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Review: MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 1024MB

So would the 5850 perform better than a GTX460? the reason I ask is because I own a Sapphire 5830, but I play Railworks heavily and I lack good game performance particularly driving steam tranis as there are a lot of particles. and my frames drop to 25 and cause animation stutters. Would a nvidia card perform better. As I think it is a PhysX title. I think the poor performance is down to the ROPs and pixel fill rates being considerially less than the GTX460 or a 5850.

So I am thinking of returning the 5830 and trading for either the GTX460 1GB, the 2GB Gainward or spend bit more and get the MIS 5850 MW2 edition.
 
I have 2 of these in sli. The top one gets so hot and noisy when gaming! My motherboard is the asus P6X58D-E, they both sit so close together the top on can hardly breath, the bottom one is about 25c cooler in gaming than the top one. They are both overclocked to a respectable 810mhz core and 950 memory with no change to the voltage. Right now with the side panel off my case and an ambient temperature of around 20c. Top card idle: 45c Bottom card:31c, did a just cause 2 benchmark and the top card went to around 87c Bottom car 60c that was only a few minutes!! If i game for a few hours it will probably explode and send me deaf in the proccess. I have also switched the cards around with the top one always having the same temperature difference. I was thinking of using the bottom pci slot on the motherboard although according to the manual it is x8 link, i looked in the bios but couldnt seem to change it. Well if anyone can help i would much appreciate it, oh yes i also have the latest drivers installed and according to nvidia control panel sli is working fine, maybe there are some steps that i could do to sort this out. Thanks!
 
Hammerfist said:
*snip* I was thinking of using the bottom pci slot on the motherboard although according to the manual it is x8 link, *snip*
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If you read the reviews, I think using an x8 link doesn't have much effect on the graphics, 5% or less, if memory serves me.
 
Doesn't keeping the memory speed exactly as stock while increasing the core speed only, hinder the performance gain?

Usually these overclocks increase both?
 
Thanks for the review, I wasn't expecting a GeForce owner to be that objective :) The card is on a bit expensive side right now, £200 is a lot of money.

@Stonedofmoo

Do you mean shaders being overclocked along with core clock?

EDIT: I see the card can be had for £188 elsewhere, knock the price down to £180 and it's a no-brainer.
 
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No I mean traditionally when you overclock, you raise the speed of both core/shaders and memory to keep in synch.

But I notice a lot these days that over manufacturer overclocked cards they only raise the core/shader speed and not the memory. Why is this and doesn't it hinder the overall speed by keeping the memory clocks the same?
 
greywolf said:
To test the stability of the overclock FurMark was run along side Bad Company 2. In FurMark temps hit a very high 91°C after 120 seconds.
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91c in furmark in just 2 mins? not a very good cooler on that card in my opinion.

wonder if the gigabyte card fairs better.
 
Didnt anyone mention how awesome the cooler looks?

This thing was designed to go with the Rampage III Extreme for people who want a great looking PC :p
 
gwr3850 said:
So would the 5850 perform better than a GTX460?
Click to expand...

Yes, by about 10-20% depending on what benchmark / game you look at.

The 2 are close when the 460 is overclocked, but the 5850 should pull ahead again slightly if it overclocks well.

If you can find a 5850 for £190 then it's well worth it imho. If it's £200+, then the GTX460 is better value for money.

But... if you were willing to spend £200+ on a 5850 for the slight gain in performance it gives over a GTX 460, you might as well spend £10 extra and get the GTX 470, as its a quicker card.
 
The GTX 460 also performs much better than even a 5870 when tessellation is used, which games are beginning to implement now.

Also, the GTX 460 scales much more efficiently if you plan on using two of them.
 
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