Zotac whipping up dual-GPU GTX 460?

[fadownjoo]

lol thats toooo much power, when will you actually use it all?

 

[Guest]

^ Constant 60 fps all the time in every game. But crysis :-S

 

[Relic]

Be interesting to see how this will compare price wise to a crossfired 6850/70 and performance wise to the 6950/70. If this card is competitively priced which I'm sure it will be it might be an good choice especially for those seeking one card for Nvidia's Surround Vision & 3D as DBZ points out.

 

[dividebyzero]

@dividebyzero
if this card does have a triple slot for cooling, then you'd need 6 pci slots to have 2 of them side-by-side. what mobo would support that?

The ATX standard means that seven PCI slots can be accomodated on standard motherboards.
Any board (SLI capable, or vendor ID driver hack) that has it's primary and secondary PCIe x16 slots seperated by two spaces/PCI/PCIe can run dual triple-slot cards. An example here (light blue PCIe x16 slots seperated by two PCIe x1 in this case).
Some boards also allow for the bottom PCIe x16 (if the board has three x16 slots) to be used in conjuction with the primary graphics slot. Some will only work at x4 lanes electrical, but many (especially enthusiast) allow for x16 or x8 use.

oh ffs, I meant 6970, I fail at being snarky...bah!

A chagrined Aussie? You must be a recent immigrant.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Wow! If it's priced properly, it could seriously hamper GTX 480 sales methinks.

Although the HSF on the card would probably be pretty massive and sound like a jet engine or something. Unless it was liquid-cooled, which would probably make more sense IMHO.

 

[Archean]

If it is priced < 300$ it may make some sense to go with it, otherwise I am unsure it will hold much value once AMD and later nVidia refreshes their product lines.

 

[dqdokoleda]

Will the dual gpu card deliver the same performance as two cards in SLI mode? Is this the same or there is some difference?

After the release of the new Radeion, a single 460 doesn't seem to be a good idea.

But I hope that the Radeon is just as good in Crossfire, because the 460 was brilliant.

I hope to see here a review of the new Radeon in CF mode

 

[bioflex]

Guest said:
sell it ^^

best option......now that i hear the radeon 5970 is going to be 10% faster than the gtx 480

 

[SilverCider]

ruzveh said:
I dont understand why someone would want to go for dual 460 when they can end up buying single 480 card? Maybe for heat and noise or power consumption?

The efficiency of the gtx 460 architecture is much better, so you'll probably get better performance out of this dual setup (2 460's own 1 480 most of the time) for the power required.

Also, it opens up the option to go quad sli, which would be mental!

 

[gokica]

Depending on the price this product may become very interesting (in case it gets on the market). SLI out of the box. I am wondering whether this product would work on AMD chipsets (boards).

 

[dividebyzero]

Will the dual gpu card deliver the same performance as two cards in SLI mode? Is this the same or there is some difference?

In theory yes. In practice no.
To keep the card within some vague attempt at a reasonable power draw, either the core/memory frequency is likely to be lowered or very little overclocking headroom will be available.

After the release of the new Radeion, a single 460 doesn't seem to be a good idea.

That depends on (your) budget, pricing in your region and what you expect out of the card regarding game IQ and resolution. The GTX 460 hasn't suddenly become a bad card, and nor has the HD 6870/6850 re-invented the wheel.

But I hope that the Radeon is just as good in Crossfire, because the 460 was brilliant.

Crossfire (and SLI) scaling is in large part down to driver profiles. The latest Catalyst 10.10 drivers have improved Crossfire scaling significantly in a number of games

I hope to see here a review of the new Radeon in CF mode

I'm sure it's not too far away.

best option......now that i hear the radeon 5970 is going to be 10% faster than the gtx 480

It already is....and them some.

Depending on the price this product may become very interesting (in case it gets on the market). SLI out of the box. I am wondering whether this product would work on AMD chipsets (boards).

All any AMD and Intel board needs for this card (or any other PCI Express based card) is a functioning PCIe x16 slot.

Wow! If it's priced properly, it could seriously hamper GTX 480 sales methinks.

Not majorly. The GTX 480 is probably nearing EOL very rapidly, if reports floating around regarding the new Fermi silicon revision are true ( 512 shader/ lowered double precision (compute) emphasis, 128 TMU, 750-800MHz core/ 4000-4600MHz effective memory).
I don't think nvidia will be overly sad to see the 480 retired.

 

[Leeky]

Might be worth me waiting a bit for my GPU upgrade then, as this would be cool!

 

[rizalp]

I hope Zotac can give us more value than before with this card

 

[alexandrionel]

I don't know about US, but here in Europe all the X2 cards have been double the price of the normal cards. For instance 4870X2 was double the price of 4870. So, if a GTX 460 is 200$, I would expect that this GTX 460 X2 to cost 400 $. As I see a GTX 480 is about 500$.

 

[grimm808]

Oh, If I could get my hands on one of these bad boys. I already have a overclocked GTX 1 gig 460 and it gives more than satisfying results with just about anything, and then two of those in one card, I just can't imagine these in SLI.

 

[rebelinhyd]

that'd be a seriously desirable card but i have my doubts about this card making to production because it'd certainly kill the 480!! you know what i really wanna see though...this card coming out in the market with a killer price and then AMD trying to go one up with a 6 series card!!competition is always good!!

 

[St1ckM4n]

The TDP of a GTX 460 is 160W, so things will get lowered on this card. Therefore, it won't be as good as 2x GTX 460 SLI.

And the heatsink won't really need to be massive or tri-slot - this isn't a 5990. It's using the more power-efficient and cooler GF chip.

Look at GTX 295, 5970..

 

[Alster37]

As usual this only complicates matters when deciding which card to get for Christmas. How cheap could this thing be if it did hit the market?

 

[dividebyzero]

And the heatsink won't really need to be massive or tri-slot - this isn't a 5990. It's using the more power-efficient and cooler GF chip.
Look at GTX 295, 5970..

The GTX 295 (2 x DVI, 1 x HDMI) and HD 5970 ( 2 x DVI, 2 x mini-DP) both have vents at the rear of the card to keep a viable airflow and expel hot air. If you look carefully at the Zotac card you will see that the whole of the dual bracket is taken up by 4 DVI and a mini-HDMI. Doesn't leave a lot of options for cooling using a dual slot solution does it?.
I doubt Zotac would drop the ball with a cooler that dumped 100% of it's hot air into the chassis after obviously spending a great deal of thought on what looks like a very well laid out pcb/power phase arrangement (the card looks to be of average length for a single gpu graphics card).

As usual this only complicates matters when deciding which card to get for Christmas. How cheap could this thing be if it did hit the market?

Probably depends on a few factors (assuming this card makes it retail), such as whether a full (384 shader) GF104 -the possible GTX 475- is likely to eventuate, and how the nvidia cards fare in the marketplace against the HD 6850. A dual GTX 460 should be cheaper that buying two seperate cards since the manufacturer is saving on materials ( one pcb, heatsink, fan/s), packaging (including adapters/cables) and most importantly, one warranty instead of two. Having said that, I doubt the saving would be huge since the Zalman VF-3000 or Arctic Cooling Accelero type cooler it would likely sport (IMO) would carry a premium over the standard heatsink and blower fan that Zotac use on their GTX 460.

 

[jason4832]

Hmmmm.. I am waiting !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Brodieeee]

Capable of Quad SLI :| That's crazy talk!!

 

[JMMD]

Interesting card but I imagine the cost is going to be higher than buying two cards on sale and doing SLI. I guess if you have a single PCI-e slot and a massive PSU it might make some sense if you have tons of money laying around.

 

[highlander84]

Well, this is not the first time 2 CPU's on one board. it didn't really take off then and im sure now is no different...

 

[Lokalaskurar]

Zotac has really kicked up the nVidia-cards, it seems. hopefully this will reach the market soon.

 

[Afroaggie]

Definite possibility when the next round of updates to my gaming rig comes around... I was just going to get a regular 460 and wait to SLI it at a later date, but we will have to see about the pricing and SLI scaling on his one. What was that site that I read all those graphics card reviews off of again, oh yeah Tehspot!