Best Value Graphics Card - GTX460?

RavenXXX2 · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:09

Yes about the equivalent of a 30 watt light bulb, is that a concern?

Can't say if the HD audio is dodgy or not, just know it supports it.

crackerbear · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:12

easyrider said:
What about power the 6850 uses less juice does it not?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/...enewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market/20

From looking at the stock version of both: power wise, the 68xx use slightly less than the 460, temps the 460 is about 10 degrees cooler, noise wise they're about the same.

RavenXXX2 · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:16

You wouldn't buy a stock 460 1GB currently, the MSI and Giga are blinding deals, their custom coolers are way better than the stock ones.

crackerbear · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:18

RavenXXX2 said:
You wouldn't buy a stock 460 1GB currently, the MSI and Giga are blinding deals, their custom coolers are way better than the stock ones.

I know, which would exaggerate the temps and possibly noise difference even more from the stock version. The power draw would still be more though, since they're overclocked, still, it's pretty marginal.

RavenXXX2 · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:21

According to the anandtech power consumption charts, the EVGA 460 @ 850 core only uses 20 watts more over a stock 460 in crysis which IMO is very decent.

Marine-RX179 · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:26

God damn price rise on the 6850 :mad:

The place I saw selling the Sapphire 6850 1GB (well, pre-order) now increased the price on taking pre-orders at £150 :mad:

So much for hoping the GTX460 1GB to drop to £130 range to compete with the 6850. At the same price at £150, I'd probably better of going for the Gigabyte/MSI Cyclone GTX460 1GB since it include a copy of HAWX 2, and considering more games prefer Nvidia than ATI/AMD...or might as well stretch for a 6870/GTX470...

The £178 6870 seems to be all gone as well...it's £190 most places I see now...

crackerbear · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:31

Marine-RX179 said:
God damn price rise on the 6850

The place I saw selling the Sapphire 6850 1GB (well, pre-order) now increased the price on taking pre-orders at £150

So much for hoping the GTX460 1GB to drop to £130 range to compete with the 6850. At the same price at £150, I'd probably go for the Gigabyte/MSI Cyclone GTX460 1GB since it include a copy of HAWK 2, and considering more games prefer Nvidia than ATI/AMD...

Yeah I'm pretty annoyed at the price rise too since I was looking at the 6870 for £176 (now about £195).

I'm going to wait to Wednesday and have a look at prices again, I'll probably get a Gigabyte/MSI cyclone same as you - I have no use for HAWX 2 though. Games that come free with graphics cards tend to be... not great.

Marine-RX179 · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:34

crackerbear said:
I'm going to wait to Wednesday and have a look at prices again, I'll probably get a Gigabyte/MSI cyclone same as you - I have no use for HAWX 2 though. Games that come free with graphics cards tend to be... not great.

hehe I'm not interested in the game too much either...I rather they take another £10-£15 off the price and keep the bloody game

Oh, and so much for 6870 being cheaper than GTX470...it is not anymore...

crackerbear · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:38

Marine-RX179 said:
hehe I'm not increased in the game too much either...I rather they take another £10-£15 off the price and keep the bloody game

I was thinking yesterday that Nvidia need to slash the 460 prices down even more to £130 odd in order to keep it competitive with the 6850 (which as you know was retailing at £133) since from reviews, the 6850 is faster.

Shame there has been a price hike and so quick too.

Marine-RX179 · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:44

crackerbear said:
I was thinking yesterday that Nvidia need to slash the 460 prices down even more to £130 odd in order to keep it competitive with the 6850 (which as you know was retailing at £133) since from reviews, the 6850 is faster.

Shame there has been a price hike and so quick too.

Let's hope Nvidia and AMD wouldn't go holding hands dancing together and increase the price of GTX460 1GB and 6850 to £170 to **** with us consumers...

crackerbear · 25 Oct 2010 at 14:49

Marine-RX179 said:
Let's hope Nvidia and AMD wouldn't go holding hands dancing together and increase the price of GTX460 1GB and 6850 to £170 to **** with us consumers...

I'll quote myself from this very thread, but I hope it won't happen:

crackerbear said:
If the sources at Tomshardware are to be believed, the problem with waiting is that the current price cuts for the 460 and 470 are only going to last for 3 weeks until they're put back up.

Immediately after receiving Nvidia's update, AMD forwarded a memo received by a French distributor, purportedly from Nvidia, which made it clear that the sale on both models is only going to last three weeks, after which time prices will presumably rise again. Ugh.

Click to expand...

It seems like a dumb move as only at their current prices do Nvidia remain in contention, the ATI cards are arguably better buys even now. I guess Nvidia cannot hold the prices that low as they'd be making a fairly big loss production/manufacturing wise.

Still, these are all seemingly rumours and if you don't care the for 460/470 then it's all moot.

Skyrocket · 25 Oct 2010 at 16:10

easyrider said:
"As for the Radeon HD 6850 however, things are much more lopsided in AMD’s favor. It’s give and take depending on the benchmark, but ultimately it’s just as fast as the GTX 460 1GB on average, even though it’s officially $20 cheaper. And at the same time it draws less power and produces less noise than the GTX 460 1GB. In fact unless the GTX 460 1GB was cheaper than the 6850, we really can’t come up with a reason to buy it. For all the advantage of an overclock when going up against the 6870, the stock clocked card has nothing on the 6850. Even the GTX 460 768MB, while $10-$20 cheaper than the 6850, still has to contend with the fact that the 6850 is almost 10% faster and only marginally louder."

This ^^^^

555BUK · 25 Oct 2010 at 16:18

At stock speeds, the 6870 is clearly faster than either GTX 460 or 6850. The latter two cards are pretty close, but the 6850 just about edges most benchmarks.

Overclocked, the story is different. The low base GPU clock of a reference 460 is 675MHz, with memory at 3600MHz. The two 460 1GB's I have owned each did 850MHz / 4200MHz on stock volts and 930MHz / 4200MHz with voltage tweaks. This provides an over clock of 26-38% core and 17% mem, which the 6850's will struggle to match and 6870's will find impossible.

Overclocked, all 3 cards will provide very similar performance. I suspect the 460 may actually beat the 6850, but come in close behind the 6870.

With a free copy of HAWX 2 and a decent custom cooler, the 460 1GB is still a very good buy. After all, it offers two-thirds of GTX 480 performance for less than half of the price. The 768MB card is less attractive now that the 1GB has dropped in price.

If you do not overclock, get the 6850/6870. If you do overclock, things are pretty much equal so choose the colour that suits you best.

Personally, I'd go for a MSI 460 Cyclone on Today Only for £150.

edit: Not a fanboy. I have owned 5850's, 5870's, 460's, 480's and many other cards from both camps.

blawford · 25 Oct 2010 at 17:49

Thanks for all the feedback.

The MSI Cyclone that has been mentioned a few times thoughout looks like a good buy if I can get it today and work out the overlocking, although that part looks quite simple? Is that still the best buy if I dont get it before the price goes back up?

Any more for any more advice wise, think I am making the right decision?

opethdisciple · 25 Oct 2010 at 17:55

hmm Im confused.

I saw one review whoich made the 6870 look like it was toe to toe with the 470, with on average higher minimums, but then I look at this (not so trust worthy I admit) review and the 6870 is more or less in the same performance bracket as the 460:

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6282811.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=picks&tag=picks;title;4

kylew · 25 Oct 2010 at 18:21

opethdisciple said:
hmm Im confused.

I saw one review whoich made the 6870 look like it was toe to toe with the 470, with on average higher minimums, but then I look at this (not so trust worthy I admit) review and the 6870 is more or less in the same performance bracket as the 460:

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6282811.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=picks&tag=picks;title;4

Gamespot should go back to just reviewing games in my opinion, console games only as well.

easyrider · 25 Oct 2010 at 18:24

So the 6850 is too close to 6870 pricing now for my liking.

Cleeecooo · 25 Oct 2010 at 18:24

6870

Personally, i would go for the new 6870 because ATI normally represents better value, but the 460 is good aswell. Having owned both nVidia and ATI, i would go for ATI/AMD.

crackerbear · 25 Oct 2010 at 18:39

Cleeecooo said:
... because ATI normally represents better value

What?

The market changes very often meaning no one brand has been better value, it's very dependent on the time you're buying.

For example, a few months back, the 460 was phenomenal value and could not be beat - all ATI had was the 5770, 5830 and 5850 in that sort of range. None of which touched the price/performance of the 460. Now with the introduction of the new 68xx cards, they've filled in that gap and now arguably, ATI have the edge in the mid-range sector.

easyrider · 25 Oct 2010 at 18:40

crackerbear said:
What?

The market changes very often meaning no one brand has been better value, it's very dependent on the time you're buying.

For example, a few months back, the 460 was phenomenal value and could not be beat - all ATI had was the 5770, 5830 and 5850 in that sort of range. None of which touched the price/performance of the 460. Now with the introduction of the new 68xx cards, they've filled in that gap and now arguably, ATI have the edge in the mid-range sector.

the 6850 has gone up in price