The nVidia GTX460 has been well received both by the enthusiast community and hard to please critics. It is the first card in the Fermi range that everyone seems to agree is a fantastic buy, even when against competition from ATI.
We have already looked at the excellent GTX460 Superclocked Edition from eVGA and today we are going to analyse the newest offering from MSI, the N460GTX Cyclone which features 1GB of ram on a 256 bit memory interface (768mb version is 192 bit).
This Cyclone edition comes with a 51mhz overclock on the core (726mhz) with memory running at 900mhz (3600mhz effective).
The card features a rather eye catching circular ‘Cyclone' cooler, very reminiscent of a Zalman design. On a positive note you will be pleased to hear that all this modded goodness still hits a sweet spot of £200 including VAT. Actually just as we were going to press with this review the price dropped even further and you can pick it up now in the UK for just over £190 inc vat. Wozzers.
First, let us have a quick recap as to how this particular product compares with other cards in the nVidia line up.
Model | Geforce GTX 460 768MB | MSI N460 GTX Cyclone 1GD5 | Geforce GTX 465 | Geforce GTX 470 | Geforce GTX 480 |
Graphics Processing Clusters | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
Streaming Multiprocessors | 7 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 15 |
CUDA Cores | 336 | 336 | 352 | 448 | 480 |
Texture Units | 56 | 56 | 44 | 56 | 50 |
ROP Units | 24 | 32 | 32 | 40 | 48 |
Graphics Clock (Fixed Function Units) | 675mhz | 726mhz | 607mhz | 607mhz | 700mhz |
Processor Clock (CUDA Cores) | 1350mhz | 1451mhz | 1215mhz | 1215mhz | 1401mhz |
Memory Clock (Clock Rate/Data Rate) | 900mhz/3600mhz | 900mhz/3600mhz | 802mhz/3206mhz | 837mhz/3348 mhz | 924 mhz/3696mhz |
Total Video Memory | 768MB | 1024MB | 1024MB | 1280MB | 1536MB |
Memory Interface | 192-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 320-bit | 384-bit |
Total Memory Bandwidth | 86.4GB/s | 115.2GB/s | 102.6 GB/s | 133.9 GB/s | 177.4 GB/s |
Texture Filtering Rate (Bilinear) | 37.8 Gigatexels/sec | 37.8 Gigatexels/sec | 26.7 Gigatexels/sec | 34.0 GigaTexels/sec | 42.0 GigaTexels/sec |
Fabrication process | 40nm | 40nm | 40nm | 40nm | 40nm |
Connectors | 2x Dual Link DVI-I1x Mini HDMI | 2x Dual Link DVI-I1x Mini HDMI | 2x Dual Link DVI-I1x Mini HDMI | 2x Dual Link DVI-I1x Mini HDMI | 2x Dual Link DVI-I1x Mini HDMI |
Form Factor | Dual Slot | Dual Slot | Dual Slot | Dual Slot | Dual Slot |
Power Connectors | 2x6pin | 2x6pin | 2x6pin | 2x6pin | 1x6pin, 1x8pin |
Recommended Power Supply | 450 watts | 450 watts | 550 watts | 550 watts | 650 watts |
Thermal Design Power | 150 watts | 150 watts | 200 watts | 215 watts | 250 watts |
Thermal Threshold | 104c | 104c | 105c | 105c | 105c |