Almost all Nvidia partners were ready with their GTX 460 cards yesterday, many of which come pre-overclocked. As far as we know, Gainward took the biggest step in overclocking and managed to push the GPU from the reference 675MHz to 800MHz. Nvidia has said that the majority of GTX 460 cards will run at 800MHz with no trouble, and it seems like Gainward found the exact source of this “majority” and now sells them branded as GTX 460 1024MB Golden Sample Goes Like Hell.

Although there was no need for non-reference cooling this time around, since the reference cooling is quiet and efficient, Gainward still strapped the card with its cooler. Furthermore, the company redesigned the PCB, which is now shorter than reference. Gainward GTX 460 1024MB GDDR5 Golden Sample Goes Like Hell runs at 800MHz for the GPU and 1600 for the shaders, whereas the memory is at 1000MHz (4000MHz effectively). Just for comparison purposes, reference clocks are 675MHz GPU and 900MHz memory (3600MHz effectively). Thankfully, with such high operating clocks, many won’t even need to overclock the card further.



So, we’re talking about a 1024MB memory on a 256-bit memory interface and with 32 ROPs. We must say that GS-Goes Like Hell fully deserves its name, as you’ll soon see for yourself. The cooler does its job well and the card is quiet in both operation modes – idle and 3D.



Gainward has come up with a total of three cards based on the new GF104, one reference with 768MB of memory and two factory overclocked 1GB GTX 460 cards.



The top of the line is the Gainward GTX 460 GS-GLH, or short for Golden Sample Goes Like Hell edition. The next in line is the GTX 460 GS set at 700MHz for the GPU, 1400MHz for shader and 3600MHz for the same 1GB of GDDR5 memory.

The last but not least is the reference GTX 460 with 768MB of memory and clocks set at 675MHz for the GPU, 1350MHz for shaders and 3600MHz for memory. All three cards feature 336 CUDA cores, feature support for DirectX 11 and Nvidia's CUDA, SLI and PhysX.

Although it looks like all three cards use the same silent cooler, that isn't the case as Gainward decided to use its GP Heatpipes on those two overclocked cards. This one has 6mm copper-water heatpipes and a "Great 8cm" double ball bearing fan. All three cards feature the same connectivity so you are looking at D-Sub, DVI and HDMI outputs.

Talking about gaming, you should know that the GTX 460 1GB will allow for pleasant gaming of newer titles at 1920x1280. Stay tuned as we’ll follow up with a full review soon.