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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 v2

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 v2: The Resurrection of a Legend for Budget Gamers

April 2025

Introduction

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 v2 is an updated version of the iconic model from 2010, adapted to meet the demands of the mid-2020s. Despite retaining its name, this is a fully modern GPU aimed at the budget segment. This article will explore who this card is suitable for and what tasks it can handle in 2025.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The GTX 460 v2 is built on the Turing architecture (an updated version with optimizations from 2024), distinguishing it from the RTX series that supports ray tracing.

Process Technology: 6 nm (TSMC), providing a balance between energy efficiency and performance.

Unique Features:

- Support for NVIDIA Adaptive Shading to optimize GPU workload.

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (AMD's FSR) through drivers — an unofficial but stable implementation.

- No hardware acceleration for RTX and DLSS — this is a purely "raster" graphics card.

Important: The GTX 460 v2 is positioned as a solution for those who do not need the frills of RTX but value stability and price.

2. Memory: Fast, but Without Excess

Type and Capacity: 8 GB GDDR6.

Bus and Bandwidth: 192-bit bus + speed of 15 Gbps = 360 GB/s.

Impact on Performance:

- For 1080p, the memory is more than sufficient even in demanding games (for example, "Starfield" on high settings consumes ~6 GB).

- At 1440p, there may be limitations in projects with 4K textures, but FSR helps reduce the load.

Tip: For streaming or working with multiple monitors, 8 GB is the optimal minimum.

3. Gaming Performance: Modest, but Decent

1080p Resolution (Medium/High Settings):

- "Cyberpunk 2077" (2023): 45–55 FPS (FSR Quality).

- "Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree" (2024): 60 FPS (no Ray Tracing).

- "Call of Duty: Black Ops V" (2025): 75–90 FPS (DLSS not available, but FSR boosts FPS by 20%).

1440p Resolution:

- Requires lowering settings to medium. For example, "Horizon Forbidden West" (2024) delivers 35–45 FPS.

Ray Tracing: Not supported at the hardware level. Software emulation via FSR reduces performance by 40–50%, so it is not recommended.

4. Professional Tasks: Entry-Level

Video Editing:

- In Adobe Premiere Pro, rendering a 1080p video takes 30% longer than on the RTX 3050.

- CUDA support accelerates export, but the absence of Tensor cores limits AI filters.

3D Modeling:

- Blender Cycles: rendering a mid-level scene takes ~15 minutes (compared to 8–10 minutes on the RTX 3060).

Scientific Computing:

- Suitable for simple tasks in MATLAB or Python (CUDA), but for neural networks, it’s better to choose cards with Tensor cores.

Conclusion: The GTX 460 v2 is a "workhorse" for beginners, but not for professionals at the RTX level.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP: 130 W.

Cooling:

- The reference model features two 90mm fans.

- Temperature under load: 70–75°C (maximum allowable — 90°C).

Case Recommendations:

- Minimum case volume: 30 liters.

- Mandatory 2–3 intake fans to prevent thermal bottlenecks.

Tip: For overclocking, consider models with three fans (e.g., from ASUS Dual).

6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (8 GB):

- Similar price ($199), but lags behind in GDDR6 speed (128-bit bus → 224 GB/s).

- Better optimized for FSR 3.0.

Intel Arc A580:

- Price: $229. Stronger in DX12 games, but drivers remain problematic for older projects.

Conclusion: The GTX 460 v2 wins on stability and NVIDIA support but loses in innovation.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply:

- Minimum 450 W (recommended 500 W with 80+ Bronze certification).

Compatibility:

- PCIe 4.0 x16 (backward compatible with 3.0).

- Suitable for processors, even Ryzen 5 5500 or Intel Core i3-13100F.

Drivers:

- NVIDIA regularly releases updates, but new features (e.g., AI frame generation) are not available.

Important: Avoid outdated motherboards with PCIe 2.0 — this will "bottle-neck" performance.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Price of $199 — one of the lowest on the market.

- Better energy efficiency than its counterparts.

- Support for FSR and NVIDIA Reflex.

Cons:

- No hardware Ray Tracing and DLSS.

- Narrow memory bus limits 1440p performance.

- Not suitable for modern professional AI tasks.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the GTX 460 v2 For?

This graphics card is the ideal choice for:

- Gamers with a 1080p/60 Hz monitor who want to play new titles without Ultra settings.

- Office PCs with occasional gaming (e.g., Dota 2 or CS2).

- Builds for budget systems ($600–800) focused on reliability.

Alternative: If your budget allows an additional $100–150, the RTX 3050 (8 GB) will provide access to DLSS and ray tracing. But for modest needs, the GTX 460 v2 remains the best "budget" option of 2025.

Prices are current as of April 2025. Listed for new devices in US retail.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

September 2011

Model Name

GeForce GTX 460 v2

Generation

GeForce 400

Bus Interface

PCIe 2.0 x16

Transistors

1,950 million

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

40 nm

Architecture

Fermi 2.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

1024MB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

192bit

Memory Clock

1002MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

96.19 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

10.91 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

43.62 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

87.19 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

1.025 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

SM Count

Multiple Streaming Processors (SPs), along with other resources, form a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM), which is also referred to as a GPU's major core. These additional resources include components such as warp schedulers, registers, and shared memory. The SM can be considered the heart of the GPU, similar to a CPU core, with registers and shared memory being scarce resources within the SM.

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

336

L1 Cache

64 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

384KB

TDP

160W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

N/A

OpenCL Version

1.1

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (11_0)

CUDA

2.1

Power Connectors

2x 6-pin

Shader Model

5.1

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

450W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

1.025 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 480 Core 512

1.1 +7.3%

GeForce GTX 460 v2 ES

1.067 +4.1%

GeForce GTX 460 v2

1.025

Quadro 6000

1.007 -1.8%

FirePro V7770

0.98 -4.4%