| PNY GeForce GTX 460 OC XLR8 Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Olin Coles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 01 September 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DX11: Battlefield Bad Company 2The Battlefield franchise has been known to demand a lot from PC graphics hardware. DICE (Digital Illusions CE) has incorporated their Frostbite-1.5 game engine with Destruction-2.0 feature set with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 features destructible environments using Frostbit Destruction-2.0, and adds gravitational bullet drop effects for projectiles shot from weapons at a long distance. The Frostbite-1.5 game engine used on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 consists of DirectX-10 primary graphics, with improved performance and softened dynamic shadows added for DirectX-11 users. At the time Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was published, DICE was also working on the Frostbite-2.0 game engine. This upcoming engine will include native support for DirectX-10.1 and DirectX-11, as well as parallelized processing support for 2-8 parallel threads. This will improve performance for users with an Intel Core-i7 processor. Unfortunately, the Extreme Edition Intel Core i7-980X six-core CPU with twelve threads will not see full utilization. In our benchmark tests of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the first three minutes of action in the single-player raft night scene are captured with FRAPS. Relative to the online multiplayer action, these frame rate results are nearly identical to daytime maps with the same video settings.
The Frostbite-1.5 game engine in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 appears to equalize our test set of video cards, and despite AMD's sponsorship of the game it still plays well using any brand of graphics card. Cost Analysis: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (1680x1050)Test Summary: The 1GB frame buffer on a standard-speed GeForce GTX 460 video card helps post an 8.3-FPS gain ahead of ATI's Radeon HD 5830, but the additional overclock of the PNY GTX 460 XLR8 adds another 4.3-FPS above and beyond. At 1680x1050 the PNY GTX 460 XLR8 also comes close to matching performance of the Radeon HD 5850. The relative price per frame for the GTX460-OC delivers the best value of nearly all cards tested, and is considerably less than the Radeon HD 5830. While a stock GeForce GTX 460 slightly edges out the Radeon HD 5830, the test results thus far are beginning to position the PNY GTX 460 XLR8 against the ATI Radeon HD 5850.
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Comments
How do they compare in performance and noise?
In terms of noise, there's almost none... as in no audible sound. Even with the fan turned to 100% power, the PNY cooler is extremely quiet.
Also, PNY has a RMA graphics card promotion specifically for BFG customers. Send in your BFG card, whether it works or not, and you'll receive a 25 percent discount on select PNY video cards. They'll also throw-in "Just Cause 2" from Square Enix by way of an online download redemption code. So those of you left holding the bag with BFG cards that malfunctioned, can get a better deal than the rest of us with PNY, and a free game. Visit PNY.com or call PNY directly at 1-888-316-1193. The promotion runs until October 31, 2010.
The GTX 460 Hawk review will be posted soon.
You're right though, I haven't been making mention of the sound levels. I'll update my articles to make note of this. Thanks.
In Metro 2033, the two results are 1920x1200 and 1680x1050. I've since replaced the chart with an updated image.
People mention noise a lot with cards, I don't mind noise, i want the fan speed. Any help would be appreciated.
Yeah. EVGA and Gigabyte have released BIOS for their respective cards. Their BIOS allow the cards to go to "maximum" speed (theirs is stuck at 70% before the update)while PNY hasn't. Initially my card would stay about 68C before. Even while the card was overclocked. But for a couple of days now, even with my same overclock settings, the card will get to 80C and crash the game out. I purchased the card the Friday after Thanksgiving. So I got them recently.
Note, when not overclocked the temps get about 70C under a full load.
So the moral of the story is don't purchase these cards to replace your 9800GTs in SLI unless you are sure you have enough connectors from your existing PS, or unless you are replacining your PS as well.