GeForce GTX 460 Black review

Within the entire scope of Fermi GPU based graphics cards from NVIDIA, the GeForce GTX 460 has to be the most interesting in terms of value for money with very acceptable decent thermals and power consumption. This is why we see a lot of SKUs released for this product, with a variety of cooling and factory overclocks.

The GeForce GTX 460 comes in many forms, shapes and sizes, but pretty much all of the cards out there are based on the NVIDIA reference design. That by itself is a rock solid design with no compromises at all. However we are gurus and we like to see things within their own little niche and that x-factor. As such it's always with the greatest pleasure that we review the more customized products.

ECS Elite Group also released a handful of GeForce GTX 460 cards, based on the reference design with a slight overclock, yet also a BLACK series graphics card which is a factory overclocked model with an Arctic Cooling Twin Turbo PRO cooler sitting on top of that GPU. Now we've already seen a couple of models based on this cooling solution, but the ECS card really is something special.

We spot amazingly cool temperatures of the GPU versus a downright nice factory overclock. And for the freaks, if you like to overclock a little yourself and utilize software like MSI's Afterburner then this product can be overclocked even further, really high actually, yet still have a product that remains 100% silent. Of course we are here to find out all about it and that.

Have a peek at the product tested today, the ECS GeForce GTX 460 Black series graphics card, armed with 1024MB of video memory and the desire to perform really well. Next page please.

 Axle GeForce GTX 460 ACE review

The GeForce GTX 460 has to be the best Fermi based graphics card of the moment in terms of value for money with decent thermals and power consumption. This is why we see a lot of SKU's released for this product, with a variety of cooling and factory overclocks.

The GeForce GTX 460 comes in many forms, shapes and sizes, but pretty much all of the cards out there are based on the NVIDIA reference design. That by itself is a rock solid design with no compromises at all. However we are gurus and we like to see things with a little niche and that x-factor. As such it's always with the greatest pleasure that we review the more customized products. Axle joins in on that trend as well as they recently released a factory overclocked model with an Arctic cooling Twin Turbo PRO cooler sitting on top of that GPU.

This particular model is called the GTX460 ACE edition, and comes with a nice fast 742MHz graphics core clock frequency. The ACE edition is actually the 4th GTX 460 model Axle has available. Here's their series overview.

• ACE Edition: Overclocked version with the core clock and memory clock set higher than the reference design from NVIDIA
• Breeze Edition: Built with passive cooling solution, either with heatpipe or heatsink.
• Classic Edition: The core clock and memory clock are set according to the reference design
  Dynamic Edition: A cost down version with either or both the core clock and memory clock set lower than the reference design

As stated we test the AXLE GTX460 1GB D5 ACE edition graphics card. The end result is a really fast graphics cards that remains extremely silent. Isn't that what we all want ?

GeForce GTX 460 SLI review

GeForce GTX 460 768MB SLI gets tested

The release of the GeForce GTX 460 is most definitely an interesting one as the price/performance ratio is charming to say at the very least. With no less than 336 Shader processors clocked at 1350 MHz and some decent memory bandwidth, it packs punch. Obviously there's the option go for Multi-GPU gaming, though limited to 2-way SLI (two graphics cards maximum) you can easily double up that shader count and thus performance. Now say that you pick two 199 USD GTX 460 cards with 768MB of memory, doubled up in SLI two of these puppies would bring seriously more performance to the table than a much more expensive GeForce GTX 480. And sure we understand that with 768MB available per GPU there are some limitations as anything after 8xAA will become more difficult in the higher resolutions. But if you are like 99% of the gamers out there, you have a monitor resolution up-to say 1920x1200 and stick to 4xAA or 8xAA -- if you fit that demographic the GeForce GTX 460 768MB setup in SLI might be a superb treat in terms of value for money.

Multi-GPU gaming has become popular over the past few year thanks mostly to NVIDIA's SLI solutions initially, and obviously later on ATI Crossfire joined that path as well. So we take two GeForce GTX 460 cards and place them into SLI mode. But also we'll throw in a combo of two Radeon HD 5830 cards setup in CrossfireX, the direct competitor to GTX 460 in both price and performance. Both armed with the very latest drivers, patches and games.

So another thing made us wonder what would happen if we took two cheaper (768MB) GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards, I mean ... you save money over say a singe GTX 480, yet could gain much more perf in theory, that could be very significant and as such we are going to check that out as well.

This article will cover SLI performance among the new GTX 460 cards with 768MB in several games, we look at performance scaling and also we'll check ATI versus NVIDIA with the R5830, to see what is the best solution. Not just that, we'll also look at temperatures, power consumption and noise levels.

Over the next few pages we'll tell you a bit about multi-GPU gaming, the challenges, the requirements and of course a nice tasty benchmark session. Have a peek at the coolness in the photo below and then let's startup this article.