The graphics card market it a somewhat fickle creature. At times, cards which should be amazingly popular fail to attract attention while some underperforming products end up being best sellers. We’re not yet sure which category the GTX 460 will eventually fit into but if the initial buzz about it translates into actual sales, NVIDIA will have a winner on their hands from every perspective.
Available in both 768MB and 1GB formats, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 represents a giant leap forward for the Fermi architecture. At the heart of these two cards beats the GF104 core which effectively moves away from the power-hogging and expensive GF100 in order to offer a much more appealing option to the mid-range market. As our original review showed, both cards offer an incredible price / performance ratio that simply beggars the competition at the most widely used resolutions. The GTX 460 has also shown itself to be highly overclockable which could finally lead to some pre-overclocked versions that sport real-world performance increases.
Due to its length, we weren’t able to include SLI testing in the original review and considering two 768MB GTX 460 cards retail for $100 less than a single GTX 480, dual mainstream Fermi cards could be a great solution for increased performance. To make matters even better, we saw in our GTX 470 SLI review that NVIDIA has shown their new architecture to have some downright jaw-dropping multi card scaling. If the GF104 can repeat that feat, we may have something special on our hands.
EVGA was gracious enough to send along a pair of their GTX 460 768MB Superclocked cards which retail for $220 apiece. With it they offer all of the usual benefits EVGA is known for (we’ll get into them a bit later) as well as the pre-overclocked goodness of their Superclocked versions. However, there is one thing we should mention: EVGA has started selling two versions of their GTX 460 cards: one with and one without a lifetime warranty. Pay special attention to the product number of the card you are buying since any with AR are graced with a Lifetime Warranty while the slightly less expensive –TR branded units have a 2-year warranty.
This review will serve as three reviews in one since we will be looking at the performance of two GTX 460s in SLI along with both single and dual card results for EVGA’s GTX 460 768MB Superclocked Edition. It should be interesting, that’s for sure.
Available in both 768MB and 1GB formats, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 represents a giant leap forward for the Fermi architecture. At the heart of these two cards beats the GF104 core which effectively moves away from the power-hogging and expensive GF100 in order to offer a much more appealing option to the mid-range market. As our original review showed, both cards offer an incredible price / performance ratio that simply beggars the competition at the most widely used resolutions. The GTX 460 has also shown itself to be highly overclockable which could finally lead to some pre-overclocked versions that sport real-world performance increases.
Due to its length, we weren’t able to include SLI testing in the original review and considering two 768MB GTX 460 cards retail for $100 less than a single GTX 480, dual mainstream Fermi cards could be a great solution for increased performance. To make matters even better, we saw in our GTX 470 SLI review that NVIDIA has shown their new architecture to have some downright jaw-dropping multi card scaling. If the GF104 can repeat that feat, we may have something special on our hands.
EVGA was gracious enough to send along a pair of their GTX 460 768MB Superclocked cards which retail for $220 apiece. With it they offer all of the usual benefits EVGA is known for (we’ll get into them a bit later) as well as the pre-overclocked goodness of their Superclocked versions. However, there is one thing we should mention: EVGA has started selling two versions of their GTX 460 cards: one with and one without a lifetime warranty. Pay special attention to the product number of the card you are buying since any with AR are graced with a Lifetime Warranty while the slightly less expensive –TR branded units have a 2-year warranty.
This review will serve as three reviews in one since we will be looking at the performance of two GTX 460s in SLI along with both single and dual card results for EVGA’s GTX 460 768MB Superclocked Edition. It should be interesting, that’s for sure.
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