Just received my MSI N460GTX Hawk and driver questions

[ITPaladin]

I haven't had an nvidia card in several years.

I had one maybe early 2000 then when upgrading went with AMD.

Now I am back with this card thanks to the Hot Deals forum.

MSI has their driver dated "Release Date 2010-09-20" on their website for W7 x64.

The Geforce website lets you manually download 460 drivers but the choices are:

GTX 460 SE v2
GTX 460 SE
GTX 460 v2
GTX 460

Should I use MSI or which of these choices above? There is an auto-detect on the download page. I haven't installed it yet.

 

[DaveSimmons]

It's all the same driver, nvidia and AMD make you jump through that "pick your exact model" hoop for tracking and on the off-chance that there ever is a card-specific driver.

 

[notty22]

I have 2 MSI Cyclones , which use the same gpu as you. It's the normal gtx 460 chip.
So if you are using win 7 64x this the driver you want, it's the newest beta released for optimum BF3 beta and Rage gaming.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-285.38-beta-driver.html

If you do not use either of those games, you could choose to use the older WHQL driver for Win 7 x64



Version:

280.26 WHQL

http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-280.26-whql-driver.html

 

[ITPaladin]

What is your opinion on the stock hsf?
I normally play MMOs (not THAT game), with lite single player stuff (just got Portal pack and Witcher packs via Steam) or TF2.
Should I use a copper HSF from...?

Maybe some day when I can afford a bunch of newer $60 single player games and BF or what ever I will try them out.

 

[notty22]

The HawK HSF is excellent. You will probably never see temps higher than the 70's.

The cyclone's (I use) can best be described as similar to the stock Intel cpu heat sink, for it's base. Then off the base block it uses a couple heat pipes with aluminum fins and a central single fan.

The HawK uses a base copper block with numerous heat pipes that exit out to a 10 inch aluminum fin array with dual fans dissipating the heat. Dual fans allow for slower speeds for less noise.

 

[ITPaladin]

ok. Shutting down for install

 

[ITPaladin]

Installed the drivers from MSI (MSI really need to code their auto download/install utility better. It keeps telling me I have the older driver/software installed on certain items and never updates to what I just had it install).

I then went to the nVidia website for Geforce and let it auto-detect. It said:

GeForce GTX 460
Has been detected in your system.
Your current driver is 258.96
Latest Driver Version 280.26

I also have PerfectUpdater by Raxco Software on my system and it tells my my nVidia drivers are "ancient" 2010-07-09 and drivers are available from its database dated 2011-08-03.

 

[aphelion02]

Always install drivers from Nvidia/ AMD, not the manufacturer.

 

[ITPaladin]

yeah now I have to wait for the 137.9 mb driver download sheesh.
It is going awefully slow with my browser timer telling me ~40 min to complete.
Sigh...tv show watching time. I do notice the wonderful lack of fan noise now.
That card fan was going out. I even had two tiny screws fall out from the 3870 as I took it out. I found one but no idea where the other went.

 

[toyota]

40 minutes? good grief, I downloaded them in just over 1 minute and it was only using about 1/3 of my 30 meg connection.