Scream if you want to go faster
When we wrote about POV and TGT's 855MHz GTX 460 BEAST yesterday, we thought it would be a while before anyone managed to push the GF104 architecture any faster. It looks like we were wrong.
Very wrong.
Chinese site PCPop has been taking an early look at a new GTX 460 from manufacturer Colorful that, using a custom cooler, manages to push the core up to an astounding 900MHz - 33 per cent faster than reference clock-speed.
To achieve this amazing feat required a fair bit of custom engineering. Firstly the PCB uses a unique design featuring 6+1 phase power-circuitry to support the increased power draw of the card.
The cooler is also custom and is apparently modelled on a shark's fins and gills. Built with four heatpipes and a multitude of cooling-fins that extend beyond the edge of the card, the manufacturer claims that the surface area is significantly increased, resulting in superior cooling-performance.
This is all topped-off by two different sized fans. The larger of the two cools the GPU and memory, while the smaller fan covers the power-circuitry towards the end of the PCB. This should help to manage the high temperatures while minimising the amount of noise.
Frankly, the fact that any company has been able to get the GF104 running at 900MHz stably enough to bring it to market is impressive in of itself. It was clear from the start that NVIDIA had done an excellent job in reworking the Fermi architecture but the capabilities of this chip seem to know no bounds.
Though Colorful does sell its products in Europe, they aren't currently available in the UK. This means that, for the time being, all we can do is wait for another manufacturer to announce a card that's even faster.
