Reviews - ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 1GB in SLI - beating up on GTX 480

[HEXUS]

We strap two together and let the fireworks commence.

Read more.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

looks good but as stated before,

Multi-GPU implementation will never be quite a good a single card's

[borandi]

As a single card's what?

People get two cards to get better performance than a single card of the same price. Same reason I went for dual 5850s, which easily beats a 480. Scaling on multi card setups, while highly engine dependent, is getting better every month. No need to live in the past.

This article should have had dual 768MB versions of the 460, or even tri 768MB 460s, as well as dual 4850s. Would love to see the comparisons.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

you cant do tri sli in 460's mate

[borandi]

you cant do tri sli in 460's mate

In 460's what? Seriously, bad apostrophe use - they're possessive or shortening words, not used to make things plural.

Just checked the tri 460s and you're right. Even though you didn't a) give a reason or b) a link to prove it.

[Tarinder]

As a single card's what?

The apostrophe at the end of 'card' denotes that the sentence is referring to the impementation. So it's a cleaner way of saying 'Multi-GPU implementation will never be quite a good a single card's implementation.' Much like you could say that 'Paul's car is nicer than John's.'

We had two 1GB cards in and decided to offer you an insight into performance. Dual 768MBs in SLI is coming later on in the week - well, as soon as another card lands in the labs.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

In 460's what? Seriously, bad apostrophe use - they're possessive or shortening words, not used to make things plural.

Just checked the tri 460s and you're right. Even though you didn't a) give a reason or b) a link to prove it.

a. u never asked for a link and b. check google

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Raw performance numbers aside, there were some differences in the character of gameplay that I would like to address here. None of this is uncommon with SLI (or even CrossFireX), but I think it is worth repeating. Though the GTX 460 SLI setup gave us higher framerates across the board than the GTX 480, the GTX 480 in some places we experienced a more fluid gameplay quality. With SLI, there is a certain amount of overhead involved in managing the two video cards, dividing workload, and copying data between them. At the worst of times, this can result in diminished potential. It was most noticeable in Singularity, wherein there was noticeable input lag with the GTX 460 SLI setup. It wasn’t particularly severe, and it did not render that configuration unplayable, but it was there and you could "feel" it. Of course, Singularity had another performance anomaly as shown in our graph above, so it could be related. Metro 2033 and BFBC2 were affected somewhat as well, but it was less severe. Framerates are not the end all be all to performance when playing with SLI and CrossFireX, you truly have to pay attention to fluidity, responsiveness and consistency of the game as you play.

This is why single card > SLI

[pauldarkside]

you cant do tri sli in 460's mate

Unless this is a mistake:

3-Way SLI Support
The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 460 series Graphics Cards supports NVIDIA 3-way SLI technology, which provides even higher frame rates and permits higher quality settings for the ultimate experience in PC gaming when connected to a high-end, high-resolution monitor.

I can see why there'd be some confusion though, for instance, MSI's offering shows:

3-way SLI N/A
GPU Features 3-way NVIDIA SLI Technology

I guess the GPU might support it but in some instances the PCB doesn't.

[Tarinder]

Unless this is a mistake:



I can see why there'd be some confusion though, for instance, MSI's offering shows:



I guess the GPU might support it but in some instances the PCB doesn't.

It's is two-way SLI. NVIDIA confirms it on the UK site

http://nvidia.co.uk/object/product-g...tx-460-uk.html

[pauldarkside]

It's is two-way SLI. NVIDIA confirms it on the UK site

http://nvidia.co.uk/object/product-g...tx-460-uk.html

Ah thanks, in that case the first link I posted (from Hexus) has erroneous information.

[Tarinder]

Ah thanks, in that case the first link I posted (from Hexus) has erroneous information.

Thanks, we have a policy of not altering press releases from companies, and I will add a line at the top of that page to reflect this.

We'll also contact Sparkle and let them know of the error.

Thanks again.

[Tunnah]

looking forward to 768mb stats, was gonna build a system around i5-750 with a 5850 but might get the 460 768mb and change the mobo to an SLI enabled one for future upgrades - monitor is only gonna do 1920x1200 so no need for SLI on that, but in future gonna get a 2560x1600 so will deffo need the extra horsepower and i'd rather pay £300 for 2 460s than £400 for 2 5850s

edit: would it be possible to include crossfire numbers for the 5850 for comparison too please in the review ?

[kalniel]

Look at that bang4watt score.. you would expect perfect scaling to cause bang4watt to remain equal between a single and SLI card. In most cases scaling isn't perfect so the score should drop, yet here we see a large increase. Very interesting!

[Tarinder]

Look at that bang4watt score.. you would expect perfect scaling to cause bang4watt to remain equal between a single and SLI card. In most cases scaling isn't perfect so the score should drop, yet here we see a large increase. Very interesting!

Just to state someting that may well be obvious to everyone, the single-card's bang4watt takes in the entire system power-draw figure into account. Adding a second card pushes up the power by 101W in Crysis Warhead, not a further 289W (which is the basic figure).

What the bang4watt is essentially telling us is that, in the case of Crysis Warhead, adding an extra 35 per cent to the power leads to performance which is, across the games, 89 per cent higher. This is why the bang4watt metric goes up with two cards in the system.

[Jimbo75]

That's quite interesting and tbh I never really thought about it. Perhaps it would be better if bang4watt sli/crossfire results were kept with other sli/crossfire results to prevent confusion.