ASUS, EVGA, Zotac GeForce GTX 460 Cards Overclocked and Reviewed

Overclocked Power, Temperature, & Noise

For the Zotac and EVGA cards without voltage tweaking capabilities, the power consumption penalty for overclocking is very minor due to the fact that power consumption increases with voltage much faster than it does with frequency. For the stock-clocked Zotac this is an 18W-36W penalty, while the factory overclocked EVGA cards are even lower (thanks to binning) at just 9W. Meanwhile as expected the Asus card with its voltage tweaking capabilities ends up witnessing a larger jump in power consumption in return for its greater overclock capabilities: 70W under Furmark. This is nearly half of the card’s TDP, so this is a very notable difference.

With only a minor increase in power consumption, our non-voltmodded GTX 460s only experience a minor rise in temperature. The EVGA card only rises in temperature by a single degree, and even the Asus only rises to 72C under Furmark thanks to its more aggressive fan, leaving temperatures well in the safe range for these cards. Zotac card fares the worst here, most likely due to its partially blocked vent – here it reaches a more toasty 86C.

Last but not least we have the noise factor. Thanks to the very low increase in power consumption increase the EVGA and Zotac cards experience when overclocking, the coolers on these cards have to do very little to handle the extra heat. Here the amount of noise generated increased by less than 1.5dB for the already loud Zotac, and in the case of our EVGA cards didn’t increase at all. The Asus card is of course the exception to the rule here, once again due to a combination of the more aggressive cooler and voltage modification. Here the amount of noise generated shoots up by 4.4dB when overclocked, which is a fair trade for the overclock but is definitely going to be more noticeable than the rest of the cards in our collection.