Nvidia released today the most affordable entry so far in the GeForce GTX 400 graphics card family. The new GTX 465 is based on the same Fermi 40nm architecture we know from the GTX 480 and GTX 470 GPUs with certain cut-down specifications like the number of stream processors, texture units, and memory bus width (256-bit). The core clock speed remains identical to the GTX 470, while the memory clock speed has been just slightly lowered. This is all to be expected from a less expensive part. Nvidia has set pricing of the GTX 465 at $280 with cards already available from Newegg and a few other retailers.
It's usually the case that a lower performing graphics card comes with the advantage of lower power consumption and as a result lower heat generation. I mention this in particular because it's been one of our biggest complaints about GTX 400 GPUs. Unfortunately, the GTX 465 doesn't see much in the way of improvements in this area. Anandtech has published a review on a GTX 465 card from Zotac and the conclusion is clear-cut: "The GTX 465 is much louder and much more power hungry than the Radeon 5850 all while being slower – and all you save is $20."
Later this week we will be publishing a full update in the current rivarly between the GeForce GTX 480 and 470 boards versus the ATI Radeon HD 5870 and 5850. Besides our usual round-up of testing with the most updated drivers (Nvidia recently claimed big performance improvements) we will be looking at other specifics like minimum frames per second, which many gamers assert is the biggest strength of the latest GeForce cards.
