GTX 460 (768MB) vs HD 5830 Performance Shootout
Test System
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S @ 3.75GHz (441×8.5) |
| CPU Cooler: | Thermaltake BigWater 760is |
| Motherboard: | ASUS P5E Deluxe X48 (Rampage Formula BIOS) |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB (ST3500418AS) |
| Memory: | G.SKILL 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2-1000 PQ |
| Video Cards: | AMD Radeon HD 5830 1GB (reference clocks: 800/1000) Galaxy GeForce GTX 460 – 768MB (reference clocks: 675/1800) |
| Display: | 24” Gateway FHD2401 LCD |
| Power Supply: | Cooler Master UCP (Ultimate Circuit Protection) 1100W |
| Chassis: | CM Storm Sniper – Black Edition – Mesh Version |
Software & Settings
- AMD Catalyst 10.12; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver, Catalyst AI set to “Standard”
- Nvidia driver 260.99; highest quality filtering, all optimizations off
- Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate
- All games are patched to their latest versions.
- vsync is off in the control panel and is never set in-game.
- 4xAA enabled in all games; all in-game settings for all games at “maximum” or “ultra” with 16xAF always applied
- All results show average frame rates except as noted.
- Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
- Windows 7, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths
- Windows 7, all DX11 titles were run under DX11 render paths
Benchmarking Notes
Throughout the testing, all of the hardware and software remained the same except for the video cards and their respective drivers.
All game benchmarks were run at both 1680×1050 and 1920×1200 resolutions and in most cases at the highest possible settings unless otherwise stated. The Unigine Heaven 2.1 Benchmark was also run at these resolutions with Tessellation set to Normal. Both 3DMark tests were run at their default settings. PhysX was turned off for all tests.
Disclaimer
The Galaxy GeForce GTX 460 used in this review has 768MB of VRAM. We tested to see whether this was a bottleneck versus the 1GB of VRAM on the HD 5830 at the higher resolution. Apparently, 768MB of VRAM seems adequate enough to not tank the framerates of even the most demanding game we tested at 1920 x 1200 resolution using 4x Anti-Aliasing (AA).
Specifications
The main specifications of the cards are as follows:
GTX 460
- Stock
- Core Clock: 675MHz
- Shader Clock (linked): 1350MHz
- Memory Clock: 1800MHz
- Overclocked
- Core Clock: 830MHz
- Shader Clock (linked): 1660MHz
- Memory Clock: 2100MHz
HD 5830
- Stock
- Core Clock: 800MHz
- Memory Clock: 1000MHz (4000MHz effective)
- Overclocked
- Core Clock: 960MHz
- Memory Clock: 1250MHz (5000MHz effective)
Note: Both cards were overclocked using stock voltages and were verified stable by enduring 4 hours of solid gameplay and by completing all benchmarks without issue.
I will keep my comments to a minimum as the charts generally speak for themselves.
Great article to show the gtx 460 dominance. The 460 would be the better buy if both cards were in the same price range but today……..
While the hd5830 currently is in the $170-$180 range, the gtx 460 768mb is actually $140 to $150 on Newegg right now. These ones are clocked like the one in this review. You can actually get highly overclocked models for $160 and up which would be that much better than the hd5830. Right now Nvidia is untouchable with this price/performance segment. Its unbelievable.
So if you thought this was great news and a useful article you now are informed it gets even better as the gtx460 768mb cost up to 25% less than the hd5830 while consistently outperforming it as shown in this review.
I have posted an update in the conclusion of this article. The GTX 460 (768MB) definitely takes this contest and with those much cheaper prices, does so with one hand tied behind its back.
at the moment, I could get a 5830 for about $30 less than a gtx 460 768mb. Which one should I go for? I think i’m going for the 5830 because i’m on a tight budget. does anyone thing I should get the gtx 460 instead? Thanks in advance!
Hermoso trabajo, la verdad me sacaron de un apuro nya que estaba por cambiar mi GTX640 Gigabyte por una HD5830 XFX pero con esto tengo un comentario mas a favor de la GTX460.
Gracias.