I upgraded, and to my own surprise I went with a GPU I thought I'd never even consider purchasing - the gtx465. However this is no ordinary gtx465; it's the MSI twin frozr II edition. As many of you know, this is among the best (if not THE BEST) coolers that you can get preassembled on a graphics card. And as I will explain in a bit, this cooler does an outstanding job of taming this seriously cut down version Fermi. It came with a copy of Mafia II (which I already own) and a $60 mail in rebate. It cost me $212 shipped, so after I sell the extra copy of Mafia II ($30ish) and I get the MIR, the total cost to me will be $122. NOT BAD AT ALL! I had my heart set on getting the ASUS directCU TOP gtx460 1gb that was on sale at amazon for $210 (and briefly $175) but after ordering it on Aug. 8th and still not having received it, I cracked the whip on MSI card. I still haven't canceled my amazon order yet... I'll decide what to do about that later.
So I'll get straight to it. Running at 1.075 volts, this card is 100% stable with clocks of 825mhz core (up from 607mhz) and 3500mhz memory (up from 3200mhz). This represents a 36% increase in core/shader speeds and a little over 9% for memory. I'd like to get the memory up to 3600, but I haven't tested it out at that speed yet and even if it can't hit 3600 reliably I'm happy with how it is now. The card's idle temperature is in the mid 30's, and the GPU tops out at 77 degrees celsius in MSI Kombustor (Furmark) when at 60% fan speed. 60% fan speed is audible if your speakers are not at any appreciable sound level. In other words, if you can clearly hear the game's sound effects and music, it will entirely drown out the GPU fan noise. Anything below 50% is completely inaudible. I have my fan set to operate between 40-80% based on the temperature of the GPU, but unless something terrible goes wrong it will simply never go above 60% fan speed.
So now the benchmarks... All tests are ran at 1680x1050 max in-game settings with AA and AF on where indicated.
Crysis custom config.sys DX9 mix between high/very high
gtx260 avg: 41.7, min: 30.8, max: 52.9
gtx465 avg: 68.4, min: 24.7, max: 78.2....................Average frame rate up 64%, minimum frame rate DOWN 20%
Crysis DX10 enthusiast
gtx260 avg: 26.9, min: 17.7, max: 32.5
gtx465 avg: 37.0, min: 15.0, max: 41.7....................Average frame rate up 38%, minimum frame rate DOWN 15%
Crysis Warhead DX10 Enthusiast
gtx260 avg: 33.1, min: 23.2, max: 41.0
gtx465 avg: 43.0, min: 26.7, max: 50.9....................Average frame rate up 31%, minimum frame rate up 15%
Batman: Arkham Asylum 4X AA, 16X AF, physx high
gtx260 avg: 43, min: 23, max: 65
gtx465 avg: 66, min: 35, max: 109...........................Average frame rate up 53%, minimum frame rate up 52%
Far Cry 2 Small Ranch 4XAA 16X AF
gtx260 avg: 53.7, min: 41.0, max: 78.9
gtx465 avg: 62.1, min: 41.2, max: 96.2....................Average frame rate up 16%, minimum frame rate essentially unchanged
Far Cry 2 Action Scene 4XAA
gtx260 avg: 38.0, min: 32.3, max: 48.6
gtx465 avg: 36.8, min: 30.7, max: 45.2....................Average frame rate DOWN 3%, minimum frame rate DOWN 5%
Darkest Of Days 4XAA, 8XAF, physx HIGH
gtx260 avg: 25.0
gtx465 avg: 35.6..................................................Average frame rate up 42%
Cryostasis Tech Demo, physx on
gtx260 avg: 42.2
gtx465 avg: 52.8..................................................Average frame rate up 25%
Just cause 2 4XAA 16XAF, bokah filter OFF
gtx260 avg: 38.3
gtx465 avg: 63.1..................................................Average frame rate up 65%
Just Cause 2 4XAA 16XAF bokah filter ON
gtx260 avg: 34.8
gtx465 avg: 58.4..................................................Average frame rate up 68%
Overall those are some pretty significant performance improvements. Nearly everything I've tested so far experienced substantial increases in average frame rates. Interesting results are observed in Far Cry 2 and the original Crysis, though. The minimums are down and the average was down in the Far Cry 2 action playback benchmark. This is telling me that the gtx465, while capable of processing larger amounts of data than the gtx260 216, is not quite as efficient as the gtx260. It is my best guess that the gtx260's more texturing units (64 vs. 44 in the gtx465) allows the GPU to process certain scenarios more efficiently, evident when the CPU is either limiting the performance of the game or the GPU is using an extremely heavy amount of textures.
***the gtx260 216 was running at 675mhz core, 1450mhz shader, and 2150mhz effective memory speeds (stock speeds are 576 core, 1242 shader, and 2000 mem)
My system specs are as follows:
Core2duo e8400 @ 4.05ghz
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P Motherboard
4 gigs 1066 DDR2 RAM cas 5
Win 7 x64
1680x1050 native resolution
So I'll get straight to it. Running at 1.075 volts, this card is 100% stable with clocks of 825mhz core (up from 607mhz) and 3500mhz memory (up from 3200mhz). This represents a 36% increase in core/shader speeds and a little over 9% for memory. I'd like to get the memory up to 3600, but I haven't tested it out at that speed yet and even if it can't hit 3600 reliably I'm happy with how it is now. The card's idle temperature is in the mid 30's, and the GPU tops out at 77 degrees celsius in MSI Kombustor (Furmark) when at 60% fan speed. 60% fan speed is audible if your speakers are not at any appreciable sound level. In other words, if you can clearly hear the game's sound effects and music, it will entirely drown out the GPU fan noise. Anything below 50% is completely inaudible. I have my fan set to operate between 40-80% based on the temperature of the GPU, but unless something terrible goes wrong it will simply never go above 60% fan speed.
So now the benchmarks... All tests are ran at 1680x1050 max in-game settings with AA and AF on where indicated.
Crysis custom config.sys DX9 mix between high/very high
gtx260 avg: 41.7, min: 30.8, max: 52.9
gtx465 avg: 68.4, min: 24.7, max: 78.2....................Average frame rate up 64%, minimum frame rate DOWN 20%
Crysis DX10 enthusiast
gtx260 avg: 26.9, min: 17.7, max: 32.5
gtx465 avg: 37.0, min: 15.0, max: 41.7....................Average frame rate up 38%, minimum frame rate DOWN 15%
Crysis Warhead DX10 Enthusiast
gtx260 avg: 33.1, min: 23.2, max: 41.0
gtx465 avg: 43.0, min: 26.7, max: 50.9....................Average frame rate up 31%, minimum frame rate up 15%
Batman: Arkham Asylum 4X AA, 16X AF, physx high
gtx260 avg: 43, min: 23, max: 65
gtx465 avg: 66, min: 35, max: 109...........................Average frame rate up 53%, minimum frame rate up 52%
Far Cry 2 Small Ranch 4XAA 16X AF
gtx260 avg: 53.7, min: 41.0, max: 78.9
gtx465 avg: 62.1, min: 41.2, max: 96.2....................Average frame rate up 16%, minimum frame rate essentially unchanged
Far Cry 2 Action Scene 4XAA
gtx260 avg: 38.0, min: 32.3, max: 48.6
gtx465 avg: 36.8, min: 30.7, max: 45.2....................Average frame rate DOWN 3%, minimum frame rate DOWN 5%
Darkest Of Days 4XAA, 8XAF, physx HIGH
gtx260 avg: 25.0
gtx465 avg: 35.6..................................................Average frame rate up 42%
Cryostasis Tech Demo, physx on
gtx260 avg: 42.2
gtx465 avg: 52.8..................................................Average frame rate up 25%
Just cause 2 4XAA 16XAF, bokah filter OFF
gtx260 avg: 38.3
gtx465 avg: 63.1..................................................Average frame rate up 65%
Just Cause 2 4XAA 16XAF bokah filter ON
gtx260 avg: 34.8
gtx465 avg: 58.4..................................................Average frame rate up 68%
Overall those are some pretty significant performance improvements. Nearly everything I've tested so far experienced substantial increases in average frame rates. Interesting results are observed in Far Cry 2 and the original Crysis, though. The minimums are down and the average was down in the Far Cry 2 action playback benchmark. This is telling me that the gtx465, while capable of processing larger amounts of data than the gtx260 216, is not quite as efficient as the gtx260. It is my best guess that the gtx260's more texturing units (64 vs. 44 in the gtx465) allows the GPU to process certain scenarios more efficiently, evident when the CPU is either limiting the performance of the game or the GPU is using an extremely heavy amount of textures.
***the gtx260 216 was running at 675mhz core, 1450mhz shader, and 2150mhz effective memory speeds (stock speeds are 576 core, 1242 shader, and 2000 mem)
My system specs are as follows:
Core2duo e8400 @ 4.05ghz
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P Motherboard
4 gigs 1066 DDR2 RAM cas 5
Win 7 x64
1680x1050 native resolution
Last edited: