Overclocked: Palit GeForce GTX 465 non-reference

We have decided to do away with a review of our Palit GeForce GTX 465 by coming up with this overclocking feature. With ATI’s latest Catalyst 10.7 and NVIDIA’s Release 258.96 drivers, we compare how much faster the custom-built Palit gets when it is overclocked against the Radeon HD 5850. Hit up the link for all the numbers.

Like its older siblings, the GeForce GTX 470 and the current NVIDIA flagship GeForce GTX 480, the GeForce GTX 465 is based on the Fermi architecture. We will not touch on the Fermi architecture itself, but instead cut straight to the point and take a quick look at the Palit GeForce GTX 465. The Palit GeForce GTX 465 will be up against ATI’s Radeon HD 5850, both of which fall under the same price category.

There is nothing fancy about the Palit GeForce GTX 465 – just branding stickers and a gloss black finish on the top surface of the plastic shroud. We think this is way better than some cheesy looking ‘designer’ stickers.

Palit has opted to use a dual fan cooling solution for more airflow at a lower noise level. Plain-looking as the card may seem, but the contrast between black and orange makes it stand out very well actually.

A very large heatsink of densely packed fins sits beneath the two low-profile fans. Three large copper heatpipes are connected between the graphics processing unit’s (GPU) heatspreader and the heatsink.

The display connectors available on the rear PCI bracket are similar to that of the ATI Radeon HD 5850 – two DVI outputs, one DisplayPort and one HDMI. 

There is a small vent to allow hot air to be exhausted, but there are also plenty of gaps around the plastic shroud.

Two PCI Express 6-pin power connectors are required to get this card up and running.

Notice the large gap at the side of the shroud; air gets pushed out through here too, cooling the heatsinked GPU voltage regulation module (VRM) in the process.

The back of the printed circuit board reveals a fully custom designed GeForce GTX 465 by Palit themelves. It seems that the engineers have designed the PCB in mind for applications that require an 8-pin PCI Express power connector.

For power delivery, the Palit GeForce GTX 465 has a 4-phase VRM for the GPU, and a 1-phase for the memory.

There is no point having a card that has a beefy power and thermal layout if it cannot perform. Comparing a GeForce GTX 465 part clocked at default frequencies against the ATI Radeon HD 5850, it is almost a no brainer which card would emerge victorious though. Perhaps things might change if we overclock the GeForce GTX 465? Let us move on and check out the Palit’s overclocking potential.