NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 Debut: EVGA, ZOTAC

It has been about two months since NVIDIA officially unveiled their first pair of DirectX 11 graphics cards based on the highly anticipated Fermi architecture, the flagship GeForce GTX 480 and the GeForce GTX 470. As is typically the case, when NVIDIA--or ATI for that matter-- releases a new high-end GPU, lower-end, more affordable derivatives are eventually introduced to maximize yield of the chips. Today's launch of the new GeForce GTX 465 is just such a move. The GeForce GTX 465 features the same GF100 GPU as its higher-end cousins, the GTX 480 and GTX 470, but a few of its functional units have been disabled. The result is a somewhat less powerful, but also less expensive, Fermi-based graphics card. Take a look at the GeForce GTX 465's specifications alongside the GeForce GTX 470 and 480 below, and then read on for the full scoop...

As the specifications show, the GeForce GTX 465 is essentially a pared down GeForce GTX 470. And to see the cards side-by-side, they look nearly identical. The GeForce GTX 465, however, features fewer active Graphics Processing Clusters, fewer Streaming Multiprocessors, and hence CUDA cores. The GeForce GTX 465 also sports a narrower 256-bit memory interface, a smaller 1GB frame buffer, and fewer Texture and ROP units. The GeForce GTX 465's GPU clocks are right in-line with the 470, but it's memory clock is slightly decreased.

Ultimately ,the GeForce GTX 465 has less compute power, a lower fillrate, and less memory bandwidth than the more powerful members of the GeForce GTX 400 series, but it also requires less power and costs less. Cards from EVGA and Zotac coming up next.