Mass Effect 2

Electronic Arts’ space-faring RPG is our Unreal Engine 3 game. While it doesn’t have a built in benchmark, it does let us force anti-aliasing through driver control panels, giving us a better idea of UE3’s performance at higher quality settings. Since we can’t use a recording/benchmark in ME2, we use FRAPS to record a short run.

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 ends up being another game with a lot of stratification. Working our way from the top the 1GB GTX 460 has a clear advantage over the 768MB GTX 460 even with an overclock, giving it a 15% lead at stock clock speeds. Meanwhile the 768MB GTX 460 has a 16% lead over its equally priced competitor, the 5830. In spite of the 5830 taking a sizable loss here though, the 5850 keeps a  7% lead over the closest GTX 460, while the GTX 465 is at parity with the 768MB GTX 460.

Curiously, we’re still seeing something we saw with the GTX 465 at its launch: the stellar performance of the GTX 285. Even with the 1GB GTX 460’s better performance over the GTX 465, it still loses to the GTX 285.

DIRT 2 Wolfenstein
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  • Alroys - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link

    Nice review, but i would have liked to see how well they overclock.
  • beginner99 - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link

    Not a bad card. I ordered a 5850 for my new build. 460 is a little less performing but more quite. The ordered 5850 is out of stock and no due date. However till the 460's arrive it will probably also be a few weeks...Need to wait on price. usually quite a bit higher here.
  • KITH - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link

    Quiet and Quite are different words...

    460 is a little less performing but more *quiet*

    Usually *quite* a bit higher here.

    See the difference? You even used both in your own post.
  • chizow - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link

    Looks like a great part from Nvidia that seems to hit the same target price and performance markets as the wildly 8800GT before it. Much as the G92 and its derivatives dominated the gaming market while bringing DX10 to the mainstream, GTX 460 may be poised to do the same.
  • Griswold - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link

    Its not going to dominate anything but nvidias own lineup. AMD will just - finally - drop prices, and thats that.
  • james.jwb - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link

    I agree. AMD will either drop the price on the 5850 to make this new card redundant, or not do it and make a major mistake.
  • chizow - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link

    I doubt they're willing to drop the price on the 5850 enough to truly compete with the GTX 460, especially the 768MB version.. Maybe match the 1GB version's $230 price point by going to $250 but then what does that do to the 5870? Who's going to buy a 5870 at $400 when a 5850 only costs $250? Either way it looks like Nvidia has that $200-$250 market locked tight and in a few months with MIRs that'll shift to the $160-$220 range.
  • Lonyo - Wednesday, July 14, 2010 - link

    Considering the launch prices were $260/$380, there's no reason to imagine a drop to $250 would leave the 5870 at $400.
    Maybe we would see something like $250/$350. Finally a drop from launch prices.
  • papapapapapapapababy - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link

    i mean why bother? to play ports like "singularity" with bump mapped ( and terrible low res textures?) i mean the pos3 game only uses about 140MB of my video ram! ati, nvidia, intel, amd, no real pc games? > no sale. adeus suckers!

  • mindbomb - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link

    What does the presence of hdmi v1.4 ports mean?
    Does this card have 3d bluray capabilities not seen on other cards?

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