Zotac GeForce GTX 460 1GB review

Quite simply, I can't really see past this full-fat 1GB version. If vendors stick by the £200 pricepoint Nvidia recommends for this card – and there are rumblings they may not – then that extra £20 price premium over the stock 768MB cards is well worth the money.

It also means the large numbers of factory-overclocked 768MB cards are looking a little unnecessary now too. They're running at £195 and if you're that tight you really need to save that £5 then you deserve the slower card…

Most of the people in the industry I spoke to agree there are few reasons for the existence of the cut-down memory card, and the only one that made sense is in the OEM and system integrators sphere.

The cheaper cards will allow system builders to nail a certain pricepoint while still touting a Fermi, DX11-capable Nvidia card.

The rest of us in the wild will probably ignore the memory-hobbled version.

And we'll all be ignoring the ill-fated GTX 465 too. I feel a little sorry for Nvidia's latest ginger step-child; it's only been in existence for a month and already it's being forced onto the scrapheap by a faster, cheaper card.

Quite what Nvidia was doing releasing that card when it knew what was coming a month or so later is anyone's guess.

Some would argue it was blowing a bit of smoke AMD's way, but realistically the number of unsold GTX 465 cards that will be winging their way back to Nvidia from the different vendors will surely cost them a pretty penny.

Top notch GPU

Still you can't get away from the fact that the GTX 460 is an excellent card, particularly if you opt for the 1GB version. The 768MB card may have some serious overclocking headroom in there, but so does the 1GB card and that can do a lot more with it.

The only issue, as ever with Nvidia cards, is going to be availability.

Such is the performance difference between the two versions of the GTX 460, I expect we'll see very limited stock of the more memory heavy cards. Vendors will be keen to shift stock of the 768MB card and so that's where the real volume of cards is likely to be.

If you can find one, though, the 1GB card is well worth the search.

The really is no other card in the £200-£300 pricepoint that I would rather have. The only place to go from here is the HD 5870, which still just keeps its position ahead of the GTX 460. Every other card between them is pretty much now redundant.

Time to head to the job centre for a fair few other cards then…

We liked:

If the pricing does match the touted £200 then this is an absolute steal for the money. The huge amount of overclocking headroom and the fact the card remains pretty damned quiet while it's doing it too makes it a winner.

We disliked:

There's not a lot to dislike about this full-fat card, it's high-res performance is the only place it drops points, but that's against much more expensive cards, and a resolution it's not designed for.

Final word:

This is now the mid-range card of choice. After the fairly abortive, and short, life of the GTX 465 the GTX 460, in particular this GTX 460 1GB version, is the only Fermi card to go for under £300.