discussion EVGA GTX 460 1GB Superclocked EE (External Exhaust) Review

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Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Even though Far Cry 2 has its own built-in benchmarking tool with some flythroughs and “action scenes”, we decided to record our own timedemo consisting of about 5 minutes of game time. It involves everything from run-and-gun fights to fire effects. The built-in benchmarking too was then set up to replay the timedemo and record framerates


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Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 has quickly become known as one of the best-looking games on the market and while it doesn’t include DX11 support, it uses the full stable of DX10 features to deliver a truly awe-inspiring visual experience. For this benchmark we used the car chase scene directly following the Casino Assault level. This scene includes perfectly scripted events, some of the most GPU-strenuous effects and lasts a little less than four minutes. We chose to not use the in-game benchmarking tool due to its inaccuracy when it comes to depicting actual gameplay performance.


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Metro 2033 (DX11)

Metro 2033 (DX11)

There has been a lot of buzz about Metro 2033 which has mostly centered on its amazing graphics coupled with absolutely brutal framerates on even the best GPUs on the market. For this test we use a walkthrough and combat scene from The Bridge level which starts at the beginning of the level and lasts for about 5 minutes of walking, running and combat. Famerates are measured with FRAPS and Advanced PhysX is turned off.


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Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine’s Heaven benchmark is currently the de-facto standard when it comes to simple, straightforward DX11 performance estimates. While it is considered a synthetic benchmark by many, it is important to remember that no less than four games based on this engine will be released within the next year or so. In this test we will be using a standard benchmark run with and without tessellation enabled at three resolutions,


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8x MSAA Testing (BF: BC2 / DiRT 2)

8x MSAA Testing (BF: BC2 / DiRT 2)

In this section we take a number of games we have tested previously in this review and bring things to the next level by pushing the in-game MSAA up to 8x. All other methodologies remain the same.

BattleField: Bad Company 2 (DX11)
Note that 8x MSAA is enabled via the game’s config file for the NVIDIA cards since it is not a selectable option within the game menu

DIRT 2 (DX11)

 

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8x MSAA Testing (Far Cry 2 / Just Cause 2)

8x MSAA Testing (Far Cry 2 / Just Cause 2)

In this section we take a number of games we have tested previously in this review and bring things to the next level by pushing the in-game MSAA up to 8x. All other methodologies remain the same.

Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 (DX10)

 

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Core & Case Temperature / Acoustics

Core Temperature & Acoustics

For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at it highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.

For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.

Due to the fact that any blower-style fan has to work harder than one which is directly over the main heatsink (as in the one on the reference GTX 460) there are two things which distinguish this card: it has higher noise levels and temperatures than the stock card.

Let’s tackle the noise issues first. The main problem here is the fact that the fan EVGA used seems to have an exceptional amount of bearing noise. As the fan spins up to a mere 55-60%, the card will likely be noticeably louder than any 1200 to 1500 RPM case or heatsink fan you are using. Speeds don’t go above this (at least not in our testing) but it is more than obvious this isn’t the optimal fan for the job. However, this card is all about gaming and you’ll likely be doing that with some form of in-game sound turned up so we highly doubt this card will ever be loud enough to notice above a typical gaming sound level. It isn’t loud in the least, it just makes a plaintive whine that we don’t usually associate with the better blower style fans of this world.

The core temperatures are also slightly higher but still much, much better than most other cards on our chart. This is simply the price one has to pay for better in-case temperatures.

In Case Temperatures

For this test we compared the EVGA card to a reference version when installed into a case. We used our usual Gigabyte Aurora 570 which uses the stock fan layout as well as a Noctua NF-S12B FLX installed onto the HDD cage and pointed at the card. A Type-K thermocouple is placed roughly 4” to the right of the CPU’s stock heatsink.

As you can see, the temperatures with an external exhaust do decrease but not by an overly significant amount. Does EVGA’s solution work? Well, the numbers back up the science but only you can determine if this is enough of a drop to warrant going with the increased noise and core temperature this setup brings.

 

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System Power Consumption

System Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

Naturally, since this is an overclocked card it exhibits higher than reference power consumption but the increase is quite reasonable given the extra performance.

 

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EVGA Precision & OC Scanner

EVGA Precision & OC Scanner

Along with MSI’s Afterburner software, EVGA’s Precision is known as one of the most versatile and user friendly programs around when it comes to overclocking NVIDIA cards. Not only does it allow for real-time monitoring of clock speeds, temperatures, fan speed and other parameters but it also offers robust clock speed adjustments. For the GTX 400-series, EVGA has included customized skins which are specific to every GPU.

The EVGA OC Scanner meanwhile is currently only available to those of you who own EVGA graphics cards and register them but the functionality it offers is currently unparalleled. Included is a benchmarking and stress testing utility with artifact scanning capability in order for you to test the stability of any overclock done in Precision. It also allows for unlocking of the GTX 400-series’ power consumption characteristics so the card can draw more power than the usual limiters will allow it to. This could in effect push overclocks to stratospheric levels if the right cooling and power supply is used.

Unfortunately, this utility’s scanning function does not yet properly load two GTX 460 cards in SLI as the profiles for the OpenGL 4.0 renderer have yet to be created. Let’s hope this gets done soon.

 

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Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

Using the EVGA Precision utility in addition to our usual stability checks, both the core and the memory the EVGA GTX 460 SC was pushed as far as the default voltage would allow.


Final Clock Speeds

Graphics Clock: 837Mhz
Processor Clock: 1674Mhz
Memory Clock: 4220Mhz (QDR)

Much like all of the other GTX 460 cards we have seen, this one overclocks particularly well and allowed us to really improve on in-game performance.