EVGA 01G-P3-1372-ER Graphics Card Computer Component

The NVIDIA GTX 460 is quickly establishing itself as the card to beat in its price segment. The reconfigured Fermi architecture of the new GF104 chip gives the card a real edge in gaming performance, compared to the first GPUs in the series. With 1/3 fewer transistors to feed, the board uses much less power, runs cooler, and it overclocks extremely well with just air cooling. With that kind of capability baked into the basic design, it didn't take long for NVIDIA's partners to start releasing overclocked editions. EVGA is one of the top AIC vendors for NVIDIA products, with a well established and loyal customer base. Their latest GTX460 video card is an SC (Superclocked) model that takes the reference design and pumps it up by 13%.

Software control of a video card's GPU clocks and core voltage is the fastest and easiest way to improve its performance. With so much apparent headroom available on the GTX 460 for overclocking, EVGA offers full control of GPU and memory clocks with its EVGA Precision software utility, and full monitoring capability of most parameters is included. Going one step further in the monitoring effort, EVGA also offers their OC Scanner software which has stress testing and artifact detection built in. Both of these tools offer full and flexible support for SLI configurations, which is something people are very interested in with the GTX460.

Driver updates are a touchy subject for the enthusiast and gaming communities, but NVIDIA released a major performance upgrade to their Fermi drivers right around the same time as the GTX 460 hit the market and got some great synergy from the combination. Let's take a complete look, inside and out, at the EVGA GeForce GTX460 SC and then run it through Benchmark Reviews full test suite. I want to see how this Superclocked edition performs with a 763 MHz factory overclock, and then push it even further if I can.