Digital Alliance GTX 460 768MB: New Chip, Custom Cooling

Conclusions

It’s been a while since we had a decent graphics card that is both fast and feels easy on the wallet. While not exactly very cheap at US$ 199 for the 768 variant and US$ 229 for the 1 GB model, the GTX 460 offers a relatively affordable alternative for today’s budget gamers, and it’s fast too. No wonder then, if many graphics card vendors decided to incorporate this youngest member of the Fermi family of GPUs into their latest mainstream products, including Digital Alliance (DA).

As it seems, this time, the vendors have had enough time to come up with their own custom cooling solutions. DA’s own non-reference HSF does a fairly good job cooling this chip, as the temperature never goes beyond 73 ^oC (full load), according to our test. Idle temperature hovers at around 33 ^oC. The GTX 460 (GF104) chip itself is actually cooler than its older sibling, the GF100.

If you look at the appearance and contents of the packaging box, the Digital Alliance GTX 460 768MB looks just like an ordinary product with no noticeable extra feature, but the graphics card itself is quite special. It performed well in our tests, yielding enough FPS to run most of the games smoothly, even in 1920×1080. We do not recommend running games at that resolution, though. In Metro 2033’s high-res, high-detail test run, its 768 MB on board memory could barely contain all the graphics data required by the game. Eventually, it would stumble upon frame buffer limitation, should you decide to run your games in high resolution and set all the graphics sliders to maximum position. Playing in lower resolution or lowering some of the graphics settings should help conserving the memory.

This graphics card is especially interesting for budget gamers looking for a mainstream card that is able to run most of their games with respectable frame rates and graphics settings. You should use this card to play games, otherwise, all of its potentials would be wasted. If you’re looking for an affordable graphics card to be plugged into your brand new, mainstream gaming PC, or an upgrade for your existing system, the Digital Alliance GTX 460 768MB could just be the right pick.

Pros

• Good gaming performance
• Complete array of display connectors
• Fitted with a relatively silent, non-reference HSF

Cons

• Only a few extra accessories are included in the package

Digital Alliance GTX 460 768MB

Vendor: Digital Alliance
Info: www. dagraphics.com
Price: US$ 199 (as of July 28 2010)
Indonesian Distributor: Megacom
Phone: (021) 622-03233 ext 204, 624-8789

Technical Specification

Chip                                       :               NVIDIA GTX 460
Interface                             :               PCI Express 2.1 x16
Memory Size                     :               768 MB
Core Clock                          :               675 MHz
Shader Clock                     :               1350 MHz
Memory Clock                 :               3600 MHz
D-Sub Output                    :               Yes
DVI Output                        :               Yes
HDMI Output                    :               Yes
Memory Type                  :               GDDR5
Memory Interface          :               192-bit
Bundled Accessories     :
Molex to 6-pin power converter, Driver CD, Manual Book, and Warranty Card.

Original article by: Gatot Tri Yuwono
Translated by: Oik Yusuf