GTX 460OC-1GI
Recommended Award
GIGABYTE
GTX 460OC-1GI / N450OC-1GI RRP: GIGABYTE GTX460OC-1GI: $229.99 | GIGABYTE GTS450OC-1GI: $129.99 Website: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3530#ov http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3593#ov Test Machine • • • •
Intel Core i7 980X Super Talent 2200 C8 OCZ AGILITY 2 50GB SSD Thermaltake Toughpower 1.5KW PSU • Windows 7 64-bit
A
fter having run all the tests, and several others whose results are not presented here. We came away impressed with the GTX460 as it delivered better performance than we had expected. It seems NVIDIA did some amazing work with reworking the GF104 core. It’s not quite enough to outdo the Radeon HD5850 but it is certainly a better product than the HD5830 which retails for a similar price. When overclocked it sometimes delivers numbers better than those 12 The OverClocker October 2010
of the GTX470 and the Radeon HD5850 in selected benchmarks. At $229 this is incredible value. The Heaven Benchmark results were particularly impressive because the GTX460OC delivered a marginally better score than we recorded with a Radeon HD5870 (reference model). In 3D Mark Vantage the score is equally impressive but certainly worth taking note of when the GPU and Memory have been overclocked. With a score above 18,000 it delivers numbers expected of graphics cards costing anything from $50 to $100 more. We do feel that GIGABYTE could have clocked this card a little higher, given the impressive cooler that the card comes with. Fortunately this is easily fixed with any of the available overclocking
utilities and 850MHz/2000MHz setting is easily achievable with a simple slider. As impressive as the GTX460 was, we couldn’t help but be a little underwhelmed at the performance of the GTS450. Granted it’s a $130 graphics card and meant squarely at 1680x1050 and lower, we can’t help but feel there’s some wasted potential in this graphics card, courtesy of the 128-bit bus. Against the Radeon 5770, the GTS450 struggles unless overclocked to at least 900MHz, where it makes up some ground. Given that this is the cards direct competitor, it’s puzzling why the numbers are closer to those of the Radeon 5670 instead. With that said, if the ability to use PhysX and 3D Vision is appealing to you, the GTS450 is the only DirectX11
