The GeForce GTX 460 has already proven itself an excellent value as a single card, but can two of them offer superior performance at similar cost to Nvidia’s flagship GTX 480? Let's just say that there's a good reason to buy an SLI-compatible motherboard.
Graphics giants Nvidia and AMD continuously run up against the limits of manufacturing technology in their effort to release revolutionary products every eighteen months.
Feeding the habits of performance enthusiasts isn't easy. For evidence, just look back at the state of delirium Nvidia's faithful were in following months of production delays for the GeForce GTX 480. The graphics card that eventually emerged was as hot and expensive as it was powerful (a combination of qualities that the brand-loyal seem to appreciate much more than us).
Those same qualities did not lend themselves to the embracing of lower-cost derivative models, so our disappointment in the GeForce GTX 465 probably didn’t surprise anyone. Some serious tweaks would be required before this technology was ready for the mid-priced masses.
That much-needed evolution came in the form of Nvidia’s GF104 GPU. At less than half of the price of the GeForce GTX 480, Nvidia’s 1 GB GeForce GTX 460 delivered class-leading performance and much lower heat, with such high value that it earned our coveted Recommended Buy award. We were in fact so impressed by the GeForce GTX 460’s performance that we had to wonder, would two of these overtake the flagship GTX 480 in benchmarks? Sparkle Computer was gracious enough to send over the cards we needed to find the answer.

Note to AMD enthusiasts: The focus of today’s article is on GeForce GTX 460 SLI performance relative to the GeForce GTX 480. For a detailed analysis of how the GeForce GTX 480 compares to multi-GPU Radeon configurations, including the Radeon HD 5970 and Radeon HD 5870 in CrossFire, please consider Don Woligroski’s Asus ARES review.
- Two GeForce GTX 460s Take On One GeForce GTX 480
- Hardware Config And Test Settings
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage
- Benchmark Results: Alien Vs. Predator (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (DX9)
- Benchmark Results: Crysis (DX10)
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat (DX11)
- Performance Analysis
- Power, Efficiency, And Heat
- Conclusion
The only reason to get a GTX 480 now is if your motherboard doesn't have dual PCI-E x16 slots/support SLI or you want to SLI GTX 480s later on.
Good job nVidia - real comeback.
I'm seriously considering picking up two of these...
I'm seriously considering picking up two of these...
The only reason to get a GTX 480 now is if your motherboard doesn't have dual PCI-E x16 slots/support SLI or you want to SLI GTX 480s later on.
Good job nVidia - real comeback.
Or you can wait couple of months for Southern Islands that makes everything nvidia has look dated.
Is that Canadian pricing I see, because in America GTX 460s go for $199!.
For $250 you get a GTX 460 factory overclocked from 675 mhz to 800MHZ! and with 1GB of ram, not 768mb! 2 of which are 90% as fast as a Ati 5970, for $200 less!
I am amazed by the 90% performance boost over a single GTX 460.
Although it has more power consumption than 1 GTX 480,but its a great cost-effective option for those who can't afford the 480 but need similar(or better) performance
to wait is a continous exercise you can only look at now at the time of buying...
768MB cards need not apply: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-gf104-fermi,2684.html
yea..but 4 of these puppies in SLI can even blow away the asus ares...
source : new egg
cheapest 5850,s http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102884 2 will cost 570 $
cheapest 460,s (1 GB) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125333 2 will cost 460 $.
so the price diff is abt 110 $. Is the performance numbers so great that it can justify the price diff?
Um, thanks to SLI scaling the 460s should actually be faster than the 5850s. This is a very easy decision.