EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC Video Card Review

The NVIDIA GTX 460 is quickly establishing itself as the card to beat in its price segment. The reconfigured Fermi architecture of the new GF104 chip gives the card a real edge in gaming performance, compared to the first GPUs in the series. With 1/3 fewer transistors to feed, the board uses much less power, runs cooler, and it overclocks extremely well with just air cooling. With that kind of capability baked into the basic design, it didn't take long for NVIDIA's partners to start releasing overclocked editions. EVGA is one of the top AIC vendors for NVIDIA products, with a well established and loyal customer base. Their latest GTX460 video card is an SC (Superclocked) model that takes the reference design and pumps it up by 13%.

Software control of a video card's GPU clocks and core voltage is the fastest and easiest way to improve its performance. With so much apparent headroom available on the GTX 460 for overclocking, EVGA offers full control of GPU and memory clocks with its EVGA Precision software utility, and full monitoring capability of most parameters is included. Going one step further in the monitoring effort, EVGA also offers their OC Scanner software which has stress testing and artifact detection built in. Both of these tools offer full and flexible support for SLI configurations, which is something people are very interested in with the GTX460.

Driver updates are a touchy subject for the enthusiast and gaming communities, but NVIDIA released a major performance upgrade to their Fermi drivers right around the same time as the GTX 460 hit the market and got some great synergy from the combination. Let's take a complete look, inside and out, at the EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC and then run it through Benchmark Reviews full test suite. I want to see how this Superclocked edition performs with a 763 MHz factory overclock, and then push it even further if I can.

Manufacturer: EVGA Corp.
Product Name: EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC
Model Number: 01G-P3-1372-TR
Price As Tested:$229.99

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by EVGA.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX460 GPU Features

The features of the GF104 GPU contained in the N460GTX are fully comparable with the latest offerings from both major GPU camps. We've been using most of these, or similar technologies, on Radeon 5xxx cards since last September, now we have rough parity in GPU features. Here are the Features and Specifications directly related to the GPU, as provided by the manufacturer, NVIDIA:

Microsoft DirectX 11 Support

DirectX 11 GPU with Shader Model 5.0 support designed for ultra high performance in the new API's key graphics feature, GPU-accelerated tessellation.

NVIDIA PhysX Technology

Full support for NVIDIA PhysX technology, enabling a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience with GeForce.

NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready*

GeForce GPU support for NVIDIA 3D Vision, bringing a fully immersive stereoscopic 3D experience to the PC. A combination of high-tech wireless glasses and advanced software, 3D Vision transforms hundreds of PC games into full stereoscopic 3D. In addition, you can watch 3D movies and 3D digital photographs in eye popping, crystal-clear quality.

NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround Ready**

Expand your games across three displays in full stereoscopic 3D for the ultimate "inside the game" experience with the power of NVIDIA 3D Vision and SLI technologies. NVIDIA Surround also supports triple screen gaming with non-stereo displays.

NVIDIA CUDA Technology

CUDA technology unlocks the power of the GPU's processor cores to accelerate the most demanding tasks such as video transcoding, physics simulation, ray tracing, and more, delivering incredible performance improvements over traditional CPUs.

NVIDIA SLI Technology***

Industry leading NVIDIA SLI technology offers amazing performance scaling for the world's premier gaming solution.

32x Anti-aliasing Technology

Lightning fast, high-quality anti-aliasing at up to 32x sample rates obliterates jagged edges.

NVIDIA PureVideo HD Technology****

The combination of high-definition video decode acceleration and post-processing that delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color, and precise image scaling for movies and video.

PCI Express 2.0 Support

Designed for the new PCI Express 2.0 bus architecture offering the highest data transfer speeds for the most bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications, while maintaining backwards compatibility with existing PCI Express motherboards for the broadest support.

Dual-link DVI Support

Able to drive industry's largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays up to 2560x1600 and with support for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP).

HDMI 1.4a Support*****

Fully integrated support for HDMI 1.4a including GPU accelerated Blu-ray 3D4 support, xvYCC, deep color, and 7.1 digital surround sound including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. Upgrade your GPU to full 3D capability with NVIDIA 3DTV Play software, enabling 3D gaming, picture viewing and 3D web video streaming. See www.nvidia.com/3dtv for more details.

* NVIDIA 3D Vision requires 3D Vision glasses and a 3D Vision-Ready monitor. See www.nvidia.com/3dvision for more information.

** NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround require two or more graphics cards in NVIDIA SLI configuration, 3D Vision glasses and three matching 3D Vision-Ready displays. See www.nvidia.com/surround for more information.

*** A GeForce GTX 460 GPU must be paired with another GeForce GTX 460 GPU (graphics card manufacturer can be different) with the same frame buffer size. SLI requires sufficient system cooling and a compatible power supply. Visit www.slizone.com for more information and a listing of SLI-Certified components.

**** Supported video software is required to experience certain features.

***** Blu-ray 3D playback requires the purchase of a compatible software player

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 GPU Specifications

GPU Engine Specs (1GB model at 763MHz):

Fabrication Process: TSMC 40nm Bulk CMOS
Die Size: 332mm² (estimated)
No. of Transistors: 1.95E9
Graphics Processing Clusters: 2
Streaming Multiprocessors: 7
CUDA Cores: 336
Texture Units: 56
ROP Units: 32
Engine clock speed: 763 MHz
Engine clock speed: 1526 MHz
Texel fill rate (bilinear filtered): 42.7 Gigatexels/sec
Pixel fill rate: 24.4 Gigapixels/sec
Maximum board power: 160 Watts

Memory Specs:

Memory Clock: 1900 MHz - DDR
Memory Configurations: 1 GB GDDR5
Memory Interface Width: 256-bit
Memory data rate: 3.8 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth: 121.6 GB/sec

Display Support:

Maximum Digital Resolution: 2560x1600
Maximum VGA Resolution: 2048x1536
Standard Display Connectors: Two Dual Link DVI, Mini HDMI
Multi Monitor Capable
HDCP
HDMI 1.4a
Internal Audio Input for HDMI

Standard Graphics Card Dimensions:

Height: 4.376 inches (111 mm)
Length: 8.25 inches (210 mm)
Width: Dual-slot

Thermal and Power Specs:

Maximum GPU Temperature: 104 C
Maximum Graphics Card Power: 160 W
Minimum Recommended System Power: 450 W
Power Connectors: Two 6-pin PCI-E

Source: NVIDIA.com

EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC Features

Material in this section is based on data from EVGA.

Above and beyond the features that come with every graphics card based on an NVIDIA GTX 460 GPU, there are some additional software features that EVGA brings to the table with the GTX460 SC video card. The hardware feature set is identical to the reference card developed by NVIDIA. While I enjoy seeing the many design variations that the video card partners come up with, in the case of the GTX460, the reference card is a very strong design. It is simple and cost-effective, yet provides excellent support for the GPU and provides a solid foundation for overclocking. EVGA supports enthusiasts with their overclocking endeavors two ways: with EVGA's Precision and OC Scanner software, and a "Starter" factory overclock of 13%.

The EVGA Precision overclocking utility supplied with the GTX460 SC is version 1.9.6, with support for the latest GF104 GPU from NVIDIA. There are a number of distinct features available within the utility:

• Overclocking of GPU and Memory
• Monitor for a variety of operating parameters
• Customized Profiles
• Fan Speed Controls
• Independent or Synchronous control for fan and clock settings in a multi-GPU system
• 10 profiles, with hotkeys to these profiles
• Temperature display in the system tray
• Ability to un-link Core and Shader Clocks
• On-screen-display support for temp, frame rate, and clock during game play
• Logitech Keyboard LCD Display support
• Information button shows device, driver, memory size, BIOS Revision and SLI mode
• Different skins available, or make your own
• Save screenshots from within games

The monitoring tool allows you to "detach" the monitor window, and then minimize the controller window separately. You can select which graphs you want displayed and also change the update frequency. I didn't see any tools for adjusting the vertical axis; it looks like the built-in dynamic scaling is the only choice. Hovering over the line graph with the mouse produces a top-to-bottom listing of values at that time slice. The overall interface is similar to my personal favorite monitoring & control software, so I was immediately comfortable and productive with EVGA Precision.

I left the Core Clock and Shader Clock sliders linked during my testing. The range of adjustment was from 1440 MHz to 2445 MHz on the Shader Clock, which translates to 570 MHz and 1222 MHz for the Core Clock. The major downside to this particular tool is the lack of manual voltage control, which allows for more headroom for overclocking. Some folks don't like overvolting their processors or memory, for reliability and longevity reasons, but others are almost clinically incapable of running their CPUs and GPUs at stock voltage. We'll discuss this more when we share our overclocking results.

The benchmarking tool is called EVGA OC Scanner, and is currently available from EVGA as version 1.4.0. This latest release was let loose on 8/23/2010, so it is very up-to-date. It combines stress testing with artifact detection, and benchmarking to measure GPU performance. There are also some additional features to go along with the basics:

• GPU vitals show clock speeds and temperatures
• GPU protection feature allows automatic shut-off at a set temperature
• Customizable screen resolutions
• Customizable background image, fur color texture and OSI color
• Built-in log functionality
• SLI support

We've had several opportunities to examine different video cards based on NVIDIA's new GF104 chip, but there's always more left to learn. So let's take a closer look at the EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC / 01G-P3-1372-TR, and gain some insight into how this GTX460 is built, and how it compares to other video cards in this segment.

Closer Look: EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC

The EVGA GeForce GTX460 Superclocked model is physically based on the NVIDIA reference design. The unique graphics are applied via adhesive labels, and they stay with a fairly dark theme that matches up well with the black fan and shroud, and don't go overboard with garish graphics. My personal preferences are right in line with this design style; although I generally prefer more angular treatments, I can't argue with the neat, compact lines on what I call the "Little Black Barchetta."

The first thing I noticed with this video card is the nearly closed construction of the fan shroud. Although it isn't a sealed-off design, it is as close as you can get with a central fan location. A certain amount of air flows out the back end of the card, past the voltage regulator modules and other power supply components. After the GPU itself, these are the things that benefit the most from active cooling. My experience with GDDR5 memory so far, is that it runs awfully cool all by itself, and it doesn't need or benefit from additional cooling. That being said, the central fan does blow a good portion of air down in the direction of the eight DRAM chips arrayed around the perimeter of the GPU.

The fan itself carries the distinctive EVGA logo and is an eleven-blade affair that sits a bit higher than the edges of the shroud. It is a full-fledged PWM controlled design, and the board supports the required 4-wire electrical connection. One of our sharp-eyed readers, while looking at my recent MSI N460GTX Cyclone review, picked up on the fact that the fins on that heatsink face the opposite direction of the fan blade rotation. Here on the reference design, the spiral of the fins matches the fan rotation. Given the completely open design of the MSI, and the relatively closed shroud design shown here, I'm not surprised that the engineers chose different orientations for the fins. My thanks to Stefan for pointing that out. We'll take a look at the underside of the heatsink later, and show you some more differences.

The power section features a dense array of state-of-the-art components: solid polymer capacitors, solid construction of the surface-mounted chokes, and on the back side of the board are tantalum capacitors, mounted right next to the GPU. Their small size, high capacity, and low profile are particularly useful in this demanding application. The VRM implementation is a three-phase design and uses discrete MOSFETs for all three positions: Low side, High side and Driver. The DRAM power section on the left uses a similar discrete design, but only a single phase.

The first two power supply chokes, mounted right at the PCI-E power connectors, are open frame units with a lower inductance than the units seen downstream in the current flow. Their purpose here is really to filter out very high frequency noise and transients at the input to the card. The downstream chokes are there to convert a couple million square waves into a very close approximation of direct current (DC), so they have a higher inductance and smaller gauge wire.

The board is fed from two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors exiting the rear of the fairly short card. There should be no problems fitting this card, and its connectors, in any standard ATX style chassis. The 6-pin PCI-E connection is highly underrated, at 75W each. The real capacity of a 6-pin connector is at least 100W, so there is approximately 275 W available from the standard connector arrangement (including the X16 PCI Express connector on the motherboard), well above the card's rated 160W maximum requirement.

The PC board had excellent solder quality and precise component placement, as can be seen here. The component placement is quite good; this is the area on the back side of the board, directly below the GPU, and is one of the most crowded sections. On my LCD screen, this image is magnified 20X, compared to what the naked eye sees. The small SMD resistors located side-by-side in this view are placed on 1mm centers. This is one of the most critical sections of the PCB for build quality, as variations in stray capacitance here could impact the performance of the GPU, and certainly its overclocking ability.

This board was also much cleaner than several samples I've looked at recently. There were some very minor traces of residue in a few places, but the comparison was like night and day. Once you start looking at macro photographs like this, there's no place for any manufacturing shortcuts to hide. All manufacturers are under intense pressure to minimize the environmental impact of their operations, and cleaning processes have historically produced some of the most toxic industrial waste streams. The combination of eco-friendly solvents, lead-free solder, and smaller SMD components have made cleaning of electronic assemblies much more difficult than it used to be.

The layout on the front and back of the printed circuit board is identical to the NVIDIA reference card. It's a fairly simple design, and there are fewer components mounted on the back side than on a full-bore high end card. The only interesting things mounted on the rear of the board are several tantalum capacitors near the GPU, and the main PWM controller IC. The GPU cooler is mounted with four spring-loaded screws, along with the aid of a skeleton back plate. There are no additional cooling considerations for any of the power supply components or the GDDR5 RAM chips. However, all of them benefit somewhat from the airflow of the centrally located cooling fan.

What I like about this card is how it does so much with so little. It's a simple design, without a lot of excess, whiz-bang components, yet it dares to compete with some pretty sophisticated Cypress and Fermi-based products. It's relatively compact, runs cool and doesn't use as much power as its competitors. It's all down to the design of the GF104 GPU really, which is actually a relief. After the first round of nuclear powered GF100-based cards came out, I was wondering if NVIDIA had completely lost the bubble. Now I know they haven't.

Let's take a more detailed look at some of the components on the board. I did a full tear-down, so we could see everything there is to see...

EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC (01G-P3-1372-TR) Detailed Features

With high-end video cards, the cooling system is an integral part of the performance envelope for the card. Make it run cooler, and you can make it run faster has been the byword for achieving gaming-class performance with all the latest and greatest GPUs. The EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC / 01G-P3-1372-TR uses the standard GPU cooler concept of the NVIDIA reference design, which has some distinct benefits.

Two flattened, 6mm diameter heatpipes are clamped between the thin copper mounting plate and a small aluminum heatsink, passing directly over the GPU die. Once they exit from there, they spread to the outer reaches of two semi-circular aluminum fin assemblies. Considering the power density of modern GPU devices, it makes sense to contact every square millimeter of the top surface with the heatsink if you can. The GF104 chip, like most NVIDIA GPU packages has a very large heat spreader mounted to it, and the copper mounting plate covers it completely.

The air all flows out in a radial fashion from the centrally mounted fan, and the plastic shroud contains most of it, channeling half out to the vents on the I/O bracket at the rear of the case. The other half passes over the power supply section at the rear of the card and flows out into the case. All GPUs produce a fair amount of heat, so make sure your chassis has plenty of airflow, in the right direction, in order to move hot air out of the case. This cooler design is better suited to multi-card SLI applications than some, but the cards with radial blower wheels (squirrel cages, I call ‘em...) push more than 90% of the heated air out the back of the PC case, so they are the best. EVGA is one of the few vendors that have these available for the GTX 460 product line; in fact they have several.

The GPU makes direct contact with a copper plate that is soldered to the heatpipes passing directly over the top of the GPU. The thermal interface material (TIM) was very evenly distributed by the factory, but was applied slightly thicker than necessary. One day, anxious manufacturing engineers are going to figure out that too little TIM is better than too much. For the rest of us who pay attention to these things, a thorough discussion of best practices for applying TIM is available here.

Here is a close-up of one of the tantalum capacitors on the back side of the card. They are incredibly small for the amount of charge they hold, which allows them to be placed much closer to the active components they support. This greatly improves the filtering performance at high frequencies. If you remember when ATI upgraded the HD 4870 GPU to HD 4890 status, it was the addition of small filter caps right on the GPU package substrate that allowed the 4890 to reach such high clock rates. Tantalum caps were what made that design change possible.

The main power supply controller chip used on the EVGA GTX460 SC is an NCP5388 chip from ON Semiconductor. It is a 2/3/4 Phase PWM control IC that does not supports I2C software voltage control, however the NVIDIA BIOS provides its own software control that interfaces with the controller at the hardware level. The VRM section uses a relatively simple and straightforward 3-phase design for powering the GPU. I've seen some custom GTX 460 designs recently that bump this number up to six phases, but the three provided by the reference design seem to work well, even with some serious overclocking.

The EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC uses standard Power-SO8 packaging for the Single N-Channel MOSFET power transistors and drivers in the VRM section. This discrete implementation gives up the opportunity to save a little space, but it does give the designer a broader choice in component selection, compared to a DrMOS design. The 4935N devices driving the GPU can source a whopping 93A at an ambient temp of 25C, and are downgraded to 59A at 85C. We all know how hot video cards get, so it's a good idea to have plenty of reserve current capacity for these power devices.

The memory choice for the EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC is also consistent with the NVIDIA reference designs. The basic GTX 460 specs only require 900 MHz chips for the memory, but most cards have been using these Samsung K4G10325FE-HC05 GDDR5 parts, which are designed for up to 1000 MHz. The EVGA Precision software supplied with this Superclocked edition doesn't have the capability to increase memory voltage, so don't presume that you will get much more than the rated memory speed. The 1250 MHz versions of this chip have been mediocre overclockers on the Radeon platform; we'll have to see if the lower specified parts are a little more willing to exceed their ratings.

Now that we've had the grand tour of the EVGA GTX460 SC, inside and out, it's time to put it to the test. Well, Benchmark is our first name, so don't worry. There are a wide variety of tests waiting for you in the next several sections. Let's start off with a complete description of the Video Card Testing Methodology.

Video Card Testing Methodology

With the widespread adoption of Windows7 in the marketplace, and given the prolonged and extensive pre-release testing that occurred on a global scale, there are compelling reasons to switch all testing to this highly anticipated, operating system. Overall performance levels of Windows 7 are favorable compared to Windows XP, and there is solid support for the 64-bit version, something enthusiasts have anxiously awaited for years. After several months of product testing with Win7-64, I can vouch for its stability and performance; I can't think of any reasons why I would want to switch back to XP.

Our site polls and statistics indicate that the over 90% of our visitors use their PC for playing video games, and practically every one of you are using a screen resolutions mentioned below. Since all of the benchmarks we use for testing represent different game engine technology and graphic rendering processes, this battery of tests will provide a diverse range of results for you to gauge performance on your own computer system. All of the benchmark applications are capable of utilizing DirectX 10 or DirectX 11, and that is how they were tested. Some of these benchmarks have been used widely for DirectX 9 testing in the XP environment, and it is critically important to differentiate between results obtained with different versions. Each game behaves differently in DX9 and DX10 formats. Crysis is an extreme example, with frame rates in DirectX 10 only about half what was available in DirectX 9.

At the start of all tests, the previous display adapter driver is uninstalled and trace components are removed using Driver Cleaner Pro. We then restart the computer system to establish our display settings and define the monitor. Once the hardware is prepared, we begin our testing. According to the Steam Hardware Survey published at the time of Windows 7 launch, the most popular gaming resolution is 1280x1024 (17-19" standard LCD monitors) closely followed by 1024x768 (15-17" standard LCD). However, because these resolutions are considered 'low' by most standards, our benchmark performance tests concentrate on the up-and-coming higher-demand resolutions: 1680x1050 (22-24" widescreen LCD) and 1920x1200 (24-28" widescreen LCD monitors).

Each benchmark test program begins after a system restart, and the very first result for every test will be ignored since it often only caches the test. This process proved extremely important in several benchmarks, as the first run served to cache maps allowing subsequent tests to perform much better than the first. Each test is completed five times, the high and low results are discarded, and the average of the three remaining results is displayed in our article.

A combination of synthetic and video game benchmark tests have been used in this article to illustrate relative performance among graphics solutions. Our benchmark frame rate results are not intended to represent real-world graphics performance, as this experience would change based on supporting hardware and the perception of individuals playing the video game.

Intel P55 Express Test System

• Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D-E Pro (1002 BIOS)
• System Memory: 2x 2GB GSKILL Ripjaws DDR3 1600MHz (7-8-7-24)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-750 (OC @ 4.0 GHz)
• CPU Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems (Delta AFB1212SHE PWM Fan)
• Video: EVGA GeForce GTX460 Superclocked (01G-P3-1372-TR Forceware v258.96)
• Drive 1: OCZ Vertex SSD, 32GB
• Drive 2: Western Digital VelociRaptor, 150GB
• Optical Drive: Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7190A-OB 20X IDE DVD Burner
• Enclosure: CM STORM Sniper Gaming Case
• PSU: Corsair CMPSU-750TX ATX12V V2.2 750Watt
• Monitor: SOYO 24"; Widescreen LCD Monitor (DYLM24E6) 1920X1200
• Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate Version 6.1 (Build 7600)
  

DirectX 10 Benchmark Applications

• 3DMark Vantage v1.02 (Extreme Quality, 8x MSAA, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, 1:2 Scale)
• Crysis v1.21 Benchmark (DX10, Very High Settings, 0x and 4x MSAA, Island Demo)
• Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark Demo (DX10, Ultra Quality, 8x MSAA)
• Far Cry 2 v1.02 (DX10, Very High Performance, Ultra-High Quality, 8x MSAA, Small Ranch Demo)
• Resident Evil 5 Benchmark (DX10, 8x MSAA, Motion Blur ON, Quality Levels-High)

DirectX 11 Benchmark Applications

• BattleField: Bad Company 2 (High Quality, HBAO, 8x MSAA, 16x AF, Single-Player Intro Scene)
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.0 (DX11, Normal Tessellation, 16x AF, 4x and 8x MSAA)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat Benchmark (Ultra-Quality, Enhanced DX11, 4x MSAA, SSAO-HDAO,Ultra)
• Aliens vs Predator (Very High Quality, 4x MSAA, 16x AF, SSAO, Tessellation, Advanced Shadows)

I decided to test this video card in two configurations: first with its modest 50MHz factory overclock (725MHz core), and then with my own 175MHz overclock (850MHz core). I had to raise the core voltage from its default setting of 0.987 V to 1.000 V in order to achieve stability at this speed, but that is a minute amount compared to what this chip is capable of. My goal was to show what performance levels could be reached without extreme measures. Anyone who buys this card should be able to achieve this result, not just the mad scientists that you read about on overclocking forums. The fact that MSI supplies the software to make it not just possible but easy, is icing on the cake. While I was at it, I bumped up the memory clock to 50 MHz above their rated speed, to 1050 MHz (4.2 Gbps data rate).

I've listed the same card twice below, in two different configurations, so don't be confused. It's the same card, just two different clock rates.

Video Card Test Products

• XFX Radeon HD5750 (HD-575X-ZNFC - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• ATI Radeon HD5770 (Engineering Sample - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• XFX Radeon HD5830 (HD-583X-ZNFV - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX460-768 (Engineering Sample: Forceware v258.96)
• XFX Radeon HD5850 (21162-00-50R - ATI Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC (01G-P3-1372-TR: Forceware v258.96)
• ASUS GeForce GTX 260 (ENGTX260 MATRIX - Forceware v197.45)
• ASUS GeForce GTX 285 (GTX285 MATRIX - Forceware v197.45)
• XFX Radeon HD5870 (HD-587X-ZNFC - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• ASUS Radeon HD5870 (EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2) - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)

3DMark Vantage Performance Tests

3DMark Vantage is a computer benchmark by Futuremark (formerly named Mad Onion) to determine the DirectX 10 performance of 3D game performance with graphics cards. A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system's 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system.

There are two graphics tests in 3DMark Vantage: Jane Nash (Graphics Test 1) and New Calico (Graphics Test 2). The Jane Nash test scene represents a large indoor game scene with complex character rigs, physical GPU simulations, multiple dynamic lights, and complex surface lighting models. It uses several hierarchical rendering steps, including for water reflection and refraction, and physics simulation collision map rendering. The New Calico test scene represents a vast space scene with lots of moving but rigid objects and special content like a huge planet and a dense asteroid belt.

At Benchmark Reviews, we believe that synthetic benchmark tools are just as valuable as video games, but only so long as you're comparing apples to apples. Since the same test is applied in the same controlled method with each test run, 3DMark is a reliable tool for comparing graphic cards against one-another.

1680x1050 is rapidly becoming the new 1280x1024. More and more widescreen are being sold with new systems or as upgrades to existing ones. Even in tough economic times, the tide cannot be turned back; screen resolution and size will continue to creep up. Using this resolution as a starting point, the maximum settings were applied to 3DMark Vantage include 8x Anti-Aliasing, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, all quality levels at Extreme, and Post Processing Scale at 1:2.

3DMark Vantage GPU Test: Jane Nash

Our first test shows the GTX460 placed right where NVIDIA wants it. The 768MB part is trading blows with the HD 5830 and the 1 GB part is going toe-to-toe with the HD 5850. If you think this is aiming a little too high, check out my Final Thoughts? The EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC is overclocked from the factory, by about 13% (+88MHz), and I am showing the results from these factory settings. We already know this chips an overclocking monster, and I'll get into that later. The big hitch in the graph is caused by the older GT200-based cards, which I am including for reference in case you want to see whether it's worth upgrading. The synthetic results overwhelmingly say: Yes.

At 1920x1200 native resolution, things look much the same as they did at the lower screen size; just the absolute values are lower, the ranking stays the same. One thing you may have noticed is how well the HD 5830 does on this test, compared to the HD 5770. That issue has been beat to death, but I mention it to demonstrate that the EVGA GTX460 SC beats the HD 5830 even when it has everything going for it. The 5870 is the only card that can break 30FPS at this resolution, and it's pretty obvious as the test plays out on the screen. All the lower choices seem choppy by comparison. Let's take a look at test#2, which has a lot more surfaces to render, with all those asteroids flying around the doomed planet New Calico.

3DMark Vantage GPU Test: New Calico

In the medium resolution New Calico test, the moderately overclocked EVGA GTX460 SC does so well that it edges out an ATI HD 5850 with base clocks. That's an impressive feat for a card in this price range. The overclock results show that synthetic performance scales linearly with higher clock rates, just as you would suspect. Even though the 763 MHz GTX460 gets within 2 FPS of a stock HD 5870, it still takes a 1.0 GHz Cypress core to get over 30 FPS in this medium-resolution benchmark, which shows how tough this test really is.

At a higher screen resolution of 1920x1200, the EVGA GTX460 SC with its factory OC keeps its slim lead over the HD 5850, by less than 2 FPS. Even the fastest single GPU cards have trouble rendering this scene, with an average frame rate in the mid 20s. Soon this benchmark suite may be replaced with DX11-based tests, but in the fading days of DX10 it has been a very reliable benchmark for high-end video cards.

We need to look at some actual gaming performance to verify these results, so let's take a look in the next section, at how these cards stack up in the standard bearer for gaming benchmarks, Crysis.

Crysis Performance tests

Crysis uses a new graphics engine: the CryENGINE2, which is the successor to Far Cry's CryENGINE. CryENGINE2 is among the first engines to use the Direct3D 10 (DirectX 10) framework, but can also run using DirectX 9, on Vista, Windows XP and the new Windows 7. As we'll see, there are significant frame rate reductions when running Crysis in DX10. It's not an operating system issue, DX9 works fine in WIN7, but DX10 knocks the frame rates in half.

Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders. To get the most out of modern multicore processor architectures, CPU intensive subsystems of CryENGINE2 such as physics, networking and sound, have been re-written to support multi-threading.

Crysis offers an in-game benchmark tool, which is similar to World in Conflict. This short test does place some high amounts of stress on a graphics card, since there are so many landscape features rendered. For benchmarking purposes, Crysis can mean trouble as it places a high demand on both GPU and CPU resources. Benchmark Reviews uses the Crysis Benchmark Tool by Mad Boris to test frame rates in batches, which allows the results of many tests to be averaged.

Low-resolution testing allows the graphics processor to plateau its maximum output performance, and shifts demand onto the other system components. At the lower resolutions Crysis will reflect the GPU's top-end speed in the composite score, indicating full-throttle performance with little load. This makes for a less GPU-dependant test environment, but it is sometimes helpful in creating a baseline for measuring maximum output performance. At the 1280x1024 resolution used by 17" and 19" monitors, the CPU and memory have too much influence on the results to be used in a video card test. At the widescreen resolutions of 1680x1050 and 1900x1200, the performance differences between video cards under test are mostly down to the cards themselves, but there is still some influence by the rest of the system components.

With medium screen resolution and no MSAA dialed in, the EVGA GTX460 SC is slightly better than the HD 5830 and about four FPS behind a stock HD 5850. Unlike many so-called TWIMTBP titles, Crysis has always run quite well on the ATI architecture. The GTX 460 is still competitive here at current pricing, so don't look at the performance in this title as anything like a failure. It's just not a slam dunk victory for NVIDIA this time.

Crysis is one of those few games that stress the CPU almost as much as the GPU. As we increase the load on the graphics card, with higher resolution and AA processing, the situation may change. Remember all the test results in this article are with maximum allowable image quality settings, plus all the performance numbers in Crysis took a major hit when Benchmark Reviews switched over to the DirectX 10 API for all our testing.

At 1900 x 1200 resolution, the relative rankings stay the same; the raw numbers just go down. With the increased load on the GPU, the GTX 460 can't quite get above the 30 FPS mark, even with a 13% overclock above NVIDIA's spec of 675 MHz. It takes more than any mid-range GPU can muster to play Crysis at high resolution, but that's no surprise.

Now let's turn up the heat a bit on the ROP units, and add some Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing. With 4x MSAA cranked in, the EVGA GTX460 SC loses about 5 FPS at 1680x1050 screen resolution and can't manage to stay above the 30 FPS line. Compared to the ATI offerings, the EVGA GTX460 SC with out-of-the-box settings edges out the HD 5830, and is just behind the HD 5850. These are very competitive results....especially when you factor market pricing into the comparison, but the bottom line is that Crysis is not this card's strong point. We'll see the tables turned soon enough. None of the old GT200 cards are a serious threat to the newer cards with their 40nm GPU technology.

This is one of our toughest tests, at 1900 x 1200, maximum quality levels, and 4x AA. Only one GPU gets above 30 FPS in this test, and until recently it was the fastest single-GPU card on the planet, the Radeon HD 5870. In the middle ranges, the HD 5850 holds on to its spot as performance leader, but the GTX 460 is probably the value leader. We'll have to get a lot more results tabulated before we can validate that judgment.

In our next section, Benchmark Reviews tests with Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark. Read on to see how a blended high-demand GPU test with low video frame buffer demand will impact our test products.

Devil May Cry 4 Test Results

Devil May Cry 4 was released for the PC platform in early 2007 as the fourth installment to the Devil May Cry video game series. DMC4 is a direct port from the PC platform to console versions, which operate at the native 720P game resolution with no other platform restrictions. Devil May Cry 4 uses the refined MT Framework game engine, which has been used for many popular Capcom game titles over the past several years.

MT Framework is an exclusive seventh generation game engine built to be used with games developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and PC ports. MT stands for "Multi-Thread", "Meta Tools" and "Multi-Target". Originally meant to be an outside engine, but none matched their specific requirements in performance and flexibility. Games using the MT Framework are originally developed on the PC and then ported to the other two console platforms. On the PC version a special bonus called Turbo Mode is featured, giving the game a slightly faster speed, and a new difficulty called Legendary Dark Knight Mode is implemented. The PC version also has both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 mode for Windows XP, Vista, and Widows 7 operating systems.

It's always nice to be able to compare the results we receive here at Benchmark Reviews with the results you test for on your own computer system. Usually this isn't possible, since settings and configurations make it nearly difficult to match one system to the next; plus you have to own the game or benchmark tool we used. Devil May Cry 4 fixes this, and offers a free benchmark tool available for download. Because the DMC4 MT Framework game engine is rather low-demand for today's cutting edge video cards, Benchmark Reviews uses the 1920x1200 resolution to test with 8x AA (highest AA setting available to Radeon HD video cards) and 16x AF.

Devil May Cry 4 is not as demanding a benchmark as it used to be. Only scene #2 and #4 are worth looking at from the standpoint of trying to separate the fastest video cards from the slower ones. Still, it represents a typical environment for many games that our readers still play on a regular basis, so it's good to see what works with it and what doesn't. Any of the tested cards will do a credible job in this application, and the performance scales in a pretty linear fashion. You get what you pay for when running this game, at least for benchmarks. This is one time where you can generally use the maximum available anti-aliasing settings, so NVIDIA users should feel free to crank it up to 16X. The DX10 "penalty" is of no consequence here.

The results in scene two show a pattern that looks a lot like the synthetic results. The 768 MB GTX460 hangs tight to the HD 5830 and the tweaked GTX460 from EVGA is right there with the HD 5850. This is definitely one of the tests where the HD 5830 stumbles a bit, providing only a small increase in performance over the HD 5770, while the HD 5850 runs off ahead of the group.

The GT200 cards from NVIDIA stage a small comeback in Devil May Cry 4, but are still showing their age. The ASUS EAH5870V2 takes full advantage of an 18% overclock, even at these crazy frame rates, putting up 18% higher frame rates than the 5870 with stock clocks. I love the fact that this benchmark doesn't seem to get bottlenecked by the CPU, even at these crazy high frame rates.

In Scene #4, the EVGA GTX460 SC, with its factory overclock (763 MHz) just sneaks past the HD 5850. In a previous test, where we had equal clocks on the two cards: 725 MHz core clock on the GTX460, and 725 MHz on the 5850 - we got the same FPS. Score another one for the GTX 460.

Our next benchmark of the series is for a very popular FPS game that rivals Crysis for world-class DirectX 10 graphics in a far away land.

Far Cry 2 Benchmark Results

Ubisoft developed Far Cry 2 as a sequel to the original, but with a very different approach to game play and story line. Far Cry 2 features a vast world built on Ubisoft's new game engine called Dunia, meaning "world", "earth" or "living" in Farci. The setting in Far Cry 2 takes place on a fictional Central African landscape, set to a modern day timeline.

The Dunia engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2, by Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers realistic semi-destructible environments, special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storms, real-time night-and-day sun light and moon light cycles, dynamic music system, and non-scripted enemy A.I. actions.

The Dunia game engine takes advantage of multi-core processors as well as multiple processors and supports DirectX 9 as well as DirectX-10. Only 2 or 3 percent of the original CryEngine code is re-used, according to Michiel Verheijdt, Senior Product Manager for Ubisoft Netherlands. Additionally, the engine is less hardware-demanding than CryEngine 2, the engine used in Crysis.

However, it should be noted that Crysis delivers greater character and object texture detail, as well as more destructible elements within the environment. For example; trees breaking into many smaller pieces and buildings breaking down to their component panels. Far Cry 2 also supports the amBX technology from Philips. With the proper hardware, this adds effects like vibrations, ambient colored lights, and fans that generate wind effects.

There is a benchmark tool in the PC version of Far Cry 2, which offers an excellent array of settings for performance testing. Benchmark Reviews used the maximum settings allowed for DirectX-10 tests, with the resolution set to 1920x1200. Performance settings were all set to 'Very High', Render Quality was set to 'Ultra High' overall quality, 8x anti-aliasing was applied. HDR and Bloom are automatically enabled in DX10 mode.

Even on a game that typically favors the Green Machine, the performance of the latest NVIDIA GPU in this test is nothing short of amazing. It's not worth even running the numbers, the advantage for the GF104 chip is so overwhelming. Using the short 'Ranch Small' time demo (which yields the lowest FPS of the three tests available), many of the midrange products we've tested are capable of producing playable frame rates with the settings all turned up. Now it seems we have a midrange video card that absolutely dominates this game. If you like this game, the GTX460 is for you.

The higher resolution testing doesn't change the rankings at all, and the EVGA GTX460 SC still produces stellar results at 1920 x 1200. With these kinds of average frame rates, there is less chance of any stutter making it into game play. I was curious to see how well the GTX460 did on minimum frame rates, given the outstanding performance on average, so here is what I learned:

The minimum frame rate never dropped below 50 FPS, and there are only two sharp dips in the chart, one at the very beginning and again at the 13 second mark. It was probably one of the many explosions, the first one takes place at close range, and has a lot of detail associated with it. I've been glancing at these charts every time I run this benchmark, even though we generally don't report the results, and this is definitely one of the smoother and flatter curves I've seen.

Our next benchmark of the series puts our collection of video cards against some fresh graphics in the recently released Resident Evil 5 benchmark.

Resident Evil 5 Test Results

PC gamers get the ultimate Resident Evil package in this new PC version with exclusive features including NVIDIA's new GeForce3D Vision technology (wireless 3D Vision glasses sold separately), new costumes and a new mercenary mode with more enemies on screen. Delivering an infinite level of detail, realism and control, Resident Evil 5 is certain to bring new fans to the series. Incredible changes to game play and the world of Resident Evil make it a must-have game for gamers across the globe.

Years after surviving the events in Raccoon City, Chris Redfield has been fighting the scourge of bio-organic weapons all over the world. Now a member of the Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSSA), Chris is sent to Africa to investigate a biological agent that is transforming the populace into aggressive and disturbing creatures. New cooperatively-focused game play revolutionizes the way that Resident Evil is played. Chris and Sheva must work together to survive new challenges and fight dangerous hordes of enemies.

From a gaming performance perspective, Resident Evil 5 uses Next Generation of Fear - Ground breaking graphics that utilize an advanced version of Capcom's proprietary game engine, MT Framework, which powered the hit titles Devil May Cry 4, Lost Planet and Dead Rising. The game uses a wider variety of lighting to enhance the challenge. Fear Light as much as Shadow - Lighting effects provide a new level of suspense as players attempt to survive in both harsh sunlight and extreme darkness. As usual, we maxed out the graphics settings on the benchmark version of this popular game, to put the hardware through its paces. Much like Devil May Cry 4, it's relatively easy to get good frame rates in this game, so take the opportunity to turn up all the knobs and maximize the visual experience. The Resident Evil5 benchmark tool provides a graph of continuous frame rates and averages for each of four distinct scenes which take place in different areas of the compound. In addition it calculates an overall average for the four scenes. The averages for scene #3 and #4 are what we report here, as they are the most challenging.

Looking at the results for area #3, it's blatantly obvious that ALL the NVIDIA cards do exceptionally well in this scene. The EVGA GTX460 blows past an HD 5870 at stock settings. Coincidently, the GTX285 matches the performance level of the HD 5870. So it's clear, that this is not a fair comparison. If you like this game, all of the GTX cards offer best value in this instance. Plus, all that performance is available at a substantial discount with the new GTX460. There is quite a bit of variation in the game play between the four areas, so let's see what happens in the next scene, area #4.

In area #4, the 5870 convincingly reclaims its title, and the 5850 comes back to compete with the GTX460; this looks more like we've seen on the other titles so far. I'm not sure what it is in area #3 that gives the GTX cards such an advantage, but it doesn't last throughout the entire benchmark. In both scenes, the factory overclock on the GTX 460 returns a comparable gain in performance, consistent with the improvements we've seen in the other benchmarks. Let's start looking at some new titles that were developed specifically to showcase DX11, and see if there are any more surprises in store for the EVGA GTX460 SC video card.

In our next section, Benchmark Reviews looks at one of the newest and most popular games, Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The game lacks a dedicated benchmarking tool, so we'll be using FRAPS to measure frame rates within portions of the game itself.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Test Results

The Battlefield franchise has been known to demand a lot from PC graphics hardware. DICE (Digital Illusions CE) has incorporated their Frostbite-1.5 game engine with Destruction-2.0 feature set with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 features destructible environments using Frostbit Destruction-2.0, and adds gravitational bullet drop effects for projectiles shot from weapons at a long distance. The Frostbite-1.5 game engine used on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 consists of DirectX-10 primary graphics, with improved performance and softened dynamic shadows added for DirectX-11 users. At the time Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was published, DICE was also working on the Frostbite-2.0 game engine. This upcoming engine will include native support for DirectX-10.1 and DirectX-11, as well as parallelized processing support for 2-8 parallel threads. This will improve performance for users with an Intel Core-i7 processor.

In our benchmark tests of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the first three minutes of action in the single-player raft night scene are captured with FRAPS. Relative to the online multiplayer action, these frame rate results are nearly identical to daytime maps with the same video settings.

BF:BC2 shows that DirectX10 need not be the death card for NVIDIA GeForce products; the Frostbite-1.5 game engine is partial to NVIDIA products over ATI, despite AMD's sponsorship of the game. In Battlefield: Bad Company 2 the base model GTX460, with 768 MB of RAM and a 192-bit data path to that memory, pretty much ties with the ATI Radeon HD 5830. Once the memory is brought up to the full 1 GB and the GPU clocks are tweaked up a bit to 763/1526 MHz, the EVGA GTX460 SC improves its lead over the HD 5830 to 25%. BTW, I think it's a fair fight comparing the Cypress to the GF104; they both have roughly 2 billon transistors, use the exact same fabrication technology-sourced from the same supplier, and many are running at 800-850 MHz core frequencies here. As always, in the fight between NVIDIA and ATI, its how each company has chosen to arrange those transistors; they have radically different computing architectures.

I know general purpose computing uses a very small fraction of the power contained in today's average PC, but it does seem that gaming applications are at least trying to push the envelope. Playing this game with the previous generation of graphics cards is a complete waste of time and effort. Some of that is attributable to advances in 3D Graphics APIs (application programming interfaces) like DirectX11, but at some level the game developers have to make decisions about how much detail to include in the scenes, and how realistically to render soft surfaces like skin and water. I know some of the improvements may look minimal or insignificant when perusing the promotional screenshots, but they all add up, in the final result. Bring it on, I say. I'll find some other use for that old HD 4850 graphics card.

In our next section, we are going to switch over to DirectX 11 testing and look at the one of the newest DX11 benchmarks, straight from Russia and the studios of Unigine. Their latest benchmark is called "Heaven", and it has some very interesting and non-typical graphics. So, let's take a peek at what Heaven v2.0 looks like.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark

The Unigine "Heaven 2.0" benchmark is a free, publicly available, tool that grants the power to unleash the graphics capabilities in DirectX-11 for Windows 7 or updated Vista Operating Systems. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode, emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

The distinguishing feature in the Unigine Heaven benchmark is a hardware tessellation that is a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance. Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of veridical visual perception: the virtual reality transcends conjured by your hand. The "Heaven" benchmark excels at providing the following key features:

• Native support of OpenGL, DirectX 9, DirectX-10 and DirectX-11
• Comprehensive use of tessellation technology
• Advanced SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion)
• Volumetric cumulonimbus clouds generated by a physically accurate algorithm
• Dynamic simulation of changing environment with high physical fidelity
• Interactive experience with fly/walk-through modes
• ATI Eyefinity support

Starting off with a lighter load of 4x MSAA, we see a steady progression of performance as you move up the ATI 5xxx ladder. Stuck there in the middle of the chart are two results that show a clear distinction between the two competing architectures. Even in the "normal" tessellation mode, this is a graphics test that really shows off the full effect of the new technology. The Fermi architecture has so much more computing power designated and available for tessellation, that it's no small surprise to see the card doing so well here. There is still some jerkiness to the display with all of the cards; now that I've seen the landscape go by for a couple hundred times, I can spot the small stutters more easily. This test was run with 4x anti-aliasing; let's see how the cards stack up when we increase MSAA to the maximum level of 8x.

Increasing the anti-aliasing just improved the already convincing performance of the EVGA GTX460 SC, relative to the Radeon HD 5xxx series. It's interesting to note that the HD 5850 doesn't stand out so much with this benchmark; everywhere else, it seems to jump a little higher than its Radeon neighbors. There's no denying that the Fermi chip, in its best interpretation yet: the GF104, is a killer when called upon for tessellation duty. The only caveat is that the 768MB version did not do as well with 8X MSAA enabled. Remember, the reduction in memory size comes with a corresponding reduction in memory bandwidth, and the number of ROP units that are enabled. That's probably what killed its performance in this particular test, not the actual amount of GDDR5 available.

Let's take a look at one more DX11 benchmark, a decidedly less cheerful scenario in a post-apocalyptic "Zone", which is traversed by mercenary guides called Stalkers.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Test Results

The events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat unfolds shortly after the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Having discovered about the open path to the Zone center, the government decides to hold a large-scale military "Fairway" operation aimed to take the CNPP under control. According to the operation's plan, the first military group is to conduct an air scouting of the territory to map out the detailed layouts of anomalous fields location. Thereafter, making use of the maps, the main military forces are to be dispatched. Despite thorough preparations, the operation fails. Most of the avant-garde helicopters crash. In order to collect information on reasons behind the operation failure, Ukraine's Security Service sends their agent into the Zone center.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: CoP is developed on X-Ray game engine v.1.6, and implements several ambient occlusion (AO) techniques including one that AMD has developed. AMD's AO technique is optimized to run on efficiently on Direct3D11 hardware. It has been chosen by a number of games (e.g. BattleForge, HAWX, and the new Aliens vs. Predator) for the distinct effect in it adds to the final rendered images. This AO technique is called HDAO which stands for ‘High Definition Ambient Occlusion' because it picks up occlusions from fine details in normal maps.

Once we turn on DirectX 11 with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: CoP, we're left with only the latest GPUs to test with. No more GT200 cards, which had trouble handling the DX10 features in this game anyways. In this case, the GTX460 doesn't jump to the head of the class like it did with Unigine's heaven 2.0, primarily because there isn't as much emphasis on tessellation here. The primary influence on the overall graphics design seems to be the features introduced in DirectX 10 and 10.1, namely SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion).

"Shadows" is the first thing that comes to my mind when trying to think of words to describe the scenes in this gloomy adventure. While tessellation seems to help emphasize the height dimension, i.e. large scale textures, SSAO plays in the shadows, where the dimensions are relatively flat. They are both required in order to enhance realism, but between Heaven and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: CoP, each of these two games/benchmarks emphasizes one over the other. Fermi may be "DX11 Done Right", but I think there is still some work for NVIDIA to do on optimizing their H/W and S/W for DX10 code.

Our next benchmark of the series is not for the faint of heart. Lions and Tigers - OK, fine. Guys with guns - I can deal with that. But those nasty little spiders......NOOOOOO! How did I get stuck in the middle of a deadly fight between Aliens vs. Predator anyway? Check out the results from our newest DirectX11 benchmark in the next section.

Aliens Vs. Predator Test Results

Rebellion, SEGA and Twentieth Century FOX have released the Aliens vs. Predator DirectX 11 Benchmark to the public. As with many of the already released DirectX 11 benchmarks, the Aliens vs. Predator DirectX 11 benchmark leverages your DirectX 11 hardware to provide an immersive game play experience through the use of DirectX 11 Tessellation and DirectX 11 Advanced Shadow features.

In Aliens vs. Predator, DirectX 11 Geometry Tessellation is applied in an effective manner to enhance and more accurately depict HR Giger's famous Alien design. Through the use of a variety of adaptive schemes, applying tessellation when and where it is necessary, the perfect blend of performance and visual fidelity is achieved with at most a 4% change in performance.

DirectX 11 hardware also allows for higher quality, smoother and more natural looking shadows as well. DirectX 11 Advanced Shadows allow for the rendering of high-quality shadows, with smoother, artifact-free penumbra regions, which otherwise could not be realized, again providing for a higher quality, more immersive gaming experience.

Benchmark Reviews is committed to pushing the PC graphics envelope, and whenever possible we configure benchmark software to its maximum settings for our tests. In the case of Aliens vs. Predator, all cards were tested with the following settings: Texture Quality-Very High, Shadow Quality-High, HW Tessellation & Advanced Shadow Sampling-ON, Multi Sample Anti-Aliasing-4x, Anisotropic Filtering-16x, Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)-ON. You will see that this is a challenging benchmark, with all the settings turned up and a screen resolution of 1920 x 1200, as only the HD5870 cards achieved an average frame rate of 30FPS.

This is truly a DirectX11 only benchmark, so we're limited to looking at only the latest generation cards that I had available. This is clearly a tough benchmark, and it's very useful for testing the latest and greatest graphics hardware. The stock ATI HD 5870, with a core clock of 850 MHz, just barely reached 30 FPS as an average frame rate. Using anything less than the top hardware, some scenes had a jumpy quality to them. The overclocked EVGA GTX460 SC got the closest, in terms of smooth video quality, with an average frame rate of 24 FPS. In this instance, the lower spec'd GTX460 just edged out the HD 5830, no doubt due to its tessellation muscle.

I chose Aliens vs. Predator to do my major overclock testing with. It drives the cards really hard, and will crash at the first sign of misbehavior. It also recovers nicely, which is handy for repeated testing. At the maximum clock rate that I could keep stable, which was 910 MHz on the core and 1820 on the shaders, the AvP benchmark was running reliably at 27.7 FPS. Temps were moderate, at 54C with 100% fan settings, even after a dozen consecutive runs.

In our next section, we investigate the thermal performance of the EVGA GTX460 SC, and see how well the reference cooler works on the latest Fermi offering.

EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC Temperatures

It's hard to know exactly when the first video card got overclocked, and by whom. What we do know is that it's hard to imagine a computer enthusiast or gamer today that doesn't overclock their hardware. Of course, not every video card has the head room. Some products run so hot that they can't suffer any higher temperatures than they generate straight from the factory. This is why we measure the operating temperature of the video card products we test.

To begin testing, I use GPU-Z to measure the temperature at idle as reported by the GPU. Next I use FurMark 1.8.2 to generate maximum thermal load and record GPU temperatures at high-power 3D mode. The ambient room temperature remained stable at 26C throughout testing. I know this is a bit higher than the average American household, but we had a massive heat wave this summer and my testing is done in an upstairs room that doesn't get as much of the central A/C as I would like... Besides, I know some of you are not living in iceboxes and would be interested in how well the GTX 460 handles high ambient temps. I do have a ton of airflow into the video card section of my benchmarking case, with a 200mm side fan blowing directly inward, so that helps alleviate the high ambient temps.

The EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC video card recorded 28C in idle 2D mode, and increased to 63C after 30 minutes of stability testing in full 3D mode, at 1920x1200 resolution, and the maximum MSAA setting of 8X. With the fan set on Automatic, the speed never rose above 40% under full load. Before we talk about the temps under load, it's worth paying attention to the idle temperatures. I rarely see idle temps this low above ambient, but if you follow along into the next section on power consumption, I think you'll see the explanation.

63C is a good result for temperature stress testing, especially with such a powerful GPU, stock fan settings, a moderately high ambient of 26C, and fan speeds controlled by the card. I'm used to seeing video card manufacturers keeping the fan speeds low and letting GPU temps get into higher temperature regions. In this case, the fan controller didn't want to budge off of the 40% mark when running on auto. With a high quality PWM-controlled fan that runs fairly quiet, I don't know why the engineers didn't ramp it up a bit. There is definitely some benefit to running the fan harder, as you can see from the results above.

I rarely do my benchmarking tests with fans set on Automatic, preferring to give the GPU or CPU the best shot at surviving the day intact. With an integrated temperature controller in play though, I want to show how the manufacturer has programmed the system. This is one video card where I would put some effort into creating a custom fan profile, as I don't like the standard settings, which are basically: stuck on 40%.

Load temps never got higher than 60C when running continuous gaming benchmarks with automatic fan speeds, so the cooling system definitely does the job, and there is a lot of temperature headroom left for the GPU. The noise at 100% speed was much lower than some other products I've tested recently that had squirrel cage blowers. For me, this type of fan noise is less irritating than what a radial fan produces, but I still prefer a design that pushes all the heated air out the back of the case. For normal usage patterns including gaming, I'd leave the fan settings on Auto. For benchmarking, it's worth putting up with a tiny little bit more noise, and drive the fan at 100%.

FurMark is an OpenGL benchmark that heavily stresses and overheats the graphics card with fur rendering. The benchmark offers several options allowing the user to tweak the rendering: fullscreen / windowed mode, MSAA selection, window size, duration. The benchmark also includes a GPU Burner mode (stability test). FurMark requires an OpenGL 2.0 compliant graphics card with lot of GPU power!

FurMark does do two things extremely well: drive the thermal output of any graphics processor higher than any other application or video game, and it does so with consistency every time. While FurMark is not a true benchmark tool for comparing different video cards, it still works well to compare one product against itself using different drivers or clock speeds, or testing the stability of a GPU, as it raises the temperatures higher than any program. But in the end, it's a rather limited tool.

In our next section, we discuss electrical power consumption and learn how well (or poorly) each video card will impact your utility bill...

VGA Power Consumption

Life is not as affordable as it used to be, and items such as gasoline, natural gas, and electricity all top the list of resources which have exploded in price over the past few years. Add to this the limit of non-renewable resources compared to current demands, and you can see that the prices are only going to get worse. Planet Earth is needs our help, and needs it badly. With forests becoming barren of vegetation and snow capped poles quickly turning brown, the technology industry has a new attitude towards turning "green". I'll spare you the powerful marketing hype that gets sent from various manufacturers every day, and get right to the point: your computer hasn't been doing much to help save energy... at least up until now. Take a look at the idle clock rates NVIDIA programmed into the BIOS for this GPU. Yes, that's two digits for core and memory clocks, right out of the box; no special power-saving software utilities required.

To measure isolated video card power consumption, I used the Kill-A-Watt EZ (model P4460) power meter made by P3 International. A baseline test is taken without a video card installed inside our computer system, which is allowed to boot into Windows and rest idle at the login screen before power consumption is recorded. Once the baseline reading has been taken, the graphics card is installed and the system is again booted into Windows and left idle at the login screen. Our final loaded power consumption reading is taken with the video card running a stress test using FurMark. Below is a chart with the isolated video card power consumption (not system total) displayed in Watts for each specified test product:

The EVGA GTX460 SC (01G-P3-1372-TR) pulled just 17(139-122) watts at idle and 176(298-122) watts when running full out, using the test method outlined above. With the core voltage maxed out at 1.087 Volts, these numbers rose to 22 watts at idle and 216 watts at full load and 910 MHz. So, there's good news for those who were frightened off by the GF100 power consumption. The GF104 is much more frugal, especially in idle, where the device driver runs the clocks WAY down, without any apparent ill effects. Built on 40nm technology, those two billion transistors could be pulling a lot more power and generating a lot more heat with older chip technology, exactly like the GT200 cards built with 55nm chips did. Next, I'll offer you some final thoughts, and my conclusions. On to the next page...

NVIDIA GTX460 Final Thoughts

I wrote earlier this year that the first Fermi cards from NVIDIA were not really "Competitors" for ATI, because they occupied different price and market segments than the existing series of Radeon HD 5xxx video cards. Well all that's changed now, with the introduction of the GF104 GPU. With 1.95 billion transistors and an estimated die size of 366 mm2, it's in the same league as the ATI Cypress chip, introduced last September on the Radeon HD 5870. On second thought, maybe NVIDIA is in the National League and ATI is in the American League. They both play the same game, but by different rules, and once a year everyone gets together and pretends that they are all the same. Then it's Football season, thank goodness.

If I allow myself to anthropomorphize these products, I thought it was a bit cruel for the GF104 to go gunning for the HD 5830, the crippled sister of the Radeon family. As fate would have it, she held on to the $200-$240 market with only a hope and a prayer by her side. There was no better point for NVIDIA to attack, with a product more clearly focused on gaming graphics, than this thinly populated market segment. Resistance was futile; there was no way the GTX 460 was going to lose this battle. That's because the GTX 460 is a wolf in sheep's clothing. To put it more plainly, and give away my conclusion to those who are reading this entire page, the GTX 460 is a 5850-class video card with a $230 price tag.

From a technology standpoint, the GTX 460 has a whole lot more in common with the Radeon HD 5850 than it does with the HD 5830. Let's compare. The HD 5850 disables one out of ten (10%) possible stream processing units, the HD 5830 disables three out of every ten (30%). The GTX 460 ships with one out of eight possible Streaming Multiprocessor blocks (12.5%) disabled. Match ‘em up.... looks like a 5850 to me. Now let's look at clock rates, the top clock rate that ATI specs out for the Cypress line is 850 MHz, and the HD 5850 ships with a 725 MHz stock clock. It's too early to guess what the highest clock will be on the GF104 chip, but Galaxy and Palit are already shipping cards with factory core clocks over 800 MHz. Almost every reviewer that bothered to overclock their GTX 460 sample got it easily up to the 850 range. The base clock for the GTX 460 is 675 MHz. Once again, the similarity to the HD 5850 is pretty plain; chop off one (presumably dead) processing cluster and downclock the core significantly, so it doesn't compete with the top model (or the lame duck GTX 465 in this case...).

Forgive me for dabbling in a bit of fairy tale economics, but I can't help myself. First of all, I'm going to make a bold assumption that an HD 5830 chip costs exactly the same amount of money to produce as an HD 5870 or HD 5850. Same amount of silicon, same pin out, same package, same testing costs - all the production costs are equal. Next, I'll extend the same bold assumption and conclude that every GF104 chip costs almost exactly the same as the Cypress chips I just mentioned. Same number of transistors, same technology node, same supplier, same production lines, same die area, etc. The only difference is the R&D and SG&A costs that have to get amortized in to establish a fully burdened cost. (I wish I could add a survey button here: agree or disagree.) The pricing model on the other hand, has you paying for performance, which seems realistic and fair for the consumer. That's where NVIDIA chose their battleground.

I've come to one inescapable conclusion: the GTX460 is really comparable to an HD 5850 from a technology standpoint, and NVIDIA chose to sell it at a price point currently occupied by a lesser model, the HD 5830. Sounds like a good marketing plan to me, especially since I believe that every Cypress-based card and every GF104-based card share the same cost structure. Sure, you can add or subtract features, but the fundamental production costs are comparable, even if the performance is not. ATI has had a monopoly on DX11 hardware for what seems like ages, so you can't blame NVIDIA for throwing a spanner in the works and trying to disrupt the market. Finally, I can say, "Fermi = Competition". BTW, just like you, I can't wait to read the next chapter in this continuing battle saga.

EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC Conclusion

From a performance standpoint, it's impossible to argue with the numbers this card puts up, at its price point. As I hypothesized in my Final Thoughts, this is really a 5850-class card from a technology standpoint, and it performed like one. Overclocked up to what seems like its natural operating point, at 850 MHz on the core, it sweeps the field in its market segment. The cooling performance is perfectly adequate, including the noise required to achieve it, which was quite low. I would probably tweak the fan settings, as the default curve is not aimed at performance users. The combination of a new low-power Fermi GPU and a well designed cooler kept operating temperatures reasonably low during both intensive gaming and brutal stress testing.

The appearance of the EVGA GTX460 SC video card is somewhat limited by the fact that the physical design of the card is identical to a couple dozen other models on the market. EVGA did a nice job with the artwork, producing a subtle design that is attractive, but avoids the garish themes that often show up on products marketed at gamers. The graphic design suggests a quiet aggressiveness, but I'm not really sure why.

The build quality of the EVGA card was quite good. Everything is assembled well, everything fit when I put it back together, and the overall impression of the card was solid. The packaging was first rate and very creative in its use of recycled material for the inner enclosure. A small cutout on the rear of the package allows a purchaser to verify that the Serial Number and Model Number on the card matches the one on the box, which is a useful attempt at reducing fraud. I was impressed by the manufacturing quality of the PC board, especially compared to some recent samples I've seen. The GTX 460 is a relatively easy card to make because of its simplicity, and EVGA is smart to take advantage of the excellent design of the reference card.

I also have to give good marks to EVGA for the quality of their bundled software, EVGA Precision and OC Scanner. Between the two applications, they support most of the popular overclocking features, and they were both very reliable in operation. The lack of voltage adjustment for the GPU core and the memory knocks them out of the running for top honors, as there are more capable tools available which will work just fine on reference hardware like this.

The features of the EVGA GTX460 SC are fully comparable with the latest offerings from both camps. It has: Microsoft DirectX 11 Support, PhysX Technology, is 3D Vision Ready, also 3D Vision Surround Ready, CUDA Technology, SLI, 32x Anti-aliasing, PureVideo HD, and HDMI 1.4a support. We've been using some of these same, or competitive, technologies on a whole host of Radeon 5xxx cards since last September. Still, it's good to finally have rough parity in the features and functions arena.

As of early September 2010, the price for the EVGA GTX460 SC (01G-P3-1372-TR) is $229.99 at my favorite PC component supplier, Newegg. There is currently a $10 MIR available and EVGA is giving away free STEAM codes for Metro 2033 with every GTX460 they sell, so consider that in your purchasing decisions. It's hard to find a bad deal for any of the GTX460 cards; even if you are paying a premium for certain features, more memory, or a software bundle, the price-to-performance ratio is so good, there's not a lot of downside anywhere. This particular model comes with a two year warranty, which is one of the lower durations that EVGA offers. Some of their cards have lifetime warranties, but you generally have to pay a small premium for that.

Let's face it, almost any GTX460 card is going to get high marks at this stage of the game. NVIDIA has priced it very aggressively, and until ATI responds with some serious price cuts, or releases its next generation of video cards, this is the card to beat in the $200-$250 price range. It's pretty obvious from all the reporting that's been done already, that early production units of the GF104 have tons of overclocking headroom. I got over 900 MHz on the core clock with no trouble at all, and that's not an unusual result if you read through the enthusiast forums. I can't blame EVGA for using the reference design; they knew a good thing when they saw it, and so do I.

Pros:

+ Attractive and effective cooling system
+ Good monitoring and control S/W bundle
+ Excellent overclocking headroom
+ Outstanding price/performance ratio
+ 1000 MHz GDDR5 overclocks better than 1250 MHz parts
+ Very low idle clocks = low power consumption
+ Full length (1m) Mini HDMI cable included
+ Memory ICs are cooled by airflow from fan
+ PCB manufacturing quality looks good
+ Driver updates with improved performance were ready at launch

Cons:

- Fan speed doesn't move off 40% when GPU is stressed
- Some heat from the card is pushed into the case interior
- Voltage adjustments not included in EVGA Precision S/W

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.50
• Appearance: 8.50
• Construction: 9.25
• Functionality: 9.00
• Value: 9.50

Final Score: 9.15 out of 10.

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

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