Conclusion
We’ve been raving about the GTX 460 since it’s released and after seeing what EVGA has been able to do with their Superclocked edition of the 1GB card, the high praise isn’t likely to stop anytime soon. What we have here is a card that thoroughly outpaces the stock version in every way and proves that with a bit of massaging, the GF104 has the capability to run with much higher priced products. There is no doubt in our minds that the GTX 460 is the card many of us have been waiting for since hearing of the Fermi architecture.
We do have one cautionary note: NVIDIA’s board partners really have to watch how far they take GTX 460 overclocking. If they push things too far they run the very likely risk of having a sub-$300, high performance card cannibalize their GTX 470 sales. On the positive side, customers would definitely benefit from such an undertaking.
EVGA’s GTX 460 1GB Superclocked edition is what I like to call a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is compact, relatively efficient and runs extremely cool yet it can belt out the framerates like no one’s business. Due to its sizable clock speed increase over the reference version this card is able to consistently perform right up there with the $350 GTX 470. Granted, at extreme resolutions and IQ settings every GTX 460 including this one fall a bit flat but if you can afford a $1000 monitor, you’re likely not in the market for a $250 GPU anyways.
The performance of this card may be more than impressive but the real star of the show is the custom exhaust-style heatsink. From looking at interior case temperatures, it seems to do its job very well albeit with a minor increase in core temperatures. Unfortunately the fan has to work quite hard to push air through the shroud assembly due to its proximity to the heatsink’s fin array. This coupled with an abundance of bearing noise makes for a solution that is substantially louder than the reference setup. Granted, you will likely never hear this card over the noise of case fans and a speaker setup but noise is definitely something to consider if you want to use the External Exhaust edition in an HTPC. Whether or not it’s worth sacrificing a few degrees and decibels for an exhaust style heatsink is entirely up to you though.
Simply put, EVGA GTX 460 SC EE is one of the best graphics cards we have tested due to its near perfect coupling of high end performance and mid-tier pricing. And yet we do have some concerns over the fan noise and the overclocked frequencies tend to result in a jump in power consumption. All in all though, we highly recommend this card to anyone currently in the market for a sub-$300 graphics card and the lifetime warranty adds icing to an already enticing cake.
Pros:
- Excellent performance
- Highly overclockable
- Priced very well
- Lifetime warranty
- For a $20 price premium over reference, you’d be nuts not to consider it
Cons:
- Increased clock speeds mean increased power consumption
- More fan noise than the reference card
Conclusion
We’ve been raving about the GTX 460 since it’s released and after seeing what EVGA has been able to do with their Superclocked edition of the 1GB card, the high praise isn’t likely to stop anytime soon. What we have here is a card that thoroughly outpaces the stock version in every way and proves that with a bit of massaging, the GF104 has the capability to run with much higher priced products. There is no doubt in our minds that the GTX 460 is the card many of us have been waiting for since hearing of the Fermi architecture.
We do have one cautionary note: NVIDIA’s board partners really have to watch how far they take GTX 460 overclocking. If they push things too far they run the very likely risk of having a sub-$300, high performance card cannibalize their GTX 470 sales. On the positive side, customers would definitely benefit from such an undertaking.
EVGA’s GTX 460 1GB Superclocked edition is what I like to call a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is compact, relatively efficient and runs extremely cool yet it can belt out the framerates like no one’s business. Due to its sizable clock speed increase over the reference version this card is able to consistently perform right up there with the $350 GTX 470. Granted, at extreme resolutions and IQ settings every GTX 460 including this one fall a bit flat but if you can afford a $1000 monitor, you’re likely not in the market for a $250 GPU anyways.
The performance of this card may be more than impressive but the real star of the show is the custom exhaust-style heatsink. From looking at interior case temperatures, it seems to do its job very well albeit with a minor increase in core temperatures. Unfortunately the fan has to work quite hard to push air through the shroud assembly due to its proximity to the heatsink’s fin array. This coupled with an abundance of bearing noise makes for a solution that is substantially louder than the reference setup. Granted, you will likely never hear this card over the noise of case fans and a speaker setup but noise is definitely something to consider if you want to use the External Exhaust edition in an HTPC. Whether or not it’s worth sacrificing a few degrees and decibels for an exhaust style heatsink is entirely up to you though.
Simply put, EVGA GTX 460 SC EE is one of the best graphics cards we have tested due to its near perfect coupling of high end performance and mid-tier pricing. And yet we do have some concerns over the fan noise and the overclocked frequencies tend to result in a jump in power consumption. All in all though, we highly recommend this card to anyone currently in the market for a sub-$300 graphics card and the lifetime warranty adds icing to an already enticing cake.
Pros:
- Excellent performance
- Highly overclockable
- Priced very well
- Lifetime warranty
- For a $20 price premium over reference, you’d be nuts not to consider it
Cons:
- Increased clock speeds mean increased power consumption
- More fan noise than the reference card
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