Legit Video Card Reviews
ASUS GeForce ENGTX460 TOP 768MB Video Card Review
| Manufacturer: | ASUS |
| Product: | TOP/2DI/768MD5 |
| Date: | Fri, Jul 23, 2010 - 12:00 AM |
| Written By: | Nathan Kirsch - |
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Final Thoughts and Conclusions
The ASUS GeForce GTX 460 768MB ENGTX460 TOP video card was found to be about 4% faster than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB reference card. The video card features a mild 25MHz boost on the GPU core clock and the 20MHz memory overclock, so we knew it wouldn't run laps around the original design. This card has plenty of overclocking headroom left in it, though, and to be honest we were shocked to see that ASUS didn't launch this card with a higher pre-set factory overclock. We just reviewed a pair of EVGA GeForce GTX 460 768MB SuperClocked video cards and they were running 763MHz on the core and 950MHz on the memory. That blows the 700MHz core and 920MHz memory clocks on this card out of the water and EVGA was using the NVIDIA reference designed PCB and GPU cooler! The ASUS ENGTX460 Top has more power phases and a better performing GPU cooler, but performs slower in the benchmarks due to the non-aggressive clock settings. That is a shame and we hope that ASUS becomes more competitive with factory overclocked cards the next time around. If they would have bumped the clock speeds up a little higher this card could have easily performed better than or at the same level as the EVGA SuperClocked cards.
Overclocking performance on the factory overclocked ENGTX460 TOP was impressive, but we knew that the GF104 core has a ton of overhead left in it for overclocking. The ASUS SmartDoctor utility worked like a champ, but sadly didn't go up high enough to max the card out. The ENGTX460 TOP comes with what they call VoltageTweak, but we didn't even need to use it since the SmartDoctor utility doesn't even max the card out with default voltages! You can use other overclocking utilities like NVIDIA Systems Tools, EVGA Precision or MSI AfterBurner to get the desired overclock that you want. Our focus for this article was on the ASUS video card and software and not overclocking or using third party utilities, so that is why you didn't see us using other applications to push this card to the bleeding edge. ASUS has developed a great looking graphics card with the ENGTX460 TOP and it runs silently and performs well, but ASUS needs to backup their overclocking graphics card with some software that allows it to do just that. At the end of the day it feels like we were given a brand new 2011 Mustang GT Premium with the new 412bhp 5.0L engine with a 6-speed transmission, but we only got a 5-speed! Give us the ability to do overdrive!
When it comes to pricing the entry level ASUS ENGTX460 that is based off the reference design costs $199.99 shipped at Newegg.com. The ASUS TOP/2DI/768MD5 video card that we looked at here today is not yet available from Newegg, but we were able to find it on Google Products for $230.40 shipped. You are paying a 15% price premium to get the factory overclock, custom designed PCB and of course the ASUS DirectCU GPU cooler. That really isn't a bad price jump to get a sorted graphics card that you know will run well over 700MHz right out of the box. To be fair we've had half a dozen GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards and all of them run 700MHz+ with ease. For this price you also get a 3-year warranty on this graphics card and the user doesn't have to register it to have a valid 3-year warranty. It goes by the serial number on the graphics card. If the three year period is ever in question, ASUS says that they will always honor the 3-year time frame from the date of purchase of the item, so hang onto your receipts! This is better than some other brands like Palit and Galaxy as they only offer one and two-year warranties, respectively.
Legit Bottom Line: The ASUS ENGTX460 Top graphics card comes factory overclocked and has tons more headroom left in it; you just need a 3rd party overclocking utility to unlock this card's full potential!Questions or Comments? View this thread in our forums!
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Page 1 - The ASUS ENGTX460 Top VoltageTweak
Page 2 - The ENGTX460 Top GPU Cooler Page 3 - Retail Box and Bundle Page 4 - ASUS Smart Doctor & Gamer OSD Utilities Page 5 - GeForce GTX 460 Test Settings Page 6 - Batman: Arkham Asylum Page 7 - Resident Evil 5 Page 8 - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. Page 9 - 3DMark Vantage Page 10 - Unigine 'Heaven' DX11 Page 11 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Page 12 - Aliens vs. Predator Page 13 - FurMark 1.8.2 Page 14 - Power Consumption Page 15 - Temperature Testing Page 16 - ASUS GeForce GTX 460 768MB Overclocking Page 17 - Final Thoughts and Conclusions |
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