Roundup: Nine GeForce GTX 460 1 GB Boards Benchmarked

By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Happy with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 460, we invited a dozen of the industry's top graphics companies to show off their unique interpretations of the card. Nine responded with what they feel are exceptional products. Can they get any better than reference?

ECS Black Series GTX 460 NBGTX460-1GPI-F

ECS’ unique feature is its Artic Cooling Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro card cooler, an add-in worth $40 separately.

The surface-mounted fans of this cooler require an additional slot of space, making this the only three-slot card in today’s roundup. That could make SLI difficult for some users, since many motherboards have their highest-bandwidth slots spread only two expansion slots apart. While the card spacing issue is especially problematic for most X58-based motherboards, ECS already has an SLI solution.

Using a reference design PCB, the Black Series GTX 460 includes a mini-HDMI link and two dual-link DVI connectors. The accessory kit relies on DVI to support full-sized HDMI cable ends.

ECS doesn’t add any tuning software or games, but the driver CD does have several free trials…

One might expect the card with the largest cooler to come with the highest clock speed. The Black Series GTX 460 is certainly fast at 765 MHz core and GDDR5-3700, but manual overclocking using someone else’s software is the only way this card will break GeForce GTX 460 performance records.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
91 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Tamz_msc
    Good article.
    Reply
  • TheStealthyOne
    I really am a fan of ASUS' DirectCu/TOP cards.

    I can't decide between the 460 and 5850 versions :P
    Reply
  • Tamz_msc
    I would have liked noise benchmarks.
    Reply
  • beans4you
    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
    Reply
  • falchard
    thestealthyoneI really am a fan of ASUS' DirectCu/TOP cards.I can't decide between the 460 and 5850 versionsThats a contemplative choice? Considering its not the 5830, the clear choice is the 5850.
    Reply
  • Lmeow
    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.
    Reply
  • El_Capitan
    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.
    Reply
  • vixiv
    El_CapitanHonestly, you really can't go wrong with any of these cards.
    Basically.
    Reply
  • void
    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
    Reply
  • amgsoft
    If you are going to use the cards in PC in your home, the less noisy and the coolest is often the best choice.
    Reply