KFA2 GTX460 1GB vs. HD5830 1GB: The Showdown!

[Ket]

Have you tried Extreme Tuner HD from Galaxy?
You might want to give it a try and see if voltage options are available for this card under that piece of software.

EDIT.
Just realized that voltage controller is up6206. It does not support I2C. Does it have secondary voltage controller chip like some MSI cards did in the past to have voltage control on their 5830 cards?

There must be a secondary because if I use nVidia Inspector voltage can be adjusted up to 1.087v

Did I not tell you this long before you bought the 5830?

You should have bought a 5850 like I suggested...

However, the GTX460 is a nice card. ...

I didn't buy the 5830 to use, I've made that quite clear numerous times. I bought the 5830 to review it now its had the benefit of some more mature drivers for it and to test ATi claims of it going head to head with the GTX460 (which we all know is BS, this review just unquestionably settles it). End of the day the 5830 is a midrange card (hence the cheap price of £140) with a highend product nametag. The 5830 is more like a 5790 or 5810.

[Funky]

There must be a secondary because if I use nVidia Inspector voltage can be adjusted up to 1.087v

Maybe you want to add that in the original post. Some people might be turned off from buying this card because they read no voltage control there.

I am getting the Galaxy branded card in couple of days hopefully for testing. Will check it out under my magnifying glass for secondary chip.

[Ket]

Let us know if you find one

[Funky]

Ok got my Galaxy GC edition 1GB.



Looks exactly same as this one.
But I have voltage control right out of the box with Afterburner 1.6.1. I hope you have enabled unlock voltage control under settings.
Nice clocker as well. Though noisy at even moderate fan speeds of 45%.
I will be taking this apart to redo the TIM tonight ( The card is actually running cool, so not really needed, but oh well, I gotta see it naked :P

Has exact same chip on the back



MSI afterburner with voltage option.




If anyone wants bios dump, let me know.

[Ket]

Odd.. everything there looks identical to the KFA but you can only overvolt to 1v? With nVidia Inspector the KFA can go to 1.087v.

[Funky]

No, 1v is stock voltage on this card.
It can go upto 1.087 like all others.

[Funky]

Here what it is able to do so far. Still no sign of sparkling stars ( artifacts that you get with GTX 4xx when you push too much. )

[BeepBeep2]

920 on a GTX460 is nothing short of amazing IMO. Wow...

In comparison, my crossfire 5770's hit 19-20k in vantage both at 1050 Mhz...

That 460 @ 900+ is like two 5770's @ ~stock. ...gasp.

[Johnny87au]

920 on a GTX460 is nothing short of amazing IMO. Wow...

In comparison, my crossfire 5770's hit 19-20k in vantage both at 1050 Mhz...

That 460 @ 900+ is like two 5770's @ ~stock. ...gasp.

Same thing i was thinking mate, quite amazed

[HelixPC]

The Bad:

- 2D Desktop quality isn't very nice

what do you mean by this?

[saaya]

yeah i wondered about the 2d iq hint as well...
is that with analog dsub or dvi or with digital dvi?

and oh well, if they are cheaper than anybody else, lets hear it for KFA2!

[Ket]

The Bad:

- 2D Desktop quality isn't very nice

what do you mean by this?

Its as I described in the conclusion. When the driver had installed and I rebooted desktop image quality was noticably blurrier vs. the ATi card. It was so blurry I thought the monitor hadn't defaulted to its native resolution, but it had. I put my glasses on too to make sure it wasn't my eyes playing tricks on me, but no, it was deffinately blurrier. The connection being used was DVI. I don't know what nVidias deal is with continuing crap desktop quality, but since switching to modded Quadro drivers desktop quality is better, but still not ATi level.

[Funky]

yeah i wondered about the 2d iq hint as well...
is that with analog dsub or dvi or with digital dvi?

and oh well, if they are cheaper than anybody else, lets hear it for KFA2!

If he is coming from ATI, there is slight difference in default colour vibrance and how desktop appears even with digital signal.
Its marginal but its there. Everything appears slightly blurred on GTX 460. Dont know if its the way cleartype works differently on the two or some other reason behind this, but its noticeable.

[Ket]

I'll play with a few CP settings to see if the picture can be cleaned up. I do think nVidia should address this though, it does spoil general use of the card.

[Adonay]

My galaxy card came with a great tweaking utility much better than the afterburner. It also has a hud when bechmarking much like a FRAPS overlay

[Ket]

Thats Xtreme Tuner HD. It is a pretty comprehensive bit of software even including a built-in utility to flash your graphics card BIOS. I would rate it higher than any other OC software.

[qweabab1]

I have the same problem

[Blkout]

The Bad:

- 2D Desktop quality isn't very nice

what do you mean by this?

Its been known for years that ATI has better 2D image quality than Nvidia. I've swapped camps many times over the years because I'm not brand loyal, but its always immediately noticeable when switching from ATI to Nvidia at just how inferior Nvidia's 2D image quality really is. I really prefer ATI cards when their 3D performance isn't too far behind Nvidia just because I spend 75% of my time doing day to day tasks where the ATI cards are clearly superior in image quality.

[Ket]

^^ +1. I'd like to know why the hell nV don't sort their 2D image quality out. Talk about lazy. Its more than likely just really old predefined display settings within the driver doing it.

[Blkout]

The gamma profiles are always darker on Nvidia cards for some reason, colors don't seem have quite the same pop either and I'm not saying that ATI is oversaturating colors, they just appear more natural, Nvidia's colors always look a little washed out. And then I can't really explain why ATI cards always seem to have sharper text, Nvidia always looks just a little less sharp.

You can mostly compensate for the gamma and color issues with some work in the Nvidia control panel or your monitors settings, but you shouldn't have to do that when ATI can get it right out of the box. However, I've never been able to compensate for the slightly less sharp text using Nvidia, even with MS Cleartype. For what its worth though, I think your eyes do adjust to it with a little time and it doesn't bother you as much, but when you switch back to an ATI card, you'll be thinking, wow, what have I been missing. It hits me the same way everytime I switch.

[Ket]

I havent needed to change any monitor settings in that way, but I have needed to change the X/Y axis of the scren. For some reason its just off with the GTX460.

[Valg]

KFA2, they just rebrand Galaxy or what?
http://www.kfa2.com/gtx460gc1024mbd5.html
http://www.galaxytechus.com/usa/productview.aspx?id=127

[Ket]

Yes. KFA are the rebrand Galaxy name for Europe.

[Marc_lux]

I'm glad I did not take the 460GTX instead of the hd5830 when I look at performance now. Mine wasn't 140, it was 110Euro. + I got a second for free as they send me an open package xD. With two of ther 5830's I got 21000 in F. Vantage. I don't know, but the 460GTX just really sux considering its price, still. So does the hd5850. You can get some cheap ass hd5830 from France though.

[Ket]

Even overclocked heavily, the HD5830 is at best a average performer, its not spectacular, but its not terrible either. Average. Whats more important to note though is how the GTX460 1GB beats or equals the OCd 5830 in most tests. With the current prices of GTX460s being around £135, its very very hard to recommend the 5830 in any capacity.