In terms of all-round performance both versions of the GTX 460 in SLI have the top-end cards beaten from both schools. All of these benchmarks were run with the top settings and all at the relevant 2560x1600 resolution.
The £350 1GB setup is easily the star of the show, only dropping points to the HD 5970 in Just Cause 2, and only then by 3fps. It also costs £150 less as a setup compared to the AMD monster…
Tessellation performance
Heaven 2.0 – FPS: higher is better
- SC GTX 460 768MB - 20
- Stock GTX 460 1GB - 25
- GTX 480 - 21
- HD 5970 – 20
DX11 gaming performance
DiRT 2 – FPS: higher is better
- SC GTX 460 768MB - 76
- Stock GTX 460 1GB - 76
- GTX 480 - 56
- HD 5970 – 71
DX10 gaming performance
Just Cause 2 – FPS: higher is better
- SC GTX 460 768MB - 33
- Stock GTX 460 1GB - 32
- GTX 480 - 26
- HD 5970 – 35
Far Cry 2 – FPS: higher is better
- SC GTX 460 768MB - 71
- Stock GTX 460 1GB - 82
- GTX 480 - 64
- HD 5970 – 72
Platform price – Sterling: cheaper is better
- SC GTX 460 768MB - £390
- Stock GTX 460 1GB - £350
- GTX 480 - £390
- HD 5970 - £500
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