MSI N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC 1GB Overclocked Graphics Card

This is about the smoothest running video card I've had in a long time. The past 6 years ATI has been my exclusive video card manufacture starting with the ATI X800 pro through the Radeon 1GB 4800 VC. After about 2 years with my 4800 it was starting to get long in the tooth with some of the newer titles this year. I originally wanted to go with ATI's 5850 model but the increase in price and high temps turned me off from ATI's products. I looked at Nvidia's GTX 470 VC but like the 5850 high temps, price, and power consumption turned me off. I was going to settle on the 5850 until this card came out, much better FPS per dollar, cooler temps, lower power consumption, and better over clocking abilities made this purchase a no brainer.
Pros
Cheap for what you get in performance, easy to install and very stable drivers at this point. Went from 48 FPS on my 4800 in Dirt 2 to 74 FPS over clocked. Speaking of overclocking I pushed the core to 800 MHZ, shaders to 1600 MHZ, and...Read more

This is an amazing budget card. First a little background. nVidia's 400 series has a reputation for running extremely hot. The 470 and 480 were released, based on the GF100 processor, and although they offered great performance, they were expensive, high end parts, and they ran really hot. They tried to create a budget card, the 465, by taking a 470 and cutting some of its processing power, but the result was a crappy, still hot card.

Then nVidia released the 460, based on a new processor (GF104) and new design, and it was an instant winner. It ran nice and cool, and with a little bit of overclocking, could easily beat the much more expensive 465 cards, while still running much cooler and sucking less power.

The MSI 460 GTX is a great card, using the awesome 460 chip. It performs great, runs nice and cool, and is amazingly quiet. Reviewers have shown that this card can overclock just as well as any other, although I haven't had the need to yet simply because...Read more

Material construction: *****
- Military grade components are manufactured to higher thermal tolerances than reference version.
- Heavy heatsink efficiently dissipates thermal energy even when card is under maximum stress.
- Durable board, quality component work, solid connectors.
- Fan runs fast and stays quiet, and it as well as its bearings are very durable.

Driver availability/compatibility: *****
- OEM and current Nvidia drivers are stable with this card right out of the box; no need to spend days researching which driver(s) to use for which applications and/or Operating Systems. Nvidia finally perfected a hardware design that's flexible enough to work and perform EXCELLENTLY with the vast majority of supported drivers - contrary to the past, in which only a handful worked at all without severe glitches, and even fewer offered good performance on top of that. This card series continues to open the high-perf Nvidia market to inexperienced...Read more