NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460: The $200 King
by Ryan Smith on July 11, 2010 11:54 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- GeForce GTX 400
- GeForce GTX 460
- NVIDIA
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
The latest game in the Battlefield series - Bad Company 2 - is another one of our new DX11 games and has been a smash hit at retail. It’s also surprisingly hard on our GPUs, enough so that we can say we found something that’s more demanding than Crysis. As BC2 doesn’t have a built-in benchmark or recording mode, here we take a FRAPS run of the jeep chase in the first act, which as an on-rails portion of the game provides very consistent results and a spectacle of explosions, trees, and more.
Bad Company 2 is a game where at the launch of the GTX 400 series NVIDIA started well behind before finally catching up with the 256-series driver release. It’s still not a game where they shine in, but it does at least keep them competitive. Here the Radeon 5830 basically ties the 768MB GTX 460, while the extra RAM/L2/ROP of the 1GB card gives it a 7% lead. At that delta, overclocking the GTX 460 can close the gap. Meanwhile the GTX 465 and 1GB GTX 460 return to trading blows, with the GTX 460 edging out the GTX 465.
As for our worst case scenario Bad Company 2 waterfall benchmark, we get an interesting shakeup. As has been the case with the other GTX 400 series cards, the 1GB GTX 460 does better here than it does on the Chase benchmark, putting it between the Radeon 5850 and 5870. However in turn the GTX 465 edges the GTX 460 out for a slight lead, in which case we’re probably shader bound.
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medi01 - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - link
It was like that some day. But now I see more and more troubling signs. iPhone dissapearing from comparison photos ("oh, I've forgotten, it should have been in my pocket") when it has huge disadvantage, but always shown where it has advantage. (and happy readers crowd not "noticing" such "unimportant detail")AMD's 5830, the 200$ card with the same "it's slower than older... but it has some features" got serious beating right in the title. (guess what, it was actually cooler than older cards, so it had one advantage more than that of nVidia). On the other hand nVidia's 200$ card that is EXACTLY in the same positoin, got PRAISED in the title.
How on earth could that be called neutral?
ViRGE - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - link
The 5830 launched at $240, not $200. In that respect the GTX 460 is not only launching at that cheaper price, but it's faster than the 5830 (and the 4890 the 5830 failed to beat).maxpain12 - Friday, September 17, 2010 - link
I agree with Lonyo, they are simply pointing out the technical aspects of the silicon. It gives those that follow the latest and greatest developments in chip architecture some food for thought. It was never intended to mislead a customer, the performance numbers are enough evidence to give the customer a decent understanding of what to expect in the real world application of the chip in consideration.Quidam67 - Saturday, July 17, 2010 - link
You're being a bit a of a fan-boy in my opinion. The article is very well balanced. Seriously, the 460 is the first good card from nVidia in a long time, and at a genuinely afordable price. ATI finally have some real competition on their hands. Up till now they have owned this generation. And the 5830 was always an odd fit for that market sector. Really, it was just an afterthought on how to repurpose 5870 rejects. It filled a hole, but now that hole doesn't exist anymore. It's the one ATI card from this generation that I really didn't like.Zendax - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link
When the 5830 was released there was no current generation competition, so the only point of comparison was the past generation of cards.With the 465 the obvious points of comparison are the 5830 and 5850.
I'm not going to say, resolutely, that there's zero bias, but you're clearly LOOKING for an nVidia bias, and when you go about it that way, you're guaranteed to find it.
Goty - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
... meh.It's a decent card, but it's still months too late.
notext - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
I agree. It is good but AMD could easily drop the 5850 down to the 1gb prices and the advantage is gone. Hopefully they will.Quidam67 - Saturday, July 17, 2010 - link
That's what I hope will happen, because at the moment my next card is going to be a GTX 460 unless the 5850 price drops a littleDominionSeraph - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
Not all of us scour rumor sites and wait with bated breath for months for the next big thing to come out. For some of us, waiting a few months is no big deal. (especially with the lack of any "must-have" gaming titles. The heyday of PC gaming is long over.)Since the launch-price 5850's (which didn't last long), the GTX 460 seems to be the first really good buy out there. The 5770 didn't outperform the 4870, the 5830 was an overpriced turd, the price-gouged 5850's and 5870's aren't good price/performance bargains, the GTX 470 and 480 are no better and are power hogs to boot.
THIS has me excited -- especially the SLI scaling. $400-$460 in cards that'll often beat a $700 5970? And they have low idle power consumption and decent load consumption (for the performance)? I mean in that price range is the 5870, GTX 480, and 4870 x2, and GTX 460 SLI beats them all. The 5870 has much lower load power consumption going for it but it's also significantly slower.
Unless you're going to need the power of 5870 in CF, the GTX 460 seems to be the way to go.
Rekdurexu - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
"For everything but the high-end, this year is a feature yet and not a performance year."Is that "yet" supposed to be year?