NVIDIA GTX 460 SLI – Easy on the Wallet, High on Performance

NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460 has been creating lots of fuss lately, but there’s a good reason for it. The GPU is served in two flavors: a 768 MB model, costing around US$ 199, and a 1 GB version coming with a price tag of about US$ 229. Both offer excellent performance for their price range. So, naturally, gamers all over the world are so itching to get their hands on one of these. We haven’t seen a card so interesting since the time of the venerable GeForce 8800 GT.

A single GeForce GTX 460 graphics card packs enough computing power to run all but the most demanding games with acceptable frame rates. We found such case with Metro 2033, one of the few games in which it couldn’t score anywhere near the 30 FPS mark.

So, if one is not enough, how about adding another for an extra boost of speed? We will show you just how much performance improvement you can expect from a pair of GeForce GTX 460 in SLI mode. First, let’s take a look at the technical details of both versions of GTX 460. For comparison purposes, we also brought in NVIDIA’s latest flagship, the GTX 480, which also happens to be the fastest single-GPU solution available today.

Specification

	NVIDIA GTX 480	NVIDIA GTX 460 1GB	NVIDIA GTX 460 768MB
Codename	GF100	GF104	GF104
Fabrication Process	40 nm	40 nm	40 nm
Transistors	3.2 Billion	1.95 Billion	1.95 Billion
Die Size	529 mm²	320 mm²	320 mm²
Core Clock	700 MHz	675 MHz	675 MHz
Stream Processors	480	336	336
Shader Clock	1401 MHz	1350 MHz	1350 MHz
Texture Units	60	56	56
ROPs	48	32	24
Memory Type	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5
Memory Size	1536 MB	1024 MB	768 MB
Memory Clock (effective)	3696 MHz	3600 MHz	3600 MHz
Memory Interface	384-bit	256-bit	192-bit
DirectX Version	11	11	11
Shader Model	5	5	5
Power Connectors	8-pin + 6-pin	2x 6-pin	2x 6-pin
Min Recommended Power Supply	600 W	450 W	450 W
Bus Support	PCIe 2.1 x16	PCIe 2.1 x16	PCIe 2.1 x16

SLI Setup

In order to run your system in SLI mode, you need a pair of identical GeForce cards. Also, since the additional card would require an extra PCI-Express x16 slot, make sure you have at least two of those on your motherboard. SLI options are available on motherboards based on Intel’s Series 5 chipset or AMD boards based on the nForce chipset.

To connect the two graphics card, you will need an SLI Bridge like this one.

You will also need a power supply with at least four, 6 pin PCI-Express connectors.

After installing the driver, open the NVIDIA control panel and select the “Maximize 3D Performance” option in the “Set SLI and PhysX Configuration” menu to enable SLI mode. There, you’re now set for some dual graphics actions.