Reviews - ASUS GeForce GTX 465 - Fermi for under £250

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am more interested in the GF104 derivatives TBH! I am hoping that Nvidia can still produce a card that can perform well when compared to an HD5770 1GB and at a decent price and with decent power consumption.

Edit!!

If this article is true the GTX460 is meant to have similar performance to a GTX465 but with lower power consumption:

http://translate.google.com.sg/trans...%26tbs%3Dqdr:d

[Jimbo75]

So where are the tessellation numbers for this 465 anyway?

The gtx 470 and 480 had unigine tessellation benchmark, but this review doesn't have it.

Far be it from me to be a conspiracy theorist but the lack of Unigine benchmark doesn't have anything to do with the polymorph engines being reduced from 16 to 11 with this card does it?

[Tarinder]

So where are the tessellation numbers for this 465 anyway?

The gtx 470 and 480 had unigine tessellation benchmark, but this review doesn't have it.

Far be it from me to be a conspiracy theorist but the lack of Unigine benchmark doesn't have anything to do with the polymorph engines being reduced from 16 to 11 with this card does it?

Jimbo75,

Nope, it's got to do with the last-minute sampling on the card. You'll also notice that Far Cry 2 and H.A.W.X have been dropped, mainly due to reader feedback, and replaced, for now, with CoD: MW2.

We're looking at AvP, amongst others, so feel free to chime in again with the requests.

As for Unigine Heaven, I'll update this thread with the results this afternoon. We're now using v2.1.

GeForce GTX 465 is an average-to-good proposition in the States, where it's priced at $299. In the UK, etailers try to make margin in the first week or so, meaning that it's not a great deal at £250-£260, especially when the GTX 470 is available for £299.

[kalniel]

I am more interested in the GF104 derivatives TBH! I am hoping that Nvidia can still produce a card that can perform well when compared to an HD5770 1GB and at a decent price and with decent power consumption.

Edit!!

If this article is true the GTX460 is meant to have similar performance to a GTX465 but with lower power consumption:

http://translate.google.com.sg/trans...%26tbs%3Dqdr:d

Same.

Which is why nVidia are going to hold onto it until their partners have had a chance to get rid of some 465 stock.

The 465 really is bin end stuff - a 'something is better than nothing' proposition. I only hope said partners are given some grace by nVidia.

[HW_90]

never take a night off if you're in a flame war, you'll have too many comments to respond too,

1) Nvidia surround is pretty much available now, or it will be with in a month or two from Computex news, and ATi has put 3D on the back bench, which means it's probably never going to see the light of day or it will be very late.

2) if GTX400 isn't ahead in AA and DX11 then explain this http://www.hexus.net/content/item.ph...=24061&page=11

and the GTX 400 series don't do as well at higher resolutions

[sammorris]

So your argument for the GTX400 series excelling at DX11 is being backed up by a benchmark that used to bug into DX9 mode on the cards, a game that only supports DX10.1 and a game that only supports DX10. Congrats.
In all fairness, the GTX400 series does have an advantage in DX11. The problem is, however, it relies on that advantage to be at all superior to its rivals. The rest of the time the GTX480 is near as makes no difference an HD5870, and the GTX470, near as makes no difference an HD5850. Even in DX11, the advantage gained is sufficiently small that the cards really aren't worth buying, especially when you consider all the disadvantages.

Until I start seeing major game titles where the GTX400 series takes a good 30-40% lead over its rivals and keeps it after driver updates, nobody is going to be convincing me they're a good choice in europe, because they aren't.

[Jimbo75]

1) Nvidia surround is pretty much available now, or it will be with in a month or two from Computex news, and ATi has put 3D on the back bench, which means it's probably never going to see the light of day or it will be very late.

As was mentioned previously, ATI has already taken steps towards integrating 3d, with support for 120hz monitors in catalyst 10.5.

3d vision is very much 'meh' for a lot of people, even geeks draw the line at wearing 3d glasses and I just don't see it ever being more than an extremely small number of people using it as a novelty.

Don't forget you need two cards for nVidia surround btw. I also believe nVidia's main problem with the drivers is performance related - as you mentioned nVidia tends to lose ground at higher resolutions, probably due to a memory issue in my opinion.

This image from Anandtech shows the 465 running out of framebuffer at 2560x1600.



nVidia cards don't manage memory nearly so well, that's why they usually have more and quite often "crash" like this in some cases. I remember the gtx 295 dying at 2560x1600 in Crysis and a few other games too.

[Terbinator]

Has anywhere reviewed this with the latest drivers ?

[sammorris]

Yeah the GTX295 was infamous for being bad at 2560x1600 which is why I always maintained, in the face of all the fanboyism, that the HD4870X2 was the better card, despite weaker scaling. Ironically there may have been almost no grounds for criticism if they'd only made the 295 a full 2GB card instead of 2x896MB. Seeing how the 1GB cards from ATI are set back by the memory requirement of games like Crysis at 2560x1600 with filters though, I definitely think 1GB is relegated to a maximum of 1920x1200. Anything higher and you should be looking at 1.5 or 2GB cards.

[jjgreenwood]

Ignoring the people who think 3d is a passing fad for a second. The really interesting point is which is faster this in sli or a single 480. Without 3d all these new generation cards play most games at decent frame rates but with 3d even the top end cards struggle with very high end games. Should someone spend £400 on a 480 for 3d or £500 for sli 465, I'm guessing it's the former at the mo due to driver support.

When will hexus start giving 3d/eyefinity benchmarks as I feel more people will have 3d very soon than have these mega resolution 30" displays.

[sammorris]

We don't think, we know.
Still, the GTX465 in SLI vs GTX480 is a valid comparison. Personally I don't see GTX465 getting much use as that's still a huge amount of power draw, heat and noise for that sort of performance. Two 465s are a pretty identical price to an HD5970 at the moment, so it's no contest.

[HW_90]

We don't think, we know.
Still, the GTX465 in SLI vs GTX480 is a valid comparison. Personally I don't see GTX465 getting much use as that's still a huge amount of power draw, heat and noise for that sort of performance. Two 465s are a pretty identical price to an HD5970 at the moment, so it's no contest.

well if you compare two non-ref 465's to the Zotac 480 AMP! then it seems a reasonable price (arguably worth it)

[scaryjim]

2 cards for the same price that will produce more heat and draw more electricity for the same performance? The only advantage being that you can run 3D surround on 3 monitors, once the drivers have been released and assuming you can afford 3 120Hz monitors + the active glasses? When the chances are that 2x GTX465's won't be able to power your 3 monitors consistently at 120Hz so you'll get roll back to an effective 30fps or worse when the framerate drops?

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not seeing the good in any of that...

[sammorris]

That's exactly the problem. Two GTX465s are a reasonable amount of graphics power for that price given how well SLI typically scales, but the amount of power they need is astronomical compared to the opposition, and as stated, the advantages of 3D Vision for such a system are nil due to the required performance for such a system. Realistically, you're better off going for something a lot more powerful if you really want 3D vision, or just not using it, and if you're not using it, you may as well use something that doesn't require ludicrous amounts of power, i.e. a 5970 or crossfire setup.

[scaryjim]

I'd be interested to know how well ATIs 3D hooks work with eyefinity. TBH eyefinity is the first GPU feature I've seen for a long time that I've though "wow, that's actually useful".

Opinions time: 3D will only actually take off when they can create an economically viable implementation that doesn't require glasses. While glasses-based systems of various types work well enough, there's far too many complications with needing extra peripherals - I mean, how often do people lose remotes? Imagine that with 4 pairs of 3D glasses to find regularly! If ATI can introduce 3d hooks in their graphics drivers that will work with a variety of 3rd party systems though - active glasses, polarisation, whatever - they'd be in a great position once a non-glasses based technology does become available...

[jim]

Opinions time: 3D will only actually take off when they can create an economically viable implementation that doesn't require glasses.

I agree - considering all of the ridiculous situations it would lead to. "Hey, look at this new game I've got! Oh wait, I've only got one pair of glasses. You sit in the corner for 20 minutes, then we'll swap."

That and it's not comfortable. For 3 hours to watch a one-off film, yeah, but wearing them for 2-3 hours each evening to play a variety of games... hardly likely.