MSI N460GTX Hawk Review

Performance Analysis

The GTX 460 1GB was once the belle of the mid-range ball, but the release last month of ATI’s HD 6850 1GB and the associated price cuts have muddied the water somewhat. We were keen to see if the aggressive factory overclock of the N460GTX Hawk could set things straight.

In Dirt 2 it certainly looked as much, with the 15 per cent core overclock having a direct impact on the Hawk’s performance. While Nvidia cards seem to have a clear advantage in Dirt 2 it’s undeniably impressive to see the Hawk troubling the HD 5870 1GB. Thanks to its overclock it even managed to match the GTX 470 1.3GB at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA, producing a minimum and average frame rate of 57fps and 66fps respectively.


Conversely, Just Cause 2 is a game that favours ATI hardware, but the Hawk’s 15 per cent core overclock again translated well into real world results. At 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA it managed a minimum and average frame rate of 19fps and 34fps respectively, less than ten per cent behind the performance of the GTX 470 1.3GB and comfortably ahead of the tock GTX 460 1GB.


Finishing up with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 saw the Hawk again deliver some great results ahead of its stock clocked versions, matching the competing HD 6850 1GB when anti-aliasing is disabled and bettering both the HD 6850 1GB and HD 6870 1GB at 4x AA. Playable frame rates of 29fps minimum and 39fps average at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA were particularly impressive, for example.


All the refinements to the power circuitry had a positive effect impact on the card’s power efficiency. With the N460GTX Hawk fitted, our test system drew 131W system power at idle, 6W lower than a stock GTX 460 1GB. Under load the N460GTX Hawk’s overclock saw it consume more power though, peaking at 276W to the stock GTX 460 1GB’s 270W.

The custom cooler proved itself capable, keeping the card at an incredible 4°C above room temperature at idle and just 29°C above ambient under load; an improvement of 17°C over the already cool stock design. The cooler was a little noisier than we’d have hoped for though, especially under load where it was clearly audible over the background of our labs and test system. We’d have preferred a quieter cooler at the loss of a little cooling.