ASUS, EVGA, Zotac GeForce GTX 460 Cards Overclocked and Reviewed
by Ryan Smith on July 12, 2010 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- NVIDIA
- GeForce GTX 460
- GPUs
Zotac GeForce GTX 460 1GB
The second card in our GTX 460 roundup is Zotac’s GeForce GTX 460 1GB.
Whereas the EVGA card was a reference card in terms of hardware, the Zotac is our first non-reference GTX 460 hardware design. Starting with the PCB, it’s clearly based off of the reference NVIDIA PCB (including the rear-facing PCIe power plugs), but once you reach the output ports you quickly spot the difference.
Deviating from the NVIDIA reference design, Zotac has traded part of the ventilation space of the second slot for an additional port, very similar to AMD’s reference port configuration for the Radeon HD 5800 series. Instead of 2x DVI and a mini-HDMI port, Zotac has equipped their card with 2x DVI ports, a full-sized HDMI port, and a full-sized DisplayPort. In order to make room for the additional port, Zotac has moved the 2nd DVI port up to the second slot, partially obstructing the ventilation for the cooler. This marks the first DisplayPort-equipped GTX 400 series card that we’ve seen in our labs, although we need to remind our readers that even with a DisplayPort the GTX 460 can still only drive 2 monitors at once.
With the change in ports a change in the cooler is necessary. Zotac has forgone the NVIDIA reference cooler for a more compact version of the traditional blower and a suitable heatsink for this design. As a result the Zotac design is a fully shrouded and exhausting cooler, making it more suitable for use in cases with poor airflow. Unfortunately between the changes to the ports and the changes to the cooler, Zotac seems to have made a poor tradeoff – as we’ll see in our full GTX 460 review, the Zotac GTX 460 is both warmer and louder than a reference card. It makes for a very hard sale unless you need a GTX 460 with a DisplayPort.
Moving past the port and cooler changes, the card is otherwise reference. It’s clocked at 675MHz core, 900MHz (3.6GHz data rate) memory, offering the same level of performance as a reference 1GB GTX 460.
Rounding out the package is the usual collection of adapters, a driver CD, and a quick start manual. Zotac is also furnishing this card with some additional software. As is the case with most other 1GB GTX 460s, Zotac’s 1GB GTX 460 comes with a game: a full version of Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands. The other piece of pack-in software is Zotac’s Boost Premium software bundle, which contains a collection of software: vReaveal, a trial copy of Nero Vision Xtra, Cooliris, Kylo, and the (free) XMBC media center.
Finally, Zotac is issuing a limited lifetime warranty with this card. Surprisingly, despite the warranty and the non-reference modifications Zotac is not charging anything extra over NVIDIA’s MSRP, so the MSRP remains at $229. At this moment we expect the card to become available within the next 2 weeks just like the bulk of the other 1GB GTX 460 cards, but it wouldn’t be unprecedented for it to arrive earlier.
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VIDYA - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
you can overclock them.......you can compute with them.......you can easily scale their performance by just adding another card........and dont have to worry about memory and stuffs. LET ME SAY THIS GPU's have over taken the CPU's in more than many ways.....i would advice intel to develop a better larabee.Lord 666 - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
What gives Ryan? You have made your point clear (ad nauseum actually) about the several dollars differentiation between 768 and 1gb along with overclocking, but without a full picture of performance numbers, the review is still lacking.Is there still an NDA on the video performance and/or CUDA metrics as I noticed other sites do not have results either?
Pessimism - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
The future you envision is more dependent on NVIDIA deciding to change their business practices and eliminate:-Faulty drivers that slip through QA with bad fan control, cooking their products to death
-Poorly made chips that separate from their packaging with heat under normal operating conditions
-Lying to their customer base about the existance of problems with their products
-Refusing to give specific information to customers about exactly which products are defective
DominionSeraph - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
I see ATI marketing is present and accounted for.Face it, Nvidia has a compelling product in the GTX 460. If it was priced $30 higher it would be nothing special. If it was 20% slower it would be nothing special. If it was a power hog like the GF100 it would be hard to recommend.
But it's none of those things. Nvidia managed to sneak a good product in. Their ONLY one.
Now maybe the 5850 will come back down to launch price ($259), or maybe even $249 which would bring its price/performance in line with the $229 GTX 460.
mrmojo1 - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - link
"-Poorly made chips that separate from their packaging with heat under normal operating conditions"I have one of these in my ASUS g1s laptop. I had to have the MB replaced once already due to the nvidia GPU. Looks like it's gonna keep working until my warranty goes out in a month or two... fun stuff =/
mrmojo1 - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - link
oh btw, I like both NVidia and ATI; i'm not an nvidia hater.Just a little pissed that a laptop I paid over $2000 for at the time was essentially defective from the start.
tick tock tick....
/rant
irsmurf - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
Anyone thinking of going for a GTX 480 would be wise to consider SLI 1GB GTX 460's. 2D surround and better than GTX 480 performance for only $440 - $57.20 CB = $382.80 at TigerDirect.It is much more quiet, much more cool, consumes much less power, costs much less, and provides superior performance... what more could you ask for? This is the most kick ass card since the 8800GT. 5970 is TWICE the price... and you don't get SLI's superior scaling.
irsmurf - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
I don't mean to say SLI GTX 460's will outperform the 5970.SantaAna12 - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
If the 5850 is the closest comp...then why no 5850CF benches?irsmurf - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
$400 vs $620? Doesn't sound like competition to me.