The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 25c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.
Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.
When we were taking shots with the cooler off, we noticed a lack of paste on the cores so we cleaned them and applied Noctua NT H1 thermal paste. Although this isn't the first time we have seen a graphics card with very little thermal paste applied it really helped reduce temperatures with our stress testing. Our recommendation is to always check your graphics card has the right amount of thermal paste applied … even then we always replace it with high quality Noctua or Arctic Cooling paste.
You can see above that with Furmark stress testing you can see the difference in temperatures between card 1 and card 2. One of them has had Noctua thermal paste reapplied. It isn't rocket science to work out which is which.
The cooler on these cards is exceptional with temperatures hovering between 58-60c when playing Crysis Warhead.
That is a fantastic board. SLi scaling is impressive, always has been.
Good all round boards, but I keep wondering if it is just too little to late. rumours on the net say ATIs next solutions are out in a months time.
I love the 460, only card from nvidia ive rated in 2 years. 450 not so much.
SLI performance is strong. these cards overclock liike crazy
ermm dont these seem a bit expensive compared to 460s at 145-150 ?
the cheaper models are normally 768mb versions though, not worth picking up
I still think the HD5850 is a better buy. its faster and with AMD you get better drivers and support.
5850 is priced higher + not always faster card, thus not the best buy… yet…
I agree with Jordan – HD5850 is quite a bit more expensive still.
Unless you get a HD5850 on a sale deal, its costing more. and if you manually OC these 460s you get HD5850 performance anyway. thats the whole selling point from nvidia.
Nvidia re panicing tho. they know ATis new cards are coming soon. its a reduced sale to sell as many cards as possible before everyone goes back to ATi.
everyone needs to stop calling them ATI 😉 that name is no more. unfortunately
lol yeah, i dont think anyone cares about the name change
AMD better pull their socks up some and get their new cards to market since the GTX 460’s in SLI are so close to 5870 in Crossfire for half the price