Galaxy GeForce GTX 465 GC Video Card

The GTX 400 series just became a bit more affordable. But do we care? Is the GTX 465 something we even want? Let's find that out now.

Published
Updated
Manufacturer: Galaxy
16 minutes & 1 second read time

Introduction




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Too hot, too loud, draws too much power, costs too much money and isn't fast enough. They are the main things we hear about the GTX 400 series. To be honest, though, the whole series is a bit like the iPad for me as I think about it. There are so many reasons not to buy the iPad, as is the case with the GTX 400 series. Why are people lining up for days for an iPad and willing to pay any price for GTX 400 series cards? I wish they were questions I could answer. I suppose as geeks, there are some things that we just don't use our brain for.

Like the iPad, though, the GTX 400 series is good at a lot of things and the bottom line is that the GTX 480 is the fastest single GPU card on the market, which is no easy task. What happens if you like PhysX and CUDA or just NVIDIA in general, yet the GTX 475 and GTX 485 are out of your price range? I don't mean out of your price range in the sense they're over priced, but more so in the sense they're just more money than you wish to spend.

Well, the answer to that is the GTX 465. But wait a cotton picking minute, (I can't believe I just typed that). First, we have to find out if it's even worth spending your hard earned dollars on. Before we do that, though, let's check out the package Galaxy has thrown together before we take a closer look at the card itself.

The Package




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Galaxy GeForce GTX 465 GC Video Card 04


Galaxy GeForce GTX 465 GC Video Card 05


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Looking at the bundle, there's nothing much going on which isn't all that much of a surprise. As for the cable, it's a mini HDMI to HDMI. We've also got the standard driver CD and documentation.

The Card and Specifications


The Card

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Having a look at the card, it might look a little familiar. That's because the card looks the same as the recently reviewed GTX 475 OC GC from Galaxy. With the model using the same PCB as the GTX 470, it's easy for companies who have made new coolers for the GTX 470 to jump straight onto an upgraded version of the GTX 465.

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Galaxy GeForce GTX 465 GC Video Card 09


Galaxy GeForce GTX 465 GC Video Card 10


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As for the rest of the card, we've got two 6-Pin PCI-E power connectors, our standard SLI connectors and two Dual-Link DVI connectors along with a single mini-HDMI port.

The big feature is of course the cooler that Galaxy has opted for which is the same one on the GTX 475 OC GC that carries with it the ability to tilt the fan up and clean the heatsink that sits right above the GPU.


Specifications

The Shader count on the GTX 465 comes in at 352 which is a good chunk down on the 480 seen on the GTX 470. On the memory bus front we've got 256-bit instead of 320-bit. The overall amount is also down due to the fact we're using the 256-bit bus. Instead of 1280MB of GDDR5, we've got 1024MB or 1GB as it's more commonly referred to.

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The GTX 465 and GTX 470 both use the same core clock of 608MHz which means the Shader clock comes in at the same 1215MHz. The only difference is memory speed; the GTX 470 offers 3348MHz QDR while the GTX 465 comes in at 3208MHz QDR.

On the specification front you can see the model is clearly behind the GTX 470, but hopefully performance is still strong.

Test System Setup and 3DMark Vantage


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We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASRock, Kingston, Western Digital, Noctua and Thermaltake.

In our main graphs today we've included the GTX 470 which is the big brother to the GTX 465. On the ATI front we've got both the HD 5870 and HD 5850. Now, let's find out how the model performs.

Let's get started!


3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here




3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

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The latest NVIDIA cards don't do great under Vantage when compared to the ATI offerings. It doesn't come as much of a surprise that the GTX 465 falls behind both ATI offerings, as the higher end GTX 470 does.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark




Version and / or Patch Used: 1 and 2
Developer Homepage: http://www.unigine.com
Product Homepage: http://unigine.com/press-releases/091022-heaven_benchmark//



New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

Note: If a card doesn't support DirectX 11 the benchmark will be left out, if it does it will be included along with the DirectX10 results.

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Tessellation has been a strong point for the NVIDIA cards and in V2 where it's tessellation heavy, the card out performs the HD 5850.

Benchmarks - CINEBENCH


CINEBENCH

Version and / or Patch Used: Release 10 and Release 11.5
Developer Homepage: http://www.maxon.net/
Product Homepage: http://www.maxon.net




CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer's performace capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software, CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-Bit) and Macintosh (PPC and Intel-based).

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The GTX 400 series perform almost identical to each other; no real surprise at all here.

Benchmarks - Resident Evil 5


Resident Evil 5

Version and / or Patch Used: Demo Benchmark
Developer Homepage: www.residentevil.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.residentevil.com/




Resident Evil 5 is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on September 18. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

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We can see that performance at all resolutions is good with an average of above 60 FPS across the board. The card does fall behind the HD 5850, though. Not so much at the lower resolution, but more so at the 2560 x 1600 end.

Benchmarks - BattleForge


BattleForge

Version and / or Patch Used: Auto Patched at Load
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.battleforge.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.battleforge.com/





The Gods have disappeared and the old sun has died, letting a vile twilight engulf the world of Nyn. In exchange for all treasures the mortals possessed, the evil giants agreed to forge a new sun and hurl it into the sky.

But the deal was betrayed, the treasure stolen and now the mortals flee the wrath of the giants. Under the light of a new sun the mortals stumble into a world changed and twisted by an age of twilight. The long journey home has become a conquest of survival.

Note: Supporting DirectX 11 we have seperated the graphs for NVIDIA and ATI cards. While the numbers between the two brands can be compared you have to make note that ATI based HD 5000 series cards are running DirectX 11.

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The NVIDIA cards fall a little behind in BattleForge. The GTX 465 struggles at 2560 x 1600. Compared to the HD 5850 here, it does fall a bit further behind.

Benchmarks - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.


Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/UK/default.aspx
Product Homepage: http://www.hawxgame.com/





Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X is an arcade-style flight simulator video game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and iPhone OS.

The fundamental gameplay mechanics are similar to those of other console-based flight series. Players take on enemies with over 50 aircraft available. Each mission is at real world locations in environments created with commercial satellite data. A cockpit, first person, and third person view are selectable. The third person view gives the player an external view of both their plane and the target.

Set above the skies of a near-future world, increasingly dependent on private military companies with elite mercenaries who have a relaxed view on the law. As these non-governmental organizations gain power, global conflict erupts with one powerful PMC attacking the United States.

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We've got good frame rates at 1920 x 1200 and below. At 2560 x 1600 we just fall short of that 60 FPS number we want to see. A small detail drop would fix that, though.

Benchmarks - Darkest of Days


Darkest of Days

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.4
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.darkestofdays.com/index.php
Product Homepage: http://www.darkestofdays.com/index.php





Darkest of Days takes the player through time into historic battles in an effort to save key individuals from certain death. The battles range from Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 to fighting in Pompeii as ash and fire rain down from an erupting Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. Other locations include the battles of Antietam and Tannenberg, and a German World War II P.O.W. camp. There are different missions in every time period and the game takes about 4 hours to complete.

The game features over twenty weapons, both from the original time period as well as those brought back from the future. In addition, there are artillery weapons from different time periods to assist in battle.

Note: With the PhysX set to Medium or High Darkest of Days take advantage of the NVIDIA PhysX abilities. For that reason we will test ATI cards at the Low preset, NVIDIA based cards though will be tested at Low and High.

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Of course the GTX 465 offers PhysX support and under DOD we're able to play at all resolutions, which is great.

Benchmarks - Far Cry 2


Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
Buy It Here




The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.

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FC2 is pretty much playable at all resolutions. A small detail adjustment might be needed at 2560 x 1600, though. The card does fall a bit behind the HD 5850 again, though, at the higher resolution.

Benchmarks - Batman Arkham Asylum


Batman Arkham Asylum

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/





Batman: Arkham Asylum exposes players to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes them to the depths of Arkham Asylum - Gotham's psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Gamers will move in the shadows, instigate fear amongst their enemies and confront The Joker and Gotham City's most notorious villains who have taken over the asylum.

Using a wide range of Batman's gadgets and abilities, players will become the invisible predator and attempt to foil The Joker's demented scheme.
Batman: Arkham Asylum features an original story penned exclusively for the game by famous Batman author and five-time Emmy award winner Paul Dini, whose credits include Lost season one and Batman: The Animated Series.

Note: With support for PhysX NVIDIA based cards will be tested with the technology on and off, ATI cards will be tested with the technology off due to it not being supported on their cards.

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While we've got playable FPS across the board with PhysX off, unfortunately we're only getting playable FPS at 1680 x 1050 with PhysX on under Batman AA.

Benchmarks - Dark Void


Dark Void

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.airtightgames.com
Product Homepage: http://www.darkvoidgame.com/




The game's story takes place during World War II and centers around a cargo pilot named William Augustus Grey (voiced by Nolan North) who is teleported to another world while flying through the Bermuda Triangle. In this world, known as the 'Void', Will encounters an alien race as well as other humans, which are known as the Watchers and the Survivors respectively.

Will reluctantly joins the Survivors who are engaged in a feud with the alien race to satisfy his desire to return to Earth. While aiding the Survivors, Will discovers that the Void is a middle ground that connects both the Watchers homeworld and Earth. It also becomes apparent that the Watchers are supplying the Axis powers with various supplies for reasons unknown. With the help of Nikola Tesla, Will utilizes retrofited Watcher technology to combat the Watchers and eventually find a way to escape the Void.

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Playable frame rates across the board, including PhysX on at 2560 x 1600.

Benchmarks - High Quality AA and AF


High Quality AA and AF

Our high quality tests let us separate the men from the boys and the ladies from the girls. If the cards weren't struggling before they will start to now.


Far Cry 2

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Strong AA performance that kills the ATI cards here. A minimum of 30 FPS also means we're talking about a playable setup.


Resident Evil 5

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RE5 doesn't have the same AA joy; we're a good chunk below the 60 FPS average here unlike the other three cards.


Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

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Across the board we see all games fall under the 60 FPS average we need.

Benchmarks - Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor


Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.51
Timedemo or Level Used: Sample File
Developer Homepage: http://www.elcomsoft.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.elcomsoft.com/ewsa.html




ElcomSoft has pioneered many software innovations that have made it easier to recover passwords protecting various types of resources. For the first time in the industry, the company's patent-pending GPU acceleration makes its way into Wi-Fi password recovery, reducing the time required to recover Wi-Fi passwords up to a hundred times.

Supporting up to four NVIDIA boards such as GeForce 8, 9, and 200, as well as ATI video cards such as RADEON HD 4000 Series and up, Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor allows building servers with supercomputer performance at a fraction of the price.

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No real surprises here.

Benchmarks - Badaboom


Badaboom

Version and / or Patch Used: Release 1.2.1.7
Developer Homepage: http://www.nvidia.com//
Product Homepage: http://www.badaboomit.com/




Badaboom eliminates the frustration of video conversion by providing users with speed, efficiency, quality, and a sleek interface. In a practice that used to take several hours, Badaboom converts feature-length movies in a matter of minutes while keeping the videos looking crisp and clear.

By harnessing the power of NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs, Badaboom offloads the CPU to allow users to continue browsing the Internet or checking email without decreased system performance, making transcoding high-quality video fast, easy, and painless.

Note: With the requirement for a CUDA enabled graphics card to run Badaboom, this means that we can only use NVIDIA based cards for this test.

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It's nice to know that you can spend a lot less than the GTX 480 and still code video at the same speed. While we understand that if we changed the bit rate to a lot lower numbers the results would change a bit, the bottom line is that we rip the video at a size you would actually use.

Temperature Test


Temperature Tests



With the TES 1326 Infrared Thermometer literally in hand we found ourselves getting real-world temperatures from the products we test at load (3D clock speeds).

There are two places we pull temperature from - the back of the card directly behind the core and if the card is dual slot and has an exhaust point we also pull a temperate from there, as seen in the picture.

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The GTX 465 with the cooling option that Galaxy has offered isn't plagued with the same issues as higher end GTX 400 launch models.

Sound Test


Sound Tests



Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.

After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).

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The same goes for noise levels which are very reasonable.

Power Consumption Tests






Using our new PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or "Power Thingy" as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).

There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.

The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum - only a 7,200RPM SATA-II single hard drive is used without CD ROM or many cooling fans.

So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.

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Power draw while being a little higher than the HD 5850 and HD 5830 is still very reasonable.

Total Performance Rating (TPR)


Total Performance Rating

The TPR graph is a combination of all our benchmarks in which NVIDIA and ATI are on an even playing field. This includes benchmarks where PhysX can be forced off like Dark Void and Batman: Arkham Asylum, but not Darkest of Days.

The TPR number is a combination of:

3DMark Vantage, Heaven Benchmark V2, CINEBENCH R11.5, Resident Evil 5, BattleForge, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., Far Cry 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum (PhysX Off), Dark Void (PhysX Off) and our three High Quality tests which include Far Cry 2, Resident Evil 5 and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

All of the benchmark results achieved are then combined into a single number. As this graph will grow over time and cards won't be re-tested, next to each model you'll find the driver version that was used when the card was benchmarked.

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While we didn't have the HD 5830 in our graphs today, the TPR paints a good picture telling us that the stock clocked GTX 465 model out performs the HD 5830 and even one of the HD 5830s overclocked. Compared to a stock HD 5850, it falls about 10% behind.

Total Value Rating (TVR)


Total Value Rating

The TVR graph is the TPR score divided by the price of the video card. The price of the video card is based on the list price of the model on Newegg.com. In the event the card isn't listed, it will be based on the U.S. $ MSRP given to us by the manufacturer.

In the event we can't source a price from either, the product will not receive a TVR rating. As with our TPR graph, the amount of video cards on the list will grow over time and the price of the model won't change from what it was when first reviewed. For this reason the U.S. $ price that the card is based off will be included next to the name of the model.

In the event you want to find the TVR rating yourself based on the current price, all you have to do is simply divide the TPR number by the list price.

TVR numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number; 100.3 will be 100; 100.8 will be 101 and 100.5 will be rounded down to 100.

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The TVR paints another really good picture giving us an idea of how the model sits. Compared to the competition it's really not that bad with it sitting around the GTX 470 and HD 5830 / HD 5850. It will be very interesting to see what happens when we overclock the model.

Final Thoughts




When you first take a look at the model compared to the HD 5850 you would be quick to think it doesn't look all that great. You then look at our TPR graph and see that compared to the HD 5830 it's faster and compared to the HD 5850 it falls behind by about 10%.

The HD 5850 isn't cheap, though. Looking at NewEgg.com, we see the most basic one at $299.99 which is from Biostar and upgraded cooling / overclocked ones going well beyond $300 at some points. The GTX 465 is actually really well priced. Like anything, it would've been nice if it was cheaper, but unlike the HD 5830 which didn't come in at the best price point, the GTX 465 has come in at a really good one.

I think we'll also see some companies get aggressive which will bring the price down even more which really is fantastic news. When you start to dissect the model, it's ultimately really quite good.

It's easy to go through the graphs and see that just about in every test the card falls behind the HD 5850. It's also easy to forget that the GTX 465 is under $300. It's also easy to forget that it's not plagued with the same gripes that we had with the GTX 470 and GTX 480 at launch and it's also really easy to forget the GTX 465 offers both PhysX and CUDA support.

SLI scaling on the GTX 400 series has proven to be great and the GTX 470 has proved to be a fantastic overclocker. The big question we need to answer now is how does the GTX 465 overclock and how does it scale in SLI? - Oh, and how does it go in SLI when overclocked?! - These are questions that are going to be answered throughout the week so keep an eye on TweakTown for all the latest.

What we're not happy with? The bundle's pretty light, but that's typical of NVIDIA cards. The only other issues? - We have the same issue with this card as we do with every video card on the market; we wish it was cheaper and we wish it was faster. But as I said before, we wish that from everything, be it video cards to CPUs to cars.

The GTX 465 is ultimately an impressive model. Its out of the box performance looks better than the GTX 470 and we don't mean looks better in the sense it's faster, but looks better in the sense of the price, the power, the noise and the heat. We're also hoping that its OC potential is as good as the GTX 470 which has impressed us.

The latest 257 driver and a good price point make this a really good model. What makes it particularly stand out, though, is that it runs at a good temperature, isn't loud and doesn't draw copious amounts of power.

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Shawn takes care of all of our video card reviews. From 2009, Shawn is also taking care of our memory reviews, and from May 2011, Shawn also takes care of our CPU, chipset and motherboard reviews. As of December 2011, Shawn is based out of Taipei, Taiwan.

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