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Nvidia's $200 GTX 460 Ups Bargain Performance

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the pixels-and-profits dept.

NervousNerd writes "Nvidia's first DirectX 11 offerings ran hot and offered a negligible performance difference compared to ATI's Radeon HD 5800 series for the cost. Also missing was the $200 mid-range part. But that stopped when Nvidia released the GTX 460 based on a modified version of their infamous Fermi architecture. The GTX 460 offers incredible performance for the price and soundly beats ATI's $200 offering, the HD 5830."

33 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Bargain? $200? by ajlitt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

  2. NV has it made until... by spammeister · · Score: 2, Insightful

    AMD lowers their prices, which they can do quite easily.

    --
    I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
    1. Re:NV has it made until... by paeanblack · · Score: 3, Interesting

      AMD lowers their prices, which they can do quite easily.

      Whichever company restores sanity to their chipset numbering scheme will get my money.

      "Bargain" or not, it's simply not worth my time to investigate each card and decipher how a 460 GTX would perform compare to my 8800 GTX. My four year-old card has so far handled every game I've thrown at it at 1920x1080 without giving me the impression that I'm lacking on the eye-candy.

      I have the money to spare, but I no longer have the free time to make a hobby of staying up to date on all the graphics card releases. All the manufacturers are failing to sell me on how returning to a more frequent upgrade cycle would improve my life, and they certainly aren't making it easy (in terms of time) to find out the relevant details.

    2. Re:NV has it made until... by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Informative

      ATi's numbering has been pretty easy to follow lately. The first number is the series, this tells you the basics in terms of features, process, and so on. 5 series are DX11 40nm parts, 4 series are DX 10.1 40nm parts, etc. The next number tells you the major performance class. The ones they seem to like to use are 9 for their high end dual boards, 8 for their high end single boards, 7 for their midrange boards, and 5 (and sometimes 6) for low end boards. The final two numbers are the sub category for performance, 3 being on the lower end, 7 being on the higher end.

      So a 5870 is a 5 series board, one GPU, high end performance line, with high clocks. A 5750 is a 5 series board, midrange, middle clocks.

      In terms of numbering, that's about as good as it can get. They can't give you a single "goodness" number and if you demand one that simply shows you want an oversimplification where one cannot be had. Different things will have different performance. For example in Uengine 2.0, the GTX 480 out scores the 5870 by a wide margin. The reason is that benchmark has a very heavy tessellation mode, and the 480 has some heavy hitting tessellation hardware. Ok, but that only tells the story for something that heavily uses tessellation, which at this time games don't, though the might later. For, say, Bad Company 2, the difference is much smaller, both cards are rather similar when working on the problem it presents.

      With video cards you have to turn your brain on a bit and do some research to determine what you are really getting. No way to give you a single, universally applicable, number.

      However, if you don't want to do that, you don't have to. What you do is figure out what you are willing to spend every 12-18 months on a video card. Then, spend that. Video card technology moves fast, so frequent upgrades are better than big infrequent upgrades. So if $200 is what you are willing to spend, then keep an eye on video card releases and after about 12 months, start looking. When a new launch happens with a card you like for that price, get it. Repeat the process 12-28 months later.

  3. Re:Bargain? $200? by dnaumov · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can we have ONE video card news posting discussion without a flood of people preaching how it's supposedly stupid to spend anything more than 100$ on a videocard? Please? People have different needs and expectations.

  4. Re:Bargain? $200? by yincrash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think it's stupid to spend more than $100 on a video carrd (I definitely have), but it does seem hard to argue that $200 is a bargain priced video card. I would probably call it mid-range?

  5. Re:Bargain? $200? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did you consult the dictionary before typing that? Bargain isn't related to how much something costs, but how much it is worth compared to how much it costs. This is a bargain.

  6. Re:Bargain? $200? by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well for a hard core gamer that is pretty cheap. I do not spend that much on video cards but if it is your hobby.
    Ever see how much golf clubs costs? Or motorcycle gear? How about the cost of gas for a boat?
    This isn't that bad in comparison.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  7. Re:Bargain? $200? by yincrash · · Score: 2, Insightful

    mid-range.

  8. Re:Bargain? $200? by radicalpi · · Score: 5, Funny

    If 200$ is mid-range, what does that make 300$ and 400$ videocards, assuming we call 500-600$ videocards the high-end?

    Upper middle class with distinction

  9. NVidia engineering sucks badly by gweihir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    After two Nvidia video cards and one chip-set died early on me from overheating, despite additional cooling, I am not buying their trash again. Maybe "pro-gamers" do not mind an expensive card or main-board dying after 1-1.5 years, but I do mind rather strongly.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:NVidia engineering sucks badly by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why?

      --
      <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
  10. Re:Bargain? $200? by MonChrMe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would probably call it mid-range?

    So would the TFS, apparently. I guess Taco's got some cash to play with. :)

    That said, if it beats out the other cards in it's price range, and has the same price then it's probably fair to call it a bargain within that slice of the market.

  11. There's only one problem by Pojut · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They are months too late, and ATI's next offering will be released (or at least announced) relatively soon, given their track record. I'm glad to see Nvidia releasing something that gives ATI a run for their money in the budget arena, but still...I think that advantage is going to disappear once ATI updates their line again.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
    1. Re:There's only one problem by gad_zuki! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh, I wouldn't say that. A couple weeks ago I decided to upgrade my 8800GTS. I read a few reviews, saw some benchmarks, and wasn't really impressed with ATI, but was willing to give them a chance. I decided to spend anywhere between $150 and $200.

      At my local Microcenter I could get a 5770 for around $179 or a GTX275 for $199. The difference between these cards is night and day. I bought the 4770 and returned it because it wasn't much faster than my 8800. The GTX275 on the other hand, just blows the 5770 away. Sure, I don't get directx11, but I don't have a need for it.

      I guess I could have bought a 5830, but that was at least $50 more than I was willing to spend. I'm not sure what "bargain" card ATI has, but from what I can tell, right now, the bang-for-your-buck crown goes to Nvidia.

    2. Re:There's only one problem by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Interesting

      An announcement doesn't mean much without a release. Also, I'd guess that nVidia will be offering updates fairly soon as well. Basically updates to cards are generally either because there's a new architecture, which isn't happening for either company in this case since that take a much longer time, or a new lithography process. I'm not sure what the companies are looking at next, but Global Foundries has a 32nm node online now. They could be looking at using that.

      You have to remember that development continues all the time, and even as a card is being released the next gen, and the gen after that and probably even more than that are being worked on. Takes a long time to bring something from idea to released silicon. So this isn't a race where a company get ahead and the other one can never catch up. Were that the case, well then ATi would be long behind now, because the 8800 series was completely unexpected, and had performance ATi could not match. They had to delay their launch a cycle and still their hardware wasn't a match for it. However, as time went on, they caught up and now have exceeded nVidia in many regards (certainly in being first with DX11).

      The only way this would be "too late" in any respect is if ATi already had a better card out. Remember that people do not wait forever to buy parts. You can't say "But something better will come in a few months!" because something better will ALWAYS come in a few months. Do that and you'll never have a system. If someone buys a computer now, and wants to spend $200ish on a video card, the 460 is a realistic choice.

      Also note that despite the 480s being hot, and late to the game, it isn't a failure. They moved plenty of units. Not near as many as they'd like I'm sure, but people bought those things left and right.

  12. Soundly beats the 5830? by dward90 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Soundly beating the 5830 is a stretch at best. On Tom's Hardware's Benchmark Results, the 460 is outperformed by the 5830 in every benchmark, Crysis, and AvP test. It loses sparingly in the rest of the games, but calling it the clear better of the 2 is just isn't realistic.

    --
    My other sig is clever.
    1. Re:Soundly beats the 5830? by TheKidWho · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The GTX460 is an overclocking monster, you can bring it to within GTX470 speeds for 2/3 of the price.

    2. Re:Soundly beats the 5830? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you don't mind the additional heat, noise (due to fan spinning up due to heat), artifacts, crashes (I've yet to meet an overclocker that gets the fact that even though the stress test doesn't crash, that doesn't mean that the crashes in XYZ game aren't overclocking related), void guarantee, reduced lifetime, and other problems associated with overclocking.

      Plus, I've yet to see a game which won't run happily on a 9800 GT. There are so many console ports these days that even a card a few years old is plenty (for comparison, the ps3 has a geforce 7800 in it, and the 360 is only slightly more powerful).

      Says someone with a GTX 285, a card with similar performance as the 470, and that's roughly twice as powerful as the 9800 GT I mentioned...

    3. Re:Soundly beats the 5830? by TheKidWho · · Score: 2, Informative

      The GTX460 runs cooler and produces less noise than a GTX470... Even overclocked...

      EVGA also warranties their cards even if you overclock them.

    4. Re:Soundly beats the 5830? by StikyPad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In the event of a tie, any card that doesn't require Catalyst is a win in my book.

      --
      https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
  13. Re:Bargain? $200? by CAIMLAS · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why is this modded funny? He's right - $200 isn't a "bargain price". I don't think I've paid that much for a video card ever - and if I have, it was back around 2001, and only once.

    A "bargain" card is under $100, at most. To most people, that's what the cost of an upgrade (to pretty much anything) should cost. Most products try really, really hard to get in under that $100 mark on account of people trying to not spend more than that amount on a given item.

    In my book, a "bargain" card is $50 or less. You know, the ones being discounted because they're being discontinued, which will serve as a good upgrade for an aging machine. These cards won't even work in most aging machines (whether due to bus or power requirements).

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  14. Another review, with architecture comparison by Vigile · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=954

    This review also has a page that attempts to compare the new GF104 architecture on a clock per clock basis with the original GF100: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=954&type=expert&pid=12

  15. Holy Slashvertising Batman by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Funny

    The summary reads like it was written by someone at nVidia; based on the summary you'd think this card could do cold fusion and mow my lawn at the same time while creating mind-blowing graphical displays.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  16. ATI Users: A Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Are current ATI graphics cards, especially the cards with 1GB RAM, comparable or better than current Nvidia cards for PC gaming? I've heard for years people calling out ATI drivers as *^#@, convince me otherwise. This isn't a troll, it's a call for opinions from someone who would rather avoid an Nvidia purchase, even though game title after title splash the Nvidia logo in your face when you launch them. How are ATI's drivers now, how well do these cards "game"?

    1. Re:ATI Users: A Question by InvisiBill · · Score: 2, Interesting
      http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-radeon-hd-geforce-gtx,2676-7.html

      That's not the end-all, be-all for all comparisons, but it gives you a good idea how the different brands and generations compare to each other in general. Before Nvidia released the GTX400 series months later, ATI had the two fastest video cards available (the HD5870 and the dual-GPU HD5970 which is still the fastest single card).

      Nvidia seems to throw more money at developers with their The Way It's Meant To Be Played program, but I honestly haven't noticed any specific problems after upgrading to my HD5870 a few months ago (after having only Nvidia since buying my GeForce 2 GTS the week they were released). A lot of people seem to be coming to the conclusion that both camps' drivers suck but in different ways. I honestly think that most people running single cards in common configs with popular games will never notice a difference in gameplay either way.

      You do get some bonuses like PhysX with Nvidia, but there are open options in the works, and the Radeons are more efficient. The 5870 uses about 15% less power than my old GTX285, and in the GPGPU apps I run (dnetc), it's actually about 6x as fast (and still over twice as fast as an overclocked GTX480, which is a little faster in most games). The efficiency difference probably won't be noticed on your power bill, but it does mean a cooler card, which in turn means less fan noise and less heat in your case/room.

  17. $200 is "mid" range? by fredjh · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When a decent computer sells for $500, how is $200 "mid" range?

    I must be getting old... I still have to hold my nose to pay more than $100 for a video card.

    --
    Stupid, sexy Flanders.
    1. Re:$200 is "mid" range? by Yvan256 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm confused that some people call $200 a bargain for a videocard alone and then turn around and say that $700 for a Mac is way too expensive.

    2. Re:$200 is "mid" range? by LurkerXXX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In much the way $600 is cheap for a SLR camera, but $50 is cheap for an average home camera.

      The $200 mid range for a card for a gaming rig, not mid range for an e-machine or other generic computer 'decent enough to use for most stuff' computer you get from a big box store.

      If you aren't into high end gaming with the latest graphics crunching game, at really high resolution and fps, that's fine. Other folks are and have a different definition of what's 'mid' range for a gaming machine than you have for a generic machine.

      In other words, this article isn't aimed at you. That's ok. Not every one has to be.

  18. Remember the LOLAMO by sexconker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Remember Nvidia's last great bargain card, the 8800 GT?

    You know, the one everyone bought at $200?
    You know, the one everyone said was the best value?
    You know, the one with the bad bumps?

    For GPUs:
    If you don't need to play games, go integrated or go with cheap, cheap shit.
    If you want to play games, ALWAYS go with a flagship line.
    For Nvidia, these have been 6800, 7800, 8800, 9800, 280, 480.
    For ATi these have been 9700/9800, x800 x1800, HD 2850, HD 3870, HD 4870.

    If you can't afford the latest and greatest, get a used one from the last generation. The flagship cards are the only ones that undergo any worthwhile testing. The flagship cards are the only ones where the OEMs and Nvidia/ATi work together and formulate a gameplan.

  19. A video card that will live in infamy! by synth7 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Off-topic pedanticism here: "Infamous" means that something or someone is famous for negative reasons or for having a very bad reputation, along the lines of "notorious". Methinks that it really isn't the word you were looking for, and that "famous" or some synonym would do nicely.

  20. Re:Bargain? $200? by yurtinus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ever see how much golf clubs costs? Or motorcycle gear? How about the cost of gas for a boat? This isn't that bad in comparison.

    The critical difference here is that the other three will at least get you out of the house and into the sunshine and fresh air.

    What's your point?

    --
    +1 Disagree
  21. Re:Bargain? $200? by Beardydog · · Score: 2, Informative

    My nVidia requires identical resolutions on both monitors when set to Horizontal Span or Vertical Span. I assume that's what we're talking about, since other settings can't be used for multi-monitor gaming.