Introduction

NVIDIA's latest member of their DirectX 11 lineup is the GeForce GTX 460. It is based on the all new 40 nm GF104 GPU which is based on the Fermi architecture introduced earlier this year. The GTX 460 is positioned at the lower end of the mid-range performance segment around the $200 price bracket. NVIDIA offers two variants of the GeForce GTX 460, one with 768 MB of GDDR5 memory and one with 1 GB. Due to the GPU architecture this change in memory size not only affects the actual memory but also other performance relevant figures. The reduction of memory size is achieved by installing less memory chips on the card which reduces the bus width of the GPU from 256-bit to 192-bit on the 768 MB version. Since the ROPs are coupled to the memory interface this also results in less ROP units. Combined all those changes reduce the fillrates and memory performance of the card by 25%.

AXLE has engineered a custom design GTX 460 with 1 GB of memory called "Ace Edition". It comes at higher clock speeds of 743 MHz core and 900 MHz memory. This will result in a nice performance boost compared to the reference designs. What makes this card special is the integrated Arctic Cooling dual fan heatsink.

Packaging

AXLE's package looks a bit plain when compared to other packages out there, but it does its job fine of protecting the card and conveying the product highlights like "Arctic Cooling", "Overclock 742 MHz".

Contents

You will receive:

• Graphics card
• Driver CD + Quick Install Guide

The Card

AXLE has chosen to use a black PCB for their card which makes the yellow fan blades pop even more. While it is not the most subtle, it is a color combination that works well. You can also see the heatpipes stick out at the top of the cooler which could become an issue in smaller cases. Total height of the card is 138 mm from the end of the PCI-E slot connector to the end of the heatpipes.


Axle's GTX 460 Ace Edition is the first GTX 460 to use three slots in your system. I double checked, and another card fits just fine in the next slot further down, so the card does definitely not use more than three slots, even though the photo above might suggest it. Also there is some space between the fan cage and the fan, so the fan would still have room to suck in new air.


The card has two DVI ports, and one Mini-HDMI port, but no Mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter in the package. Unlike AMD's latest GPUs, the output logic design is not as flexible. On AMD cards vendors are free to combine six TMDS links into any output configuration they want (dual-link DVI consuming two links) - and use them all at the same time. On NVIDIA cards you can use only two displays at the same time, so for a three monitor setup you would need two cards.

NVIDIA has included an HDMI sound device inside their GPU which does away with the requirement of connecting an external audio source to the card for HDMI audio. The HDMI interface is HDMI 1.3a compatible which includes Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 7.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit. NVIDIA also claims full support for the 3D portion of the HDMI 1.4 specification which will become important later this year when we will see first Blu-Ray titles shipping with support for 3D output.


You may combine up to two GTX 460 cards in SLI for added performance or improved image quality settings. With a triple slot card like this you may be limited in terms of SLI configurations, for example you could have the Axle Ace in a bottom PCI-E x16 slot with a dual slot card from another manufacturer in the top slot.


Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.