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*Official OMG I got my 460 thread*

Nickg said:
1GB all the way

doesnt matter which u buy if u get a Gigabyte, MSI Cyc or an Asus DirectCU they all great cards.

i use a q6600 @ 3.15Ghz 4gb ram and gtx 460 runs great!
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Couldn't agree more. I'm running a Q6600 @ 3.6, 4GB ram and the Giga 460 at 880/1760/4200 @ 1.087V, and very happy with gaming at 1920 x 1080.

Great cards for the money.
 
Having a look at the Asus DirectCU - one question for anyone who has one - are they a dual slot or triple slot card?
I ask as some photo's I have seen show the fan protuding above the PCI bracket?
Can someone confirm as I plan to go SLI with these?
 
jaybee said:
Quick couple of questions fellow OCUKers :)

EDIT: I game at 1920 x 1200

1: Will a q6600 bottleneck a GTX 460 ?
2: Will PCI-e 1.1 bottleneck a GTX 460?

I think the answer to both is pretty much no? I see a LOT of people in this thread still running q6600s and they are a strong chip with life yet hopefully. I want this to be my "last upgrade" on socket 775 to get a bit of life out of it for another year or so if poss.
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I've got Q6600 running at stock, and just upgraded from 8800GT (G92) to GTX 460 1GB. I'd like to get another year out of my current PC, and upgrade to the new generation of Core stuff when Sandy Bridge has stabilised a bit, say a year on or so, depending. When I get my Sandy Bridge derivative in a year's time, I'll look at maybe going GTX 460 SLI.

I've been extremely pleased with the GTX 460 so far. I'm getting frame-rates 2 to 3 times that of the old 8800GT, and I game at 1920x1200.
 
r0cky, you dissapoint son. get that Q6600 to at least 3Ghz!

im on 1080p now and loving it. GTX 460 cant max out Company of heroes DX10 in that res though i get some fps drops but ah well.
 
So to confirm...Asus one looks ok? I will be ordering one soon. My first Nvidia card since I had a 6800gt back in about 2005. Not a fan boy at all, just have always happened to buy GFX cards when ATI were "on top" at the price range I bought in and they generally on average over the years seem to have run a bit cooler and less power demanding than nvidia. Not always though.
 
jaybee said:
So to confirm...Asus one looks ok? I will be ordering one soon. My first Nvidia card since I had a 6800gt back in about 2005. Not a fan boy at all, just have always happened to buy GFX cards when ATI were "on top" at the price range I bought in and they generally on average over the years seem to have run a bit cooler and less power demanding than nvidia. Not always though.
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I'm sure the Asus is a decent card, the user reviews are positive so far on Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121391

For whatever reason though the Gigabyte cards are outselling them 10:1 on that site (if the review numbers are representative of sales, and they should be somewhat). I think the Gigabyte cards were available slightly earlier which would help to explain that a bit, but overall i think they have just been overshadowed by the very positive reception on the Gigabyte/MSI cards.
 
I notice the Gigabyte and MSI seem to be favoured judging by teh above discussions. I like the EVGA card as it has the turbine style fan and housing that expels the heat out the back of the case contributing to lower case temps. However, would you guys say that this style of cooler tends to be more noisy? What is the nvidia reference cooling supposed to be?
 
jaybee said:
I notice the Gigabyte and MSI seem to be favoured judging by teh above discussions. I like the EVGA card as it has the turbine style fan and housing that expels the heat out the back of the case contributing to lower case temps. However, would you guys say that this style of cooler tends to be more noisy? What is the nvidia reference cooling supposed to be?
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There are a lot of people who are unhappy with the noise levels on the EVGA forums. Blower fans can be OK depending on the implementation, but they are noisier than standard fans 99% of the time.

The reference GTX460 heatsink looks like this:

header_productshot1.png


I wouldn't worry about case temps too much, the GTX460 is not a hot running card even when overclocked. Mine is running 800/1600 (haven't tried any higher yet) in a very small case (Lian-Li PC-V600B) and i have no problems whatsoever with all my case fans running 7V. I had a Radeon 4850 with a Zalman type fan on it before, and this Gigabyte is putting out less heat than that did.

Basically if noise is important to you, i would just grab one of the Giga/MSI/Asus cards or a reference design. I'm sure the EVGA cards are not super loud, but there will be a noticeable difference.
 
Hmm thanks for the advice. I just can't decide! I read a review slating the Zotac (blower fan style) for being loud. Haven't seen one on the EVGA yet just looking. Seems the stuff with designs matching reference tend to generally be cooler and less noisy. I acutally like the look of the OCUK value one. Cheap and follows ref design with no gap between the shroud and backplate so you get a good compromise on air escaping out back and a fairly good sized less noisy fan blowing over the heatsink. The gigabyte looks like its just going to blow the air all into the case but as you say it's a non issue you reckon.
I'll probably either go EVGA blower fan style, or a reference design. Will look for a review now but as I say, the Zotac with blower is apparently noisy.
 
Wow. That's an eye opener. Here's where I'm coming from... basically I swore blind my next card would be one that was designed out of the box to exhaust hot air out the back in a dual slot design, as I hate how GPUs dump their air back into the case contributing to higher temps. I find it hard enough to keep temps down with a q6600 since they run hot, whilst trying to maintain a quietish PC. So I kind of got obsessed with an exhaust edition card.
HOWEVER...
I just spent about an hour reading up on exhaust edition GTX 460s by EVGA (and Zotac) who seem to be the main (only?) two wondering from the reference design. Well, the feeling from people that have had them can be summarised simply by saying that they are noisy as hell and run significantly hotter. Apparently the reference design is massively more efficient since it blows hot air directly onto the GPU heatsink. Some people have mentioned that the exhaust edition cards do actually come with a bigger heatsink overall, so ghetto modding it by removing the shroud (yes this would defeat the object of the exhaust edition) and whacking an 80mm fan on there say, would provide really good cooling with minimal noise. But the point is you shouldn't have to do that.
So... exhaust editions with the 460 are currently not something I would consider at all. These people complaining about the noise are people that have like 12 fans in there cases in one instance, and he could still hear the EE EVGA 460 over everything when gaming. Additionally, during idle they cannot drop below 40% fan speed, which apparently is audible over most case fans alone, let alone at load when it gets to higher temps.
This left me looking at equivalent ATI cards, however there is simply nothing worth considering since we are at a time in the market where the midrange battle is massively dominated by the 460s. The closest thing by ATI is a 5850 which is still beaten in some benchmarks by the 460s, and costs significantly more.
So I'm going MSI or Gigabyte or something with a reference cooler. The cyclone cooler seems to be praised for silence but it doesn't look like a reference design? I guess it is, just with a chuffing great heatsink in place of any shroud.
 
I have just ordered a Palit Sonic 1gb version, Was in two minds between this and a 5850.. Will see how it goes still not convinced it will like my Amd/Ati system.... lol
 
Will they scale well in sli on a 780i chipset? Reviews use i7 systems to test scaling and I can't tell how much of a difference is due to the card or the mobo because of that. I would like to buy 2 and sli them in my current system in place of my 9800GT cards that don't scale well.
 
Whats the score with the VRM things on these cards, read so much i have no idea if its meant to have a cooler or not or if it even matters... ??

Just also read that this card is very loud and may require a bios flash..... Wish i had gone for the 5850 now.. Think i will stop reading and see what its like tomorrow...
 
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