14 DAY TRIAL // NVIDIA has finally unleashed the GeForce GTX 460 upon the performance market and, naturally, its partners are already going well out of their way unveiling their own versions of the cards. Practically all of them have their own stock versions out already, but some actually went ahead and customized them, both in terms of performance as well as looks. ASUS, for instance, has put together a pair of tweaked models that bear the DirectCU branding.
Predictably, the two are special versions of the 768MB GDDR5 and 1GB GDDR5 stock models, respectively. Their exact names are ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP/2DI/768MD5 and ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP/2DI/1GD5, though few will actually make a point of remembering these exact denominations. What matters is that they have higher clocks than their reference counterparts and that their cooling solution is more effective.
To be more specific, both the 768MB and the 1GB devices have the GF104 GPU working at 700 MHz, instead of 675 MHz. Additionally, the shaders are clocked at 1400 MHz and the memory at 3680 MHz. Also, obviously, both models have full support for DirectX 11, PhysX, CUDA, 2-way SLI multi-GPU setups and, of course, 3D Vision Surround. As such, they should prove quite an asset to any end-user from the higher levels of the mainstream segment, otherwise known as the performance market.
ASUS's products will connect to video output devices via dual-DVI and HDMI outputs. As for the cooling solution, it is, as already mentioned, a DirectCU fansink with two flattened 8mm copper heatpipes. It should not only ensure a lower operational temperature, but will definitely let overclockers experiment.
Both GTX 460 video controllers should start selling soon, priced at roughly $200 (768 MB) and $250 (1 GB). They will be bundled with the overclocking and overvolting utility Voltage Tweak which ca supposedly boost performance by up to 50 percent.