Gainward GTX 460 Golden Sample 2 GB

[TenBlade]

Almost exactly 24 hours after ordering it arrived already. I just need to demonstrate my current GTX285 to a buyer tomorrow before I install the Gainward GTX 460 Golden Sample 2 GB, those of you who haven´t seen the review, here´s a link for the vid. http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/gainward_gtx460_golden_sample_review/6

My apologies for the thumbs, I couldn´t get the pic.s uploaded to the OzX site, but nvm.

What´s in the box? Not much, actually, but all that you need is there. A card, a disc, a power converter cable (for some), and a printed user´s guide. Inside the brown cardbord boxing gives it an initial cheap feel, but anything to keep uncessesary costs down. And what looks like separate small boxes surrounding the board, turns out to be empty, but they serve the purpose of absorbing shocks, as does the anti-static bubblewrap. So, I´m pretty sure no harm has come to this little board on it´s long way from China.

A regular sized, but centrally mounted fan, not supposed to be that noisy at 50% or lower rpm. I may already have found an aftermarket cooler that´ll fit the non-standard measurements, but I´m not sure it´s available here. But, let´s see how noisy and hot it´ll get later .

Nice and shiny black, with red pcb and fan, and golden print. The way I understand it, they test all their cards, and the ones that´ll overclock with good results get put aside for a stamp "Golden Sample". Hope this has more under the hood than just factory OC, clockspeed set at 700. But there should be more to be had according to the lengthy review linked to above.

Haven´t seen the DVI ports stacked like that. Now, this is interesting. An HDMI outlet!!! Now, would there be a converter for such a thing, so I could have three DVI-outlets?! That means one could skip the TH2G if necessary. I´ll have to have a look around.

I´ll do the necessary "surgery" tomorrow. Got to finish another night shift first But there´ll be no sleeping untill I´ve got it running . It comes with a tuning software, but I think I´ll go for MSI afterburner, seen it mentioned a lot, so it must be good.

All for now! Thanks for watching

Bjorn

[Iain Emms]

Looks very nice indeed Gainward make a good card i have the GTX 48O and find it great, Let us know what you think when its running.

cheers

Iain

[FreeBird]

I have this card and love it and the price. I have mine overclocked to 800mhz with no issues.  It does require two 6 pin connectors for the power, and a good power supply 750W or greater anything less will give you problems.  You will see some FPS increase, but overall you will have a better flight experience with no stuttering, even in thick clouds.  This card does run abet hot but is nothing to be too concerned about as long as you have good circulation.  Also using the geforce SLI profile tool and loading the right profile in, will give you a  better looking picture.  Here is a link with some useful info.

http://www.geeks3d.com/20100712/nvidia-geforce-gtx-460-specifications-and-reviews-available/

[TenBlade]

Thanks guys, just sold off my old sweetheart :'( But the guy promised to take good care of it, said he´d write  But he´d hardly left the drive way before I was placing the new card in an eager PCI-E port, very roomy with a short board

Still in the process of setting things up, but what struck me first was the colours. Just my desktop picture, had so much more shine to it. I made a quick run on FSX, but AA isn´t working via nHancer. Will install latest driver from 3Dguru, 260.63. How do you guys control AA, and which driver is best?

Of course I´ve been having it easy with no fan noise until now. That is, as long as I keep the fan at 50% [correction: 40%] it´s virtually inaudible, just blends in with the other fan noise (which is low, I´d say).

The EXPERTool software is somewhat inadequate, and userfriendlyness is...mediocre. So, I´m going to install MSI Afterburner now. But I´d really like some pointers on the AA-thingy

Cheers

Bjorn

[Wolter van der Spoel]

Bjorn,

nHancer won't play ball with the latest drivers

get nVidia Inspector 1.92 and you'll achieve the same without hassle

[jjjallen]

I have this card and love it and the price. I have mine overclocked to 800mhz with no issues.  It does require two 6 pin connectors for the power, and a good power supply 750W or greater anything less will give you problems.  You will see some FPS increase, but overall you will have a better flight experience with no stuttering, even in thick clouds.  This card does run abet hot but is nothing to be too concerned about as long as you have good circulation.  Also using the geforce SLI profile tool and loading the right profile in, will give you a  better looking picture.  Here is a link with some useful info.

http://www.geeks3d.com/20100712/nvidia-geforce-gtx-460-specifications-and-reviews-available/

Make sure to use nVidia Inspector to improve the IQ.  The 460 is almost as cool as a SSD drive!

jja

[TenBlade]

Thanks, guys. But, Inspector doesn´t seem to have any options for AA etc. like nHancer. But since nH. doesn´t play ball anymore I´ll try and set up AA in the nV. Control panel, not as many options as in nHancer, it seems. But I´ll have a quick look see how it plays out in FSX.

I seem to get occasional black outs for  a few seconds, then a "video driver stopped working but has restarted"-kind of message?! Anything I should worry about?

Bjorn

PS: Found this http://www.av-connection.dk/?PGr=619&ML=413, that should in theory give me a three DVI output gpu.

[jjjallen]

Thanks, guys. But, Inspector doesn´t seem to have any options for AA etc. like nHancer. But since nH. doesn´t play ball anymore I´ll try and set up AA in the nV. Control panel, not as many options as in nHancer, it seems. But I´ll have a quick look see how it plays out in FSX.

I seem to get occasional black outs for  a few seconds, then a "video driver stopped working but has restarted"-kind of message?! Anything I should worry about?

Bjorn

It has an AA option setting for every possible AA option setting.  Straight from the manufacurer.  It is pretty easy to figure out with the menu option  http://www.geeks3d.com/20100505/gpu-tool-nvidia-inspector-1-7-gpu-z-bro/

cheers

jja

[TenBlade]

Thanks, guys. But, Inspector doesn´t seem to have any options for AA etc. like nHancer. But since nH. doesn´t play ball anymore I´ll try and set up AA in the nV. Control panel, not as many options as in nHancer, it seems. But I´ll have a quick look see how it plays out in FSX.

I seem to get occasional black outs for  a few seconds, then a "video driver stopped working but has restarted"-kind of message?! Anything I should worry about?

Bjorn

It has an AA option setting for every possible AA option setting.  Straight from the manufacurer.  It is pretty easy to figure out with the menu option  http://www.geeks3d.com/20100505/gpu-tool-nvidia-inspector-1-7-gpu-z-bro/

cheers

jja

Aaah, found the little button, thanks, got something to work on now

B

[TenBlade]

Overclocked the little bugger to Core clock 875, Memory clock 1800, Shader clock 1750 at stock voltage of 1.025V.

Now on to making the darned Inspector settings work again  after I rolled back the driver to 258.96, the 260 driver was beta and was giving me frequent driver hick-ups, where the driver would stop working a second, then reengage.

Bjorn

[jjjallen]

Overclocked the little bugger to Core clock 875, Memory clock 1800, Shader clock 1750 at stock voltage of 1.025V.

Now on to making the darned Inspector settings work again  after I rolled back the driver to 258.96, the 260 driver was beta and was giving me frequent driver hick-ups, where the driver would stop working a second, then reengage.

Bjorn

I dialed back to about 840 on my Gigabyte 460 and about 1850 on the core.  The voltage is up a bit.

jja

[TenBlade]

So far no problems with my settings, just copied them from the guy at Overclock3D, couldn´t quite see the voltage number on his MSI AB, but seems he´s even lower than my 1,025V.

Just ordered an HDMI to DVI converter http://www.av-connection.dk/?PGr=619&ML=413 pardon the gibberish. Would like to see how it performs without the TH2Go.

I´ll see if I can squeeze a Crucial RealSSD C300 128 GB out of my "time" before the end of the month, and maybe add REX2, then I can really throw something at the gpu. For now my old school harddrive(-s) are limiting the experience. And I´ll get back to you on the performance. But there maaaay just be a new fammily member coming between me and that test, so bear with me

Bjorn

[jjjallen]

So far no problems with my settings, just copied them from the guy at Overclock3D, couldn´t quite see the voltage number on his MSI AB, but seems he´s even lower than my 1,025V.

Just ordered an HDMI to DVI converter http://www.av-connection.dk/?PGr=619&ML=413 pardon the gibberish. Would like to see how it performs without the TH2Go.

I´ll see if I can squeeze a Crucial RealSSD C300 128 GB out of my "time" before the end of the month, and maybe add REX2, then I can really throw something at the gpu. For now my old school harddrive(-s) are limiting the experience. And I´ll get back to you on the performance. But there maaaay just be a new fammily member coming between me and that test, so bear with me

Bjorn

I just bought a DVI to HDMI cable and could'nt beleif how much better the picture is.  Mine had much higher contrast that you can tune down at the driver.  I guess that is what an all digital will do for you.

jja

[TenBlade]

My TH2Go is digital, so not much improvement to get there.

But I just tried to apply the three monitors directly to my gpu with the HDMI2DVI converter, but I get the message in nVidia control panel, that only two monitors are supported. So, it´s back to TH2Go, but that´s still fine

B

[jjjallen]

I have this card and love it and the price. I have mine overclocked to 800mhz with no issues.  It does require two 6 pin connectors for the power, and a good power supply 750W or greater anything less will give you problems.  You will see some FPS increase, but overall you will have a better flight experience with no stuttering, even in thick clouds.  This card does run abet hot but is nothing to be too concerned about as long as you have good circulation.  Also using the geforce SLI profile tool and loading the right profile in, will give you a  better looking picture.  Here is a link with some useful info.

http://www.geeks3d.com/20100712/nvidia-geforce-gtx-460-specifications-and-reviews-available/

I agree.  The 460GTX is the next best thing to sliced bread.  Best GPU ever for me and I've owned a bunch.

jja