 MSI GTX 460 1Ghz. This is a card that there's been quite a lot of buzz about because of some screenshots that have surfaced over the last few weeks showing this GTX 460 running at 1 GHz on air with stock cooling stable. So there's been just a ton of buzz about what makes this card so special that it is able to achieve that kind of overclock without any liquid cooling or any voltage mods or other tricks. So let's have a look at what MSI has to say for themselves on the inside of the box. First of all you've got triple overvoltage support so you can adjust the voltage of the GPU, memory and PLL just using MSI's outstanding afterburner software. Next it has a 7 plus 1 phase PWM design so that means it's capable of providing loads more current up to 120 amps of current than the reference GTX 460 which uses a 4 plus 1 phase PWM. Alright so there's a couple things it has going for it so obviously it uses a custom PCB. That's why it took so long to launch you don't have to come in and out so much you can just mostly look here for now. Also it features MSI's military class components. I mean there's a whole bunch of stuff in here that has to do with it's cooler and more reliable but to me the biggest advantage of military class components is the fact that you don't get coil wine. Coil wine sucks it's loud so even if you have a quiet fan it's like a little noise when you're playing games it's just stupid I hate it. So any MSI cards that I've used that feature military class components I have not once witnessed coil wine on them which is terrific. Also you have V checkpoints. This has shown up on quite a few MSI motherboards and they're little built-in points where you can connect your multimeter and you can monitor the voltages of the GPU memory and PLL using an actual multimeter instead of relying on only software. Now it does feature a twin Frozer 2 thermal design so it means you got dual 80 millimeter PWM fans you have a nickel plated copper cooler it uses heat pipe direct touch multiple heat pipes and a high density heat sink. MSI claims up to 18 degrees cooler and 8.1 decibels quieter than the reference cooler and that's all while still achieving these outstanding over clocks and all of these extra voltage modification features it's just this is this is a pretty cool skew I've been really waiting for this one. So here we go the Hawk itself it is overclocked factory overclocked although that's not really even all that relevant for something like this it comes with a couple of molex to six pin PCI Express adapters here are the little V check adapters so you plug those into the into the card and then you plug your multimeter into this so you've got three of those included I guess they're going to go ahead and assume if you're buying a hawk edition card you've got a DVI oh okay don't look at that that's apparently a little note to thank me for evaluating it it has passed related testing issues oh okay me I've never seen one of these before okay accessories I found more accessories they're hiding there we are so it has adapters okay we have a DVI to VGA adapter we have an mini HDMI to HDMI adapter we have a driver DVD or CD throw it away download the latest off the Nvidia website we have a little hawk series brochure showing you how to use MSI live update showing you where all your V checkpoints are showing you the actual layout of the bare PCB card that's kind of neat I've never seen that before included with a video card a little quick installation guide all good things must come to an end including that manual okay and then we have a quick user's guide here as well now let's look at the card itself because this is the moment we have truly all been waiting for I did mention it comes factory overclocked it comes at 780 megahertz although that is not even close to what MSI claims right on the box you want to be able to achieve with this particular card it has I think I mentioned already it has one gig of memory okay and let's just take off the little plastic covers that come on all the connectors so that we can take a closer look at the card itself so in terms of layout you know what I wish I had a regular GTX 460 to compare it against right off the bat here because it does look a little bit longer to me but I can't actually tell without having a direct comparison you can see on the back of the PCB this is a blackish PCB card it's got a little bit of brownness to it but that doesn't really matter it has an SLI connector up here on the top it's got a PCI Express 16x connector down here at the bottom the heat sink attaches via four screws so it looks like it would be quite easy to remove if you did feel like putting on a GPU water block or anything like that let me see what this is so this is the GPU V switch PWM clock tuner you know what they don't mention that but yeah those could be pretty cool buttons depending what they do alright let's move around to the front of the card so you can see the dual 80 millimeter fan twin frozer cooler this is the same cooler except with with nickel plated copper heat pipes and base and aluminum fins that we saw on the MSI GeForce GTX 465 golden edition so it's that same twin frozer design but this one is copper and aluminum so that means you see the same innovations carried over the heat pipes that move further away from the GPU are actually thicker so that they can carry heat more efficiently so that means that you're able to make full use of the entire cooler surface with these two fans and I'm gonna look for those V checkpoints here they are so you've got two PCIe 6 pin connectors here and there are your three V checkpoints where you can monitor the voltage of your GPU memory and PLL using an actual multimeter here on the back of the card you've got vents in the back so okay here here's how this heat sinks gonna work some of the air from this fan is going to be exhausted directly out of the case but quite a bit of it is going to be exhausted in your case so if you want to get the best GPU temperatures possible you want to make sure you have good air flow throughout your case okay so then we've got two DVI connectors and one mini HDMI connector remember you can only use two of these at once and in order to get surround support you have to have two of these bad boys so then you'd plug in two monitors here and then one on the third card now does support CUDA 3d vision as I mentioned G4 surround if you have two cards it supports two way SLI and all the other usual Nvidia features physX there's another one and thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the GeForce GTX 460 Hawk from MSI