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GRAPHICS CARD MAKER Gainward, a part of Palit Group, was one of the key Nvidia partners that stuck with the Green Goblin through thick and thin, for better or worse. Now that Nvidia’s Fermi architecture has produced more than just limited quantity top end offerings, the return on investing in that relationship is becoming apparent for Gainward again.

Here we look at two new cards from Gainward, both the company’s own designs. One is the special edition “Golden Sample” GTX470 card, while the other is the just announced GTX460 GS-GLH, as in “Golden Sample-Goes Like Hell” based on the GF104 die.

The core specifications, 448 cores and 1.25GB of VRAM on a 320-bit bus for the GTX470 and 336 cores with 1GB of VRAM on a 256-bit bus for the GTX460 GLH, stay the same as the reference product. However, the core clock speed on the GTX470 has been upped from 607MHz to 675MHz with a 1,350MHz shader clock, and on the GTX460 GS-GLH it is a whopping 20 per cent above the reference Nvidia card, going from 675MHz to 800MHz with a 1,600MHz shader clock.

The memory speed on the GTX470 is GDDR5-3400MHz instead of the default GDDR5-3300MHz, and on the GTX460 model it is GDDR5-4000MHz instead of the default GDDR5-3600MHz. These factory pre-set improvements do seem to lead to noticeable extra performance.

The extra performance is enabled by, besides the custom PCB, unique cooling systems. On the GTX470, it is 2GR8 2COOL – Two Great 8cm double-ball-bearing Twin Fans – and an interesting acronym nevertheless. On the GTX460 GS-GLH, Gainward uses a smaller version of its Grand Prix (GP) Heatpipes Cooler, force-ventilated by a single GR8 fan, a Great 8cm double-ball-bearing fan.

The high end GTX470 Golden Sample provides two dual-link DVI, full size HDMI as well as Displayport connectors. The brand new GTX460 series from Gainward also has four display connections – HDMI 1.4a, twin dual-link DVI plus, for those still using a CRT, a VGA connector.

Since these two cards are aimed against the AMD/ATI HD5870 and HD5850, and themselves are spaced just a bit apart in both timeline and price, I wondered how far apart they would be in real benchmark performance. The test platform was an Asus Maximus III Gene Intel P55 platform with an Intel Core i7 970 2.93GHz LGA1166 CPU and 4GB of Kingston DDR3-1333 CL6 memory, running Windows 7 64-bit with the updated Detonator drivers supporting the GTX460. Since both cards are pre-overclocked in factory, I didn’t push them any further in this first test.

Here are 3Dmark Vantage Performance and Extreme results – GTX470:

… and GTX460:

Not bad. Look at how small the difference is. Now, do keep in mind that the PhysX feature pushes up the score a bit here, but even discounting that a bit it’s still pretty decent versus the generic HD5870 scores we saw in our previous benchmarks.

Then, for DirectX 11, there’s the Unigine Heaven 2 Benchmark. Here are the results for both cards, GTX470 on top and GTX460 at the bottom:

Again, the differences are minimal. Keep in mind that the GTX460 GS-GLH is expected to be in the 0 price range before taxes, while the GTX470 GS is roughly in the 0 price class, just below the HD5870. In fact, with this performance, the GTX460 GS-GLH makes a pretty decent proposition against even generic HD5850 Radeon cards, while being more compact and – in a first for an Nvidia graphics card – cool enough not to act as a space heater.

In Short
For decent Nvidia PhysX enriched DirectX 11 gaming performance in a small form factor, the Gainward GTX460 GS-GLH is a good choice. As for the higher end parts, I hope Gainward applies its 2GR8 2COOL Twin Fans to the upcoming 512-core GTX485 line, too. It would be interesting to see the speedup gained on the top end, since not every user there wants to go the watercooled way for extra clock speed. µ

The Good
Both cards’ performance, cooling, low noise.

The Bad
The GTX470 GS still feels a little hot, although cooler than the reference card.

The Ugly
Nothing.

Bartender’s Scores
8/10 for the GTX470 GS
9/10 for GTX460 GS-GLH

RECEIVED WITH near-unanimous acclaim, the Geforce GTX460 is bringing Nvidia back into the spotlight, only this time for the right reasons.

Let’s face it. There are a bunch of you reading this article who’ve owned, and probably still do, Nvidia graphics cards. Generally you’ve been happy with what you’ve got, but then Nvidia started recycling its silicon generation after generation and you felt downright cheated. The brand became that awkward friend you couldn’t really support but nor would you give in to peer pressure and turn your back on it.

This has created an interesting situation. Some sensible people will shift between AMD and Nvidia due to sheer price versus performance. Others will outright refuse to move to the ‘rival’ architecture due to pure  animosity. Then there is a last group, a silent lot who are hardcore Nvidia fans who simply shrugged and waited out the storm for Nvidia’s next best thing. These guys and gals were perhaps right in waiting.

As we’d mentioned earlier Nvidia has launched its mainstream GTX460 to the quasi-unanimous nod of approval from reviewers worldwide, both in print and online. So, what’s Nvidia done to get all this love from the media?

Somewhere, somehow, Nvidia decided to take on AMD exactly where it should, with a properly priced card and a great power and performance balance that is cheap enough to rake in some serious dosh for the Green Goblin. The difference is that Nvidia is getting much better yields out of these smaller die chips and it gets to make a lot more on the same wafer. Price can go down by quite a lot while performance is still more than enough for some serious gaming.

We can’t emphasise enough what happens specifications wise. The GF104 chip is about half a Fermi, which means Nvidia solved Fermi problem #2: power consumption (problem #1 was yields). This has resulted in a steep drop in TDP – 150W to 160W – without seeing a severe drop in performance. Which brings us to the card in the box and on the retail shelf.

SKU-wise, there are two GTX460 GPUs right now, and the differences aren’t as shallow as they might first appear on the box.

The punchy GTX460 1GB runs at 675MHz, with 1GB of GDDR5 running at 900MHz on a 256-bit bus, has 336 CUDA cores, 56 texture units and 32 ROPs. It sports 512KB of L2 cache and a slightly higher TDP, 160W, than its sibling.

The other GTX460 768MB is carved from the same silicon but packs just 768MB of GDDR5 at 900MHz running on a slimmer 192-bit bus with fewer 24 ROPs to work out those renders and the L2 cache has been shaved down to 384KB. It’s like having three-quarters of the other card for a saving.

Both cards are dual-slot, so be mindful of your box’s real-estate.

So what does this mean? Well, you can game on both these cards at fairly high resolutions. Well, if you can afford a 2560×1600 screen you can surely afford a GTX480 or GTX470. You get a card that has almost linear scaling in SLI and two of these will perform well beyond the performance level of a GTX480. Yes, for 9 you can get something that tops the GTX480 and has about the same power consumption.

We haven’t seen SLI numbers for the 1GB GTX460 but we presume the can of whoopass will be out of the closet.

It might be tempting to run out and buy a 768MB version due to its lower pricing, but we’ll go out on a limb and say that the 1GB version is what you really want. The performance difference will more than justify the premium on the more powerful card. Anything Nvidia makes below the GTX460 is likely to be derived from its GF104 chip, which doesn’t sound too bad right now, but only the final implementation will tell.

It’s been a long crossing of the desert for the Green Goblin, but it does seem that it has finally gone out and done something that both deep-pocket gamers and cost-conscious geeks will agree upon: A soft-spot card that gives you performance and doesn’t break the bank. Sure, it’s half a GF100, but is that wrong? µ

GRAPHICS CHIP FLOGGER Nvidia has unveiled its budget Geforce GTX460 GPU, built from the ground up for DirectX 11 tessellation no less.

The Fermi-based mainstream card is designed to deliver DX11 gaming and supports Nvidia 3D Vision technology. Meaning, it should have enough grunt under the hood for high-definition 3D playback.

The GTX460 has two flavours so there’s a cheaper 768MB version with a 192-bit memory interface or the pricier 1GB model with a 256-bit memory interface.

Nvidia is in the unusual position of already receiving nearly unanimous critical appraisal from reviewers online. The general consensus is that it’s one of the most powerful budget cards you can get for your wonga. However, Nvidia wants you to be absolutely drenched in marketing flim-flammery so it included a bunch of hyperbolic quotes from developers.

Developers from Capcom, 2K Games, Epic Games and Id Software have gone into superlative adjectives and exclamation marks heavy mode. We’ll spare you the fine details but suffice it to say the words “amazing” and “blazing!” crop up all too often.

The cheaper 768MB Geforce GTX460 card is out now for £132 while the £152 1GB Geforce GTX460 card is expected on 26 July. µ