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%.
Point of View's GTX 460 TGT Beast 1 GB is the highest performing POV GTX 460 in their lineup. All cards are tested at TGT Germany, who are a new company specializing in graphics card overclocking. This additional binning process enables Point of View to release cards that are able to run the high clock speeds of 855 MHz core and 1005 MHz memory reliably. It comes as no surprise that all this additional work has an effect on pricing. The GTX 460 TGT Beast 1 GB that we test today retails for about $280 - almost the price of a GTX 465.
| Radeon HD 5770 | Radeon HD 5830 | GeForce GTX 275 | GeForce GTX 460 | GeForce GTX 460 | Point of View GTX 460 Beast | GeForce GTX 465 | GeForce GTX 285 | Radeon HD 5850 | GeForce GTX 470 | Radeon HD 5870 | GeForce GTX 480 |
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Shader units | 800 | 1120 | 240 | 336 | 336 | 336 | 352 | 240 | 1440 | 448 | 1600 | 480 |
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ROPs | 16 | 16 | 28 | 24 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 40 | 32 | 48 |
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GPU | Juniper | Cypress | GT200 | GF104 | GF104 | GF104 | GF100 | GT200 | Cypress | GF100 | Cypress | GF100 |
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Transistors | 1040M | 2154M | 1404M | 1950M | 1950M | 1950M | 3200M | 1404M | 2154M | 3200M | 2154M | 3200M |
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Memory Size | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 896 MB | 768 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1280 MB | 1024 MB | 1536 MB |
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Memory Bus Width | 128 bit | 256 bit | 448 bit | 192 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 512 bit | 256 bit | 320 bit | 256 bit | 384 bit |
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Core Clock | 850 MHz | 800 MHz | 602 MHz | 675 MHz | 675 MHz | 855 MHz | 607 MHz | 648 MHz | 725 MHz | 607 MHz | 850 MHz | 700 MHz |
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Memory Clock | 1200 MHz | 1000 MHz | 1107 MHz | 900 MHz | 900 MHz | 1005 MHz | 802 MHz | 1242 MHz | 1000 MHz | 837 MHz | 1200 MHz | 924 MHz |
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Price | $159 | $230 | $230 | $199 | $229 | $279 | $279 | $350 | $310 | $349 | $400 | $499 |
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Packaging
The package is full of "stickers" on the front that identify product features. I wonder if the girl on the front is the "Beast" which gives the card its name.
Contents
You will receive:
- Graphics card
- Driver CD + Quick Install Guide
- StarCraft 2 Free Trial Coupon
- mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter
The Card
It is immediately visible that Point of View has chosen to stick with the NVIDIA reference design for their card. If the card can deliver, this is certainly not a bad thing. It keeps cost in check and uses a well-tested thermal solution.
The Point of View GTX 460 TGT Beast uses two slots, just like the NVIDIA reference design.
The card has two DVI ports, and one Mini-HDMI port (Mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter is included). 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 3D titles shipping.
You may combine up to two GTX 460 cards in SLI for added performance or improved image quality settings.
On system startup the card shows a little notice which certainly has some marketing value, but it delays the boot process by about three seconds during which only the cursor is blinking without the card doing anything.
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.