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
Crysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead, still the toughest game in our benchmark suite.Even 2 years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question.
Crysis can be particularly memory-dependent, which in this case highlights the difference between the 768MB and 1GB GTX 460. 2560x1600 is not a viable option on the 768MB card here (or in most other games) due to the lack of VRAM, while at lower resolutions we can still clearly see the impact of having less RAM, less L2 cache, and less ROP power. At both 1680 and 1920, the 1GB GTX 460 is roughly 10% faster than the 768MB card. This much less than the 33% lead the 1GB GTX 460 has in terms of RAM/L2/ROP, but it’s still clear that there is a price to pay on the 768MB GTX 460.
Meanwhile the Radeon 5830 - already a hobbled card due to having half the ROPs of a full Radeon HD 5870 – takes a hard loss here. The 768MB GTX 460 comes ahead at 1920 by roughly 14% even with its RAM disadvantage. AMD definitely has their work cut out for them. As for the Radeon 5850, the 1GB GTX 460 trails right behind it until we hit 2560, where AMD’s continued advantage at high resolutions helps the card pull away some.
Looking at the minimum framerates, the difference in RAM/L2/ROPs becomes more pronounced. Here the 1GB GTX 460 has a 15% advantage at 1920, and strangely enough even beats a 5850 here. With the greater overhead of SLI this becomes even more of an issue, with our ragtag SLI set of 1GB GTX 460s beats our pair of factory overclocked EVGA 768MB GTX 460s by 33%. Finally the 5830 fares even worse, losing to the 768MB GTX 460 by 35%. In Crysis there is no substitute for more RAM and more ROPs.
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jfelano - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
I've already seen 5830's at $170 after rebate. So there goes that short lived Nvidia advantage.itsmekirill - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
IMO the most important story here is not that it beats the HD 5830 or GTX 465, but that the SLI configuration is trading blows with 5870 CF and 5970.For ~450 dollars you can get comparable if not superior performance to an $800 CF setup or a $650 dollar 5970.
tcnasc - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
Yes, that's what got me too!My 5870 feels so expensive right now
Should I sell it and buy 2 GTX 460?
fausto412 - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
i didn't miss that...i got my 5870 3 weeks ago and i was like "wtf...this is a 200 dolalr card, it shouldn't do that well!"VIDYA - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
good review but a bit partial towards the new born child(gtx 460, cant hold that kind of joy).......its pretty much still oranges and apples .....both are good and differ at a few games. Nvidia shouldn't have sold 480, 470, 465 and instead should be waiting back to mature the chip into 104gf.....think about the owners of gf100 chip reading this and cursing themselves for not holding back for a month. But all said and done from both sides, we all know that Nvidia is still no:1 when it comes to drivers and software support updates.SongEmu - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
The quality and depth of these articles is exactly why I keep Anandtech bookmarked.Also, it's good to see nVidia with its headon straight. I was afraid I'd have to give up CUDA and all those other goodies on my next upgrade, because there was no way in GF100-hell I was going to buy a GTX470 toaster.
sparkuss - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
I thought I looked at all the charts and I also didn't see any mention in the conclusion of 5850 CF vs the 460 1GB. Then again I'm old and senile so I have that going for me!I know the price differences but I would still like to see the comparison, especially if this could actually cause AMD to lower 5850 prices.
7Enigma - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - link
Agreed. That would probably be the most common CF setup and certainly the most applicable from a cost-comparison standpoint. Sure it would be $600 vs. $400 but why have the 5870 CF which is even more crazy at $800 vs. $400?rocky12345 - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
I read the review & it was pretty good & well written. It is good to see Nvidia get their act together somewhat. I am not a Nvidia fan any more lost faith in them when they started rebranding the 8800 series over & over again & I switched to ATI after that. I still have a 9800GT 1GB in one of my systems which I rebadged myself from a 8800GT 1GB & clocked it at 755Mhz core & 2200mhz memory it is fast enough for my secondary system for when friends come over to game.This new chip from nvidia makes a lot more sense than what they released a few months ago. Would I own on hell no. I already have enough money tied up in video cards in my main system as I own 2 4870x2 2GB cards highly over clocked crossfired until ATI comes out with a single card that can beat my 2 beasts in quad GPU I am fine with what I have.
Belard - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
Right on, the GTX 460-768 should be a 455, its so NOT the same card.For the most part... why is idiot-Nvidia even bothering with the "GTX" part since their model numbers don't collide? ie: there won't be a GTX 460 and a GTS 460 or a GT 460... well, maybe... who knows.
The two 460's is designed EXACTLY to do what its going to do. People will buy the cheaper junk card and not get the performance they should get if they only spent $30 more.
Considering the age of the ATI 5000 series... it really should be EASY for ATI to reduce the prices of the line a bit.
The 5850 should be a $200 card by now. 5830 at $150, 5770 at $125... perhaps soon. 6000s come out just before Christmas?