

It's in the change log afterall
Quote :Afterburner 1.6.1 (2010-07-07)
Added NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 series and MSI N460GTX Cyclone series graphics cards support (including voltag control!)

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm
also lol voltage is typoed lol

supposedly msi has a 460 fully custom in the works that will support even memory voltage tweaking
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthrea [...] 9&t=326936

Onyx2291 08/30/2010 10:07 AM
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Ah, I'll be using this as reference in the future. Sometimes it's hard deciding between companies haha.

Mark Heath 08/30/2010 10:26 AM
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Nice article.

Quote :Shuffling Through The Cards

Nice (sub)title :p

LordConrad 08/30/2010 10:59 AM
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I like my "Galaxy GTX 460 Super OC". Factory clocked at 810 MHz GPU, 4000MHz GDDR5. Out of the box it's faster than Palit's Sonic Platinum.

nevertell 08/30/2010 11:29 AM
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I'd still go for the MSI, since I've read that that cooler is the most silent of them all. And it's temps' are the best of all, so more OC'ing potential. Too bad you didn't include "sound" tests, I'd like to see how loud/silent other coolers get under load.

Emperus 08/30/2010 11:45 AM
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How safe is it to get the cheapest out of the lot.? Very safe i guess.. How much value is it to get the costliest.? Pretty good i guess.. So the consumer is basically safe with any choice made.. That's always a good thing.. This just may be one of those cases where one can pick a card more based on its aesthetics.. Nice huh..

anthonys17 08/30/2010 11:48 AM
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MSI/Asus, the hell. .it's still a 460! nice article :)

wishmaster12 08/30/2010 12:24 PM
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Crashman 08/30/2010 12:35 PM
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anthonys17 :
MSI/Asus, the hell. .it's still a 460! nice article

Yes, MSI and Asus are about equal. MSI starts out cooler but has less maximum-speed cooling, Asus starts out warmer but the fan has more room to speed up. They're about the same noise level until you speed things up, in which case MSI tops out before Asus.

MechaNintendoMaster 08/30/2010 1:34 PM
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I like the MSi one.....


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