EVGA and Galaxy GeForce GTX 465 SLI Video Card Review

The EVGA GeForce GTX 465 Super Clocked Edition

The front of the EVGA retail packaging is simple, yet effective. It displays the key points of the EVGA GeForce GTX 465, such as 3D Vision Surround, PhysX, CUDA, and SLI. Directly below the GTX 465 the letters SC are highlighted. This indicates that this particular card is the Super Clocked edition. The EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC edition has higher clock speeds than the reference card. Instead of the 607MHz processor clock and 802MHz memory clock, the EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition has a 625MHz processor clock and an 810MHz memory clock.

The back of the retail packaging lists out the Features and the package contents.

Features

• Microsoft DirectX 11 Support
• NVIDIA CUDA Technology with CUDA C/C++, Direct Compute 5.0 and OpenCL Support
• NVIDIA PhysX Technology
• NVIDIA Pure Video HD Technology
• NVIDIA two way and three way SLI Ready
• NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround Ready
• Two Dual Link DVI-I connectors
• One Mini-HDMI 1.3a Connector
• Dual-link HDCP Capable
• OpenGL 4.0 Support

The EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition is backed by a lifetime warranty as long as you register it within 30 days of purchase.

Both sides of the retail packaging feature the EVGA GTX 465 description as pictured above.

This end features information about EVGA’s step up program as well as system requirements needed to use the EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition.

This end shows what would be needed to take advantage of NVIDIA’s SLI technology.

Once you open the retail packaging you can see the EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition is well protected inside a plastic clamshell.

The package contents are displayed here.

• EVGA GTX 465 SC Edition Graphics Card
• EVGA Driver/Software Disc with EVGA Precision Tuning Utility
• Mini-HDMI to HDMI Cable
• DVI to VGA Adapter
• (2) 6 pin PCI-E power Cables
• User Guide

The EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition appears to be using the reference design.

Flipping the EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition video card over we don’t find too many interesting things, but we can make out two small holes. These allow for a small amount of extra airflow into the video card’s cooling fan, which helps improve cooling performance. We have seen this for a couple of years now on several NVIDIA graphics cards and it appears to work well. The EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition graphics cards support SLI and have a pair of SLI bridges located along the top edge of the graphics card. The NVIDIA GTX 400 series supports two, three and quad SLI configurations.

The EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition features a pair of Dual-link DVI-I ports as well as a Mini-HDMI 1.3a port. EVGA was kind enough to include an eight foot Mini-HDMI to HDMI cable.

The top of the card has been kept pretty simple, except for the branding and the pair of 75 Watt 6 pin PCI-e power connectors. These are required to run the card, and it is recommended to use a minimum 550W power supply with a minimum of 38 amps on the 12 volt rail.

In order to take the heat sink assembly off you have to remove the 16 screws on the back of the GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition and two more screws near the Dual-link DVI-I ports. The top shroud features tool-less removal. This makes it incredibly easy to clean the fins using compressed air without having to remove the entire assembly.

The heat sink uses direct contact heat-pipes to keep the EVGA GeForce GTX 465 SC Edition from over-heating.

The NVIDIA GF100 chip is surrounded by Samsung GDDR5 memory chips. The etching on the chips was incredibly difficult to photograph or even read. The model number of the chips is “K4G10325FE-HC05”. That means that the memory is rated for 4Gbps, according to Samsung.