SPARKLE Calibre X460G Video Card Review

Videocards/VGA Reviews by stefan @ 2010-11-29

The Calibre X460G graphics card from Sparkle is an interesting product, featuring a high overclock from factory, but also an Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro cooler to ensure low temperatures and noise.

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Test Bench and Extra Info

Stefan's Test Setup

CPU Core i7 920 @ 3.2Ghz
Cooling Cogage True Spirit
Mainboard Asrock X58 Extreme
Memory G.Skill F3-12800CL8T-6GBPI PI Series
VGA
  • AXLE GeForce 210 512MB DDR2
  • Gainward Geforce GTS 250 Deep Green
  • Gainward Geforce GT240
  • Inno3D Geforce GT240
  • Sparkle Geforce GTS 250 LP
  • ATI Radeon HD 4550
  • ATI Radeon HD 4890
  • ATI Radeon HD 5770
  • ATI Radeon HD 5830
  • ATI Radeon HD 5450
  • ATI Radeon HD 5670
  • Sparkle Geforce GTX 470
  • Inno3D GeForce GTS 250 iChill
  • Palit GeForce GTS 450 Low Profile
  • Sparkle Calibre X460G
  • Other
  • Power Supply : Antec True Power New 750W
  • HDD : Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10
  • Case : Cooler Master HAF922 Case with 2 NB-Multiframe S-Series MF12-S3HS@1800RPM on the side

  • With the help of the GPU-Z 0.4.8 utility, we could extract lots of information regarding the video card clocks,memory type, pixel and texture fill rate and so on:

     

    To extract even more information, we have used the AIDA64 utility:

     

    Here are the CUDA capabilities of the Calibre X460:

     

    Temperature tests:

    To find out the IDLE and maximum temperatures, I have used the Furmark utility, with the Stability Test in “Xtreme Burning mode” and let it run for about 15 minutes. To record the temperatures, the GPU-Z utility was used, thanks to its Sensors monitoring tab. The recorded room temperature at the time of testing was 20.6 degrees Celsius:

    IDLE

    Full Load

     

    Noise measurements

    Before measuring the noise the video card was producing, I have first measured the noise inside the room the tests took place and I found out it was 29.1dBA (with everything turned off).

    The next step was to measure the noise the test system was producing, without the video card installed; the value I have obtained was 34.1dBA. Most of the fans inside the case were turned off, but the CPU (43%) and chipset one (30%).

    At all times, the sound meter was placed 8cm under the video card.

    The GPU fan was controlled by the latest version of the EVGA Precision software:

     

    As it can be seen from the chart, the noise grows linear with the increase of the fan speed. Increasing the fan over 80% or setting a speed less than 40% was not possible using EVGA Precision:

     

     

    The 3DMark Vantage scores were calculated by summing up the GPU and CPU subscores.

     Here are the Vantage subscores separately:

     

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