Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 768MB Graphics Card Review

MSI N460GTX Cyclone OC 768MB

Manufacturer: Nvidia
UK price (as reviewed): £163 (inc VAT) MSRP
US price (as reviewed): unknown
Suggested retailers (alphabetical order): Aria, CCL Online, eBuyer, Novatech, Scan

When we first saw MSI’s first take on the GeForce GTX 460 we were pretty impressed. The heatsink is massive and attractively chunky, while the ‘Military Class’ 3+1-phase power circuitry looks suitably robust for the modest 50MHz overclock to the core of the GPU. The stream processors remain at 1,350MHz and the 768MB of the memory is still clocked at 900MHz (3.6GHz effective).

Then we saw the price. Wow! Nvidia’s suggested price for the most plain of GeForce GTX 460 cards is £180 inc VAT, and yet this pre-overclocked, custom-cooler-equipped card is due to cost just £163. The price is so aggressive that we even contacted MSI to check that the price it had given us was inc VAT (yes it is) and that it was correct (yes again). We didn’t have time to fire up the fan of the card, but we can’t wait to get it in our test rig and see what the card can do.

The Cyclone has the usual array of outputs, two dual-link DVI and a mini-HDMI, and still requires two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors. These are mounted on the end, but as the card is the standard length (9.25in, or 210mm), this shouldn’t create clashes with your hard disks. The pair of 6mm-thick heatpipes that overhang the edge of the card by 21mm also won’t be an issue for most cases, but those with mini-ITX builds on the brain will want to double-check that their case is big enough.

MSI is due to launch three cards, a plain GTX 460 768 for £157 and a stock-speed but Cyclone-clad GTX 460 1GB for £181. That’s some aggressive pricing from MSI.