NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 Debut: EVGA, ZOTAC
Performance Summary: A clear pattern emerged throughout most of our benchmark testing. In every test, except for the Unigine Heaven DX11 benchmark and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., the new GeForce GTX 465 performed somewhere in between the Radeon HD 5830 and Radeon HD 5850. In the Heaven benchmark, which makes heavy use of DX11's Tessellation feature, the GeForce GTX 465s beat every single-GPU powered Radeon. And in the H.A.W.X. DX10.1 benchmark, the GeForce GTX 465s managed to outpace the Radeon HD 5850.
GeForce GTX 465 cards from a number of NVIDIA's board partners will be available for purchase immediately. In fact, a few hours before publishing this article, a slew of GTX 465s from seven different board partners went up for sale at NewEgg, all with asking prices of $279. As an added kicker though, most of the cards include a copy of the recently released Just Cause 2, which is a nice touch. Please note, however, that all of the cards at that $279 price point are clocked to NVIDIA's reference specifications, like the Zotac card featured here. The EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SuperClocked Edition has not been listed yet. Due to its somewhat higher clocks, expect its street price to be a few dollars higher than its lower-clocked counterparts.
NVIDIA's Reference GeForce GTX 465
Although NVIDIA hasn't been able to deal a knockout blow to any of ATI's DX11-class cards at any given price point, the GeForce GTX 465 is interesting nonetheless. For under $300, the GeForce GTX 465 performs well and offers support for DX11 and all of NVIDIA's proprietary technologies like PhysX, 3D Vision, and CUDA. The GTX 465 also proved to be relatively quiet throughout testing, although it did consume a considerable amount of power relative to its ATI-driven counterparts. In the end though, the GeForce GTX 465's price relative to its performance fall right where it should in the current market and it offers competitive performance and features.
