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- Date:
- Monday , October 18, 2010
- Author:
- Matthew Krysiak
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Share:
ASUS ENGTX460 TOP 1GB Video Card Review
We see just how well the ASUS ENGTX460 TOP 1GB does against a stock GTX 460 1GB and the HD 5850. Are the boosted frequencies enough to make our gameplay experience better? Does the new cooling solution keep it as cool and yet stay quiet?
Introduction
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. is one of the largest and most successful computer hardware manufacturers in the world. A Taiwan-based company, they manufacture a wide variety of computer hardware, including motherboards, video cards, optical drives, notebooks, networking equipment, barebones desktop, and server systems, among many others. In 2008, they sold over 24 million motherboards, grossed 8.1 billion U.S., and won 3,056 awards from various enthusiasts and IT related outlets.
Today we are going to be taking a look at ASUS’s premium GeForce GTX 460 1GB: the ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP/2DI/1GD5. From now on we will simply refer to it as the ASUS ENGTX460 TOP 1GB.
- ASUS Exclusive DirectCU Thermal Solution: Three 8mm flattened copper heat-pipes contact GPU directly and reach up to 20% COOLER than generic GeForce GTX460
- Over-clocked with 775 MHz engine clock for reaching 115% performance
- ASUS Exclusive Voltage Tweak Technology for up to 50% performance
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460
NVIDIA released the GeForce GTX 460 on July 12, 2010 and referred to it as "A New Class of Fermi." It is a smaller, leaner, and less complicated, version of the GF100 GPU architecture that the other video cards like the GTX 480/470/465, are based upon. Which at first may sound like a negative but these give it a power; noise, heat, and price advantage over the other Fermi based video cards.
Do to the leaner nature of the video card however a lot of the hardware has been trimmed away. For instance the GTX 480 has 480 CUDA Cores while the GTX 460 has only 336. The number of polymorph (tessellation) engines has also been cut down to 7 vs. the 15 found in the GTX 480. The GTX 460 also comes with either 768MB or 1GB of video memory. A lot less than the 1.5GB of video memory found on a GTX 480. On the brighter side the board length has been cut by 2.25 inches and the max board power has been reduced by 90 Watts. The best news however is the price which MSRP states to be between $199 and $229.
ASUS ENGTX460 TOP 1GB
ASUS has two video cards in their GTX 460 line that share the TOP moniker. The first one which we have already evaluated here, the ASUS ENGTX460 TOP 768MB, has a factory boost of only 25MHz on the GPU frequency and a measly 80MHz boost on the memory. The ASUS ENGTX460 TOP 1GB on the other hand has a GPU frequency of 775MHz, a 100MHz over reference specifications. The memory also has a decent boost to 4GHz or 400MHz over reference. The 1GB of memory model also has a larger heatsink which takes advantage of three heat-pipes (vs. two.)
There is a price difference of course, and the ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP 1GB is currently $244.99, making it one of the more expensive GTX 460 based video cards out there. At this price, the current price cuts on ATI Radeon video cards puts this card in-line with competing with the Radeon HD 5850 now, which you can find around this same price with rebates.
The larger heatsink of the ENGTX460 TOP 1GB is in fact one of ASUS’s selling points. It uses three huge 8mm heat pipes that are directly touching the GPU. With this ASUS is claiming up to a 20% cooler GPU temperature when compared to a reference GTX 460. Another big selling point is the addition of Voltage Tweak. It grants us the ability to adjust the Vcore of the GPU through ASUS’s SmartDoctor utility. These two points combined may lead to some great potential overclocks. The final marketing claim is that we will see a 115% performance boost due to their factory boosted frequencies. We will defiantly see if this holds up and if the extra 15% actually improves our gameplay experience.
Box Shots
The front of the box has what we have come to expect from most of the manufacturers. First there is a huge avatar on it that has nothing to do with the video card. Secondly it has only a few specifications. The two big ones to note here are the 1GB GDDR5 badge and the pleasantly surprising GPU frequency badge, 775MHz. We still however wish they would show the memory and shader frequencies. That would be helpful when comparing video cards inside of stores.
The back of the box goes over the standard rhetoric of "Powerful Features" and recommend system requirements. We however are glad to see that a large portion of the back is devoted to an actual picture of video card. It also goes over some of the specifications again along with the marketing for Voltage Tweak and the cooling solution.
The Video Card Pictures
ASUS has used an elegant theme for the ENGTX460 TOP 1GB. The heat shroud has a complex form fitting shape but is solid blue with the exception of four white racing stripes and the embossed sliver ASUS logo. Underneath the shroud we find that ASUS is using an aluminum heatsink and three 8mm heat-pipes. The memory modules however are not attached to the heatsink or even a heat spreader, disappointing. The heatsink shroud is also not attached to the PCI cover and the fan blows heat out on both ends. Which means the majority of heat coming from the video card will be dumped inside of the case, again disappointing.
The ASUS ENGTX460 TOP 1GB PCB is the standard 8.25" long however since the heatsink protrudes out it ends up being 9.5" long. The front of the video card has a mini HDMI connector along with two DVI ports. The tail end of the video card has the two six-pin auxiliary connectors pointed straight up.
The back of the ENGTX460 TOP 1GB is uncovered except for a heat spreader that is meant to keep cool one of the power chips. From the back we can also easily take note of the cooling solution taking an extra 1.25" after the PCB finishes. It comes with a Speed Setup Guide, a Driver and Manual CD, a DVI to D-Sub adapter, a DVI to min HDMI adapter, two 2 4-pin to 6-pin power adapter, and a cheesy feeling binder for CDs.