Nvidia GeForce GTX 460: specifications and reviews

Every year, game lovers try to find a new and productive video card from an inexpensive segment, bearing enormous expenses for upgrading the gaming computer. Chasing new chips, players lose sight of the fact that in addition to high frequencies, which are responsible for high performance, an important factor in the operation of the video adapter is the bandwidth and the bit of the bus for data transmission. Any novelty from the low-end segment is inferior in performance to the old video cards of the game class, which can be purchased at an affordable price on the market. It is a fact! An example is a video adapter based on Nvidia GeForce GTX 460, the characteristics of which for several years can cope with any existing games on the market. This article is devoted to this chip.

Design and appearance

Extremely simplified design of the PCB on all versions of the GTX 460, without exception, hides the chassis of the cooling system. Calling a perfectly balanced system by a fan will not turn a tongue. All manufacturers of cooling paid great attention, because for GTX 460 performance characteristics in the first place. And where there is high power, there is no overheating there. Before buying a video game adapter, the buyer should take care of the availability of a place for its installation, because the device during installation occupies two mounting brackets and claims the third for full air intake by a fan from the computer case. The backplane interfaces for all video cards are identical - two DVI ports and one Mini-HDMI port. Some manufacturers, such as Gainward, are replacing one DVI connector with an old D-SUB interface. This change, judging by the numerous reviews, is welcomed by many owners of old monitors, who do not plan any additional expenses.

Quality assurance

For Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 performance and fault tolerance stand in the first place, it's not for nothing that these chips are covered by a "lifetime warranty" from sellers. No typos! On the manufacturers' web sites it is black on white that when the device is operating in normal modes, it means that without increasing the performance by overclocking with special programs, the video card will last a considerable time. If the factory operation is detected during the operation of the device, the seller will replace the adapter with the working version without the slightest hesitation. Deepening into warranty obligations, the user can detect a number of requirements, which is not always withheld in the process of operation. For example, strict conditions for power supply, which listed the list of motherboards, or rather chips, and power supplies recommended for work. In any case, the seller makes it clear that the user is not receiving the next consumer goods, but a video card of the elite class.

Specifications

It can not be said that the frequency characteristics of this video adapter are high. The frequencies of the GPU and the shader block are lower than those of the cheap segment video cards . The fact is that the performance of the entire system as a whole depends on the bandwidth between the key devices, in particular the motherboard, video adapter, memory and processor. Those who do not understand this, and spend money on unproductive components, chasing virtual frequencies. And manufacturers use it, supplying low-quality goods to the market. In the GTX 460, the specifications are data rate oriented . For this purpose, a 256-bit bus and fast DDR5 memory chips are installed - they give performance, but not overclocked frequencies.

Oddities Nvidia

Some of Nvidia's actions are difficult to logic. For example, having released GeForce GTX 460, whose characteristics have huge potential, having occupied a niche in the gaming class in the market, the company, instead of creating an inexpensive video adapter in the class below, made an upgrade, dropping two chips from the PCB. So in the market there was a video adapter GTX 460 with 768 megabytes on board and with a 192-bit bus width. Folk craftsmen orientated very quickly, buying the necessary chips at a foreign auction and soldering them into a payment, saved a rather large sum. Judging by the feedback of many users, neither Nvidia nor the end manufacturer of such upgrades are hampered. The firmware of the video card without problems perceives the addition of two chips and converts the device into an elite class. The rather strange and unexpected approach of the manufacturer deserves the praise of users.

About suffixes

Trying to somehow saturate the market, Nvidia company on the basis of one chip produces products with different technical characteristics, endowing them with the suffixes SE, Ti, GS, LE. Take at least the GTX 460 SE. The characteristics of this video adapter have changed - the number of stream processors has been reduced from 336 to 288 pieces and slightly lowered the nominal frequencies. As a result, the performance of the video adapter dropped by 20%. Yes, the price of the "cropped" device also fell by twenty percent, but judging by the numerous reviews of potential buyers, interest in such a copy quickly disappeared. After all, it's impossible to restore the video card to the full version by replacing the firmware. It's easier to pay attention to competitors in this price category or, having paid, to purchase a full-fledged video adapter.

A Decent Chip

Chip Nvidia GTX 460 performance characteristics is best in its class, so almost all the leaders of the computer industry became interested in its performance on the market. By changing the firmware, installing a high-quality cooling system and having equipped the video adapter with proprietary tools for controlling the characteristics of the device, the market has been released remarkable devices based on the GTX 460 from well-known global brands.

If we talk about the performance of the presented video cards, then there is no significant difference between them. Judging by the numerous reviews of users who have made synthetic tests of their video cards, the performance directly depends on the cooling system and bus and memory frequencies. After all, to allocate their product to the market, manufacturers often produce factory overclocking, setting their own nominal frequencies. Naturally, GTX 460 graphics cards, whose characteristics have been changed in the big direction, do not have a "lifetime warranty".

About manufacturers

The companies Asus, Jetway and Palit are the most powerful in the market of video adapters. This is no wonder, because the manufacturer offers products with large factory overclocking. From overheating, devices are saved with good cooling systems, which the manufacturer paid great attention to. It's clear that the video card GeForce GTX 460, whose characteristics for the better differ from competitors, will interest potential buyers. Judging by the feedback of the owners, more devices are attracting attention, not subjected to factory overclocking. So, video adapters of companies Gigabyte, MSI, Zotac, Sparkle and Gainward are popular. The software provided with the software provides the user with the opportunity to independently accelerate, if desired. Naturally, in the warranty obligations the manufacturer indicates that the increase in frequencies users remove the device with a "lifetime warranty".

Overclocking efficiency

There are persistent rumors that the GeForce GTX 460 chip, whose characteristics are easily amenable to overclocking, is a lightweight version of the expensive GTX 480 product. On the official website of the company this fact is denied, but judging by the feedback of many fans who increase the nominal frequencies, the fact takes place be. Up to the performance of expensive models based on the GTX 480 , the sample in question does not hold, but with some video cards on the platform GTX 470 in synthetic tests can be argued.

The utilities supplied with video adapters perfectly manage overclocking, but require additional cooling. Therefore, it is recommended to replace the regular cooling system of the printed circuit board with something more powerful, for example, from companies such as Arctic or DeepCool. The GTX 460 chip, the characteristics of which are protected by the system from overheating, in a critical situation, resets the frequencies to the factory settings and turns off the video driver, without stopping the cooling system. For the user, the BSDOS window appears with a request to reboot the computer, called the "blue window of Windows death" in the people.

Huge potential

The GTX 460 graphics card, whose characteristics directly depends on the processor's power, will survive not one generation of computer systems. For Pentium 4-based devices, the video adapter will allow you to play resource-intensive games, but there is no need to expect much potential. In most cases, the processor simply will not be able to process the data. But the systems of the new generation of Core i5, i7 and above will allow the video card to show itself 100%. And if the player does not have enough power GTX 460, do not need to think about replacing the video device.

It is worth buying a similar copy, which is recently available on the market at a suspiciously low price, and install it in SLI mode, if the motherboard allows. The potential of two powerful graphics cards GTX 460, whose characteristics are relevant for several years, with small financial costs will serve fans of games for more than one year. And never allow the user to doubt the correctness of his choice.