News - NVIDIA to release cut-back GTX 460 SE

[HEXUS]

Trimmed-down GF104 with 288 shaders could slot into the mid-range this month.

Read more.

[Biscuit]

A SUFFIX?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I refuse to call it the GTX460 SE. It will be known as the GTS455.

[Domestic_Ginger]

Great idea i could second that however if they release a 450 with more shaders it may have to have the suffix instead.

I think NV marketing should give you a job Biscuit. In a minute you've already put them to shame.

[Terbinator]

While I'm I'm not too offended by cutting a chip down to make a new card, when the differences are so drastic, even between the original two 460's as well, it is wrong to suggests its even in the same league as a full 460.

This isn't as bad as theyre other OEM card though - can't remember which one but is cut down quite a bit from the normal version yet bears the exact same name IIRC.

[kalniel]

SE, short for 'special edition' and it's crippled? Surely that shouldn't be allowed...

[GheeTsar]

SE, short for 'special edition' and it's crippled? Surely that shouldn't be allowed...

Perhaps it's "Sucks Edition"

[scaryjim]

Don't see the point tbh. As a retail card it simply doesn't make sense: there's very little market space between the £100 GTS450 and the GTX460 768MB (which starts, if you shop around, < £120), and the use of a 256bit memory bus means it will use more memory chips than a GTX460 768MB, eating into the cost savings of using a less powerful GPU. So it's hard to see how retail partners will differentiate the product unless they price-cut the GTS450 to create a market space around £100, which is going to cut into profits even further.

As an OEM card, however, it makes more sense: OEMs tend to like high headline figures they can stick on boxes (1GB Graphics Card ZOMG!!!) and I'm sure they'd rather use a 1GB card than a 768MB card at a given price point, regardless of performance. By trimming the GPU nvidia can balance the cost of the extra memory and provide a card with that marketeer-pleasing 1GB memory at a similar cost to the existing GTX460 768MB. Job done

[kingpotnoodle]

SE, short for 'special edition' and it's crippled? Surely that shouldn't be allowed...

Stripped Edition
Stupid Edition
Sucky Edition

Or my personal favourite:

Sucker's Edition

[jim]

Personally I was gunning for Diddly Edition

[c.ruel]

I thought they were going to release a GTS 455 ... maybe this is it.

[scaryjim]

I don't know about this being a GTS455 - with only a few shaders less than a GTX460 and lots of memory bandwidth I don't think this merits the drop down from GTX class to GTS class. Perhaps this was *going* to be the GTS455 but nvidia started thinging along the same lines as me?

Personally I'd rather not go back to the bad old days of multiple prefixes *and* suffixed for card classes though: perhaps they could call this a GTX455? Or a GTX450 just to really annoy us all

[Pob255]

I'd buy a Diddly Edition card


As to market slot, OEM it has a good home a cheap card (sounds like nvidia is getting rid of binned chips) with a nice big numbers which your normal uninformed pre-built brand name buyer will be attracted to.
On the Retail side, again a way to sucker in uninformed buyers into thinking they've got a good deal when they are getting subpar performance.
It's a win, win, win
nvidia gets rid of excess binned chips, OEM's get a cheap attractive card and most uninformed users wouldn't know or couldn't tell the difference anyway so are happy.

[Terbinator]

Gtx 460 gts.

[GageC]

Pointless IMHO. Why change what works perfectly well? I might just be being pedantic, but I really think the GTX460 works perfectly as is, and why would OEMs want to use an inferior GPU in their systems? I dunno, maybe I'm missing the point of this card, but it makes no sense to me.

*edit* Just read Scaryjim's first comment, and that makes a bit more sense to me, but still, why not just use the 1GB GTX460 as is?

[Gunbuster]

Only reason I can see is that Nvidia has a shed load of b0rked 460s that will still work fine with a few shaders knocked off.

[Pob255]

Pointless IMHO. Why change what works perfectly well? I might just be being pedantic, but I really think the GTX460 works perfectly as is, and why would OEMs want to use an inferior GPU in their systems? I dunno, maybe I'm missing the point of this card, but it makes no sense to me.

*edit* Just read Scaryjim's first comment, and that makes a bit more sense to me, but still, why not just use the 1GB GTX460 as is?

Simple reason, Cost, these cards will be sold to the OEM's far cheaper, All cards are lower cost to OEM's than the Retail cost, esp big companies like Dell or HP
The cards them selves are still going to be powerful enough for the demands of most people who buy these sorts of pc.
And of course masking off damaged areas of a what would be a non-functional full g104 chip to turn them into functional but reduced g104 chips means you get some money back from them rather than having to write off the cost and send them to landfill.