NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 Debut: ZOTAC, EVGA
Performance Summary: NVIDIA made summarizing the GeForce GTX 460's performance relatively easy. Throughout all of our benchmarks, the GeForce GTX 460 performed about on par with the more expensive GeForce GTX 465, but measurably better than the similarly priced Radeon HD 5830. The GeForce GTX 460's leads over the Radeon HD 5830 are largest in the DX10.1 and DX11 titles, but even in the DX9 and OpenGL games we tested, the GTX 460 fared better than 5830.
We won't beat around the bush; we really like the new GeForce GTX 460. In just about every regard, the cards are appealing. With street prices ranging from about $199 to $220 for the 768MB and 1GB cards, respectively, their value proposition is excellent versus the similarly priced Radeon HD 5830. The new GeForce GTX 460 cards also feature a relatively small form factor, thanks to a petite (by today's standards) 8.25" PCB, power consumption is in-line with performance, and their coolers are nice and quiet.
The only thing we're not fond of is the naming of the 768MB and 1GB cards. Considering the fact that the 768MB GeForce GTX 460 cards feature a narrower memory bus, less memory, few ROPs, and a smaller L2 cache, it would have been preferable for NVIDIA to give the card a different name, to more easily differentiate it from 1GB card. Even still, performance of the 768MB card isn't all that far off t he 1GB model, especially if its overclocked from the factory, like the EVGA model we tested.
In the end, we have to commend NVIDIA for this one. The GeForce GTX 460 is simply one of the most appealing DirectX 11-class graphics cards out there. They're affordably priced, perform very well, and they're relatively small and quiet, not to mention they fully support all of NVIDIA's proprietary technologies like PhysX and CUDA.
If you've got $200-$220 to spend on a new graphics card, we'd strongly recommend checking the GeForce GTX 460 out. For that kind of money, you can't do much better currently.
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