HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2011 Editor's Choice - Part 2
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Best Mainstream NVIDIA Graphics Card
Best Mainstream NVIDIA Graphics Card
When we first got our hands on NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460, we were pleasantly surprised by what it offered. Powered by the redesigned GF104 chip, it provided competitive performance, attractive price and much improved power and thermal characteristics. Hence, not only was the GeForce GTX 460 the first truly new mainstream part for NVIDIA since the GeForce 9800 GT, it was also the best thing to come from NVIDIA for some time and not surprisingly, the GeForce GTX 460 marked a turn for fortunes for NVIDIA and its much beleaguered Fermi architecture.
Needless to say, NVIDIA’s partners capitalized on this efficient chip by releasing many custom and factory overclocked versions of the GeForce GTX 460. And we are here to find out which is best.
Nominees:
- ASUS ENGTX 460 DirectCU TOP
- ECS GeForce GTX 460 Black
- Gainward GeForce GTX 460 Golden Sample GLH
- Galaxy GeForce GTX 460 Super OC
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 SOC
- Manli GeForce GTX 460
- MSI N460GTX Hawk
- Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic Platinum
- Sparkle Calibre X460G
- Zotac GeForce GTX 460 AMP! Edition
And the Winner Is...
In face of such stiff competition, the MSI N460GTX Hawk was, for us, the best all-rounder. Because of its slightly more modest clock speeds, it may not be the fastest card out of the box, but its performance is still very competitive. However, it makes up with its outstanding overclocking performance, achieving an incredible 950MHz at the core and 4000MHz DDR at the memory, and so it gets our Most Overclockable Award. This is testament to the technologies that MSI has implemented on this card to make it so efficient. We were also very impressed with its Twin Frozr II cooler, which managed to keep the card running at only 51 degrees Celsius at load, a tremendous improvement over a reference card’s 67 degrees Celsius. All in all, it was the most well-rounded card of the bunch and therefore most deserving of our award.
Criteria/Model | ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP |
ECS GeForce GTX 460 Black |
Gainward GeForce GTX 460 Golden Sample GLH |
Galaxy GeForce GTX 460 Super OC |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 SOC |
Manli GeForce GTX 460 |
MSI N460GTX Hawk |
Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic Platinum |
Sparkle GeForce GTX 460 |
Zotac GeForce GTX 460 AMP! Edition |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Performance | 9.5 | 8.5 | 8.5 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 8.0 | 9.5 | 9.0 | 9.0 | 9.5 |
Features | 8.5 | 8.5 | 8.0 | 8.5 | 8.5 | 7.0 | 9.5 | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.0 |
Value | 8.5 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 8.5 | 8.5 | 7.5 | 8.5 | 9.0 | 8.5 | 8.0 |
Overall | 9.0 | 8.5 | 8.0 | 9.0 | 9.0 | 7.5 | 9.0 | 9.0 | 8.5 | 8.0 |
Price | US$209 | US$199 | £180 | US$204 | US$219 | US$199 | US$214 | US$249 | US$219 | US$224 |
For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.
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