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Before the release of any product we attend briefings with the company, and it is common for us to feel a mixture of scepticism and disbelief when we listen to executives rant on about performance benefits and why we should be telling the public to buy their solution. nVidia this time around were really pushing the ‘cooler running nature’ of this Fermi product as well as extremely low levels of noise from the redesigned cooler. We can understand why it would be a focus mind you as the GTX480 was the complete opposite.
From today we have changed our method of measuring noise levels. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. We are using a heatpipe based passive power supply and an Intel SSD to keep noise levels to a minimum. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests. Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The Cyclone cooler has already proved its capabilities in keeping temperatures at minimal levels but what is even more impressive is that the fan remains silent at all times, giving a good indication that the circular heatsink/heatpipe design is extremely efficient. Only under extended load does it because audible and this will be masked within most gaming PC chassis designs.
That card is extremely impressive, the GTX460 pricing is so good too.
MSI are kicking ass in 2010, no doubt about it. loved all the products you guys have reviewed here in the last couple of months.
Very good review, and what an overclock!
The cooler looks very like a Zalman design, glad you spotted that also. Wonder if they had a hand in this card. Where the hell are Zalman lately anyway?
Its hard to fault the GTX460 and these third party designs are pushing the box even further.
Wicked, very good price for such a modded design.
MSI are really using high quality components arent they? shows in all their products we are seeing lately.
Well this is my new card, once I can find it for sale.
Love the design, remember my zalman GFX cooler years ago, this looks very similar.
Damn, thats a sexy card. the price makes them such a good deal, not far from hd5850 in highly overclocked states either.
I would never have contemplated MSI for a graphics card, not until recently anyway.
Seems like a good value for money video card. the market is so competitive in 2010, I love to see it.
This card overclocks like a mofo, wonder if they hand picked it for kitguru however ?
Great review and I love the look of this baby.
This is a lovely looking product and well priced. I hope to see more from MSI in the future in this price point.
That is such a well made product really but they have stiff competition from other GTX460 makers
Well im glad to see the 1gb version has keep the MSI flag flying high, the 768mb model got good reviews also.
This begs the question, why the hell did nvidia make a 768mb version anyway, it seems so pointless really.
This seems to be a good price for value for money, under 200 now gives such good offerings to the end user. over 200 seems pointless unless you need 30 inch screen resolutions when gaming.
Seems a good first choice this, ATI are weak at 199. which is weird for them. 5850 needs to drop to 200 now.
Very nice product that. good pricing from MSI also, should sell well cause I want one 🙂
It actually shows how competitive the market is in 2010 at this time, 3 years ago, a card like this would have been a high end board.
ROP of GTX 460 1GB GPU should be 32 units.
Texture Filtering Rate (Bilinear) should be 37.8 as well.