AMD Radeon RX 460 Review

[elbert]

The RX 460 looks to perform between the 270X and 280 in dx12, dx9, and vulkan. In DX11 games it just above a 270. Not bad at all for $110 card.

 

[Chester Rico]

Not bad for 110$ I guess, but I'd just spring something extra for a 470.

 

[Stardude82]

Should i buy rx 460 or gtx 950 75w (available for 115$) for hd gaming?

It looks like games might be rushing to using 4GB+ of VRAM. As unimpressive as the RX 460 is, a 4GB version at the same price might be worth it, if you can find one at $115. I've picked up 75W GTX 950 for about $100 after rebate back in June, so the prices on those can go down a bit if you can wait.

 

[DbD2]

A lot of cheer leading for a pretty disappointing card. Most sites have this behind a 950 - that's a previous gen card that seems to have about the same power usage (both it and 460 can run without a 6 pin, but most have one and run better with it), and slightly better performance, and about the same cost.

Sure that makes it a good alternative to the 950, but it should be thrashing a 950 which is previous gen 28nm technology. It puts no pressure on nvidia to price the 1050 sensibly, and is another sign AMD's hope of getting back into laptop gpu's is going nowhere!

 

[RedJaron]

Major gap between 470 and 460. Kinda weird.

Until you realize the chip in 460 form is cut down. A fully enabled 460 chip fills that gap nicely.

 

[filippi]

The RX 460 aim for DX12 and the future. Getting a 950 instead will prob look like a bad decision in a few months.

 

[littleleo]

Not seeing much stock right now so prices are inflated. I'm seeing prices at $119 for the 2GB version up to $145 for the 4GB version. For this card to hit it's target segment the prices have to come down to the $100 to $125 range.

 

[-Fran-]

6pin connector? What? Why?

Asus, stop doing favors no one asked for, please. This card, the whole bloody purpose of it, is to be at or under 75W using only PCIe power. That is the whole stupid selling point. Yeah, adding it "just in case" is not a bad move, given how the RX480 could have used an 8pin instead the 6pin, but this card should not be using it at all.

Cheers!

 

[utroz]

oh, you already such small chip
why is that disabled CU?

That is easy, all the full die enabled Polaris 11 chips are being used for laptops by makers like Apple. Who AMD can charge more money than if they sold it as a desktop card.

 

[nix27]

Should i buy rx 460 or gtx 950 75w (available for 115$) for hd gaming?

It looks like games might be rushing to using 4GB+ of VRAM. As unimpressive as the RX 460 is, a 4GB version at the same price might be worth it, if you can find one at $115. I've picked up 75W GTX 950 for about $100 after rebate back in June, so the prices on those can go down a bit if you can wait.

4GB may be necessary at FHD but I dont know if it would make any difference for 720p gaming. I was wondering more about the performance in future games. And I wanted something with a low power draw. Thanks for the reply

 

[ThanatosFX]

Great review, I hope they stick to the 110$ price range, if they creep up the price any higher than that then I personally prefer picking a 950 instead.

 

[Neoku]

disappointing.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

6pin connector? What? Why?

Asus, stop doing favors no one asked for, please. This card, the whole bloody purpose of it, is to be at or under 75W using only PCIe power. That is the whole stupid selling point. Yeah, adding it "just in case" is not a bad move, given how the RX480 could have used an 8pin instead the 6pin, but this card should not be using it at all.

Cheers!

Did you look at the power graphs? 85-90W while gaming, 100W under Furmark. That's definitely at the point where it requires a 6-pin PCIe cable.

 

[RedJaron]

6pin connector? What? Why?

Asus, stop doing favors no one asked for, please. This card, the whole bloody purpose of it, is to be at or under 75W using only PCIe power. That is the whole stupid selling point. Yeah, adding it "just in case" is not a bad move, given how the RX480 could have used an 8pin instead the 6pin, but this card should not be using it at all.

Cheers!

Did you look at the power graphs? 85-90W while gaming, 100W under Furmark. That's definitely at the point where it requires a 6-pin PCIe cable.

You completely missed Yuka's point. When the 460 was first intro'd, it was shown with no aux power connector. It was supposed to be a sub 75W card. A lot of us are wondering if this was AMD saying, "Oh crap," because sub-75W performance was too low so they increased the reference clock to compensate and thus abandoned their sub-75W goal, or if this is Asus ( and/or other partners ) simply boosting the card performance of their own accord and giving the middle finger to the users that wanted a true 750 Ti successor.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

6pin connector? What? Why?

Asus, stop doing favors no one asked for, please. This card, the whole bloody purpose of it, is to be at or under 75W using only PCIe power. That is the whole stupid selling point. Yeah, adding it "just in case" is not a bad move, given how the RX480 could have used an 8pin instead the 6pin, but this card should not be using it at all.

Cheers!

Did you look at the power graphs? 85-90W while gaming, 100W under Furmark. That's definitely at the point where it requires a 6-pin PCIe cable.

You completely missed Yuka's point. When the 460 was first intro'd, it was shown with no aux power connector. It was supposed to be a sub 75W card. A lot of us are wondering if this was AMD saying, "Oh crap," because sub-75W performance was too low so they increased the reference clock to compensate and thus abandoned their sub-75W goal, or if this is Asus ( and/or other partners ) simply boosting the card performance of their own accord and giving the middle finger to the users that wanted a true 750 Ti successor.

Oh, my bad. Yeah, I know they were saying that. I have a feeling they might end up making downclocked ones like EVGA did with the GTX 950 for no PCIe cable.

 

[-Fran-]

Oh, my bad. Yeah, I know they were saying that. I have a feeling they might end up making downclocked ones like EVGA did with the GTX 950 for no PCIe cable.

I do hope so. Either AMD starts telling the OEMs to make the stupid card under 75W or OEMs actually realize this was supposed to be a 75W card.

And I totally forgot my manners, lol. Thanks for the review. Hard work as usual!

Kudos for adding WoW back again! A game played by 7M+ people should be included most definitely

I'd like to see some other low spectrum / high player base games as well though. Overwatch seems to be a good fit, just like any Source game of late and LoL/HotS/Smite.

Cheers!

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Major gap between 470 and 460. Kinda weird.

Until you realize the chip in 460 form is cut down. A fully enabled 460 chip fills that gap nicely.

It's not cut down much, though. We could see a situation similar to 470 v. 480 where the price delta doesn't come with a commensurate increase in performance.

 

[RedJaron]

True enough, that is possible. It could also be that at this lower power level ( both electrical draw and processing oomph ) every little resource can make a difference. We'll have to wait and see which is the case. If AMD truly meant for this to be a 75W card, I can see that the slower, cut-down chip was supposed to fill that role at the $110 mark while the "OC'd" fully enabled chip was meant to be ~$140.

 

[Aspiring techie]

RIP 750 ti

 

[turkey3_scratch]

True enough, that is possible. It could also be that at this lower power level ( both electrical draw and processing oomph ) every little resource can make a difference. We'll have to wait and see which is the case. If AMD truly meant for this to be a 75W card, I can see that the slower, cut-down chip was supposed to fill that role at the $110 mark while the "OC'd" fully enabled chip was meant to be ~$140.

That'd be something like the RX 450 maybe?

 

[hannibal]

These small node cards eats very much power if clocked too high. It is easy to make 75W version without power Connection by using lower clocks. But what is interesting is how much slover it will be without extra power!
So definitely we need new test with that kind of version.

 

[ddferrari]

This is it. For an entry-level and low powered $100 card at this caliber nVidia can't touch this. This is the winning chip.

If there will ever be cutdown 1060 with 3B as planned, knowing nVidia, it won't even come near this price.

The 1060 is whoppingly better. Why would it ever come to this price? Pinch me also if you honestly see an RX 460 for $110.

I think rush21hit was talking about the rumoured 3GB 1060 which was supposed to be "severely cut down," to put it mildly, not the real, actual 1060 which is in a whole different class. One can almost buy 3x 460s for 1x 1060.

Having said that... Let's just wait for the 1050 and 1040 to drop before we declare an absolute winner in this price segment, shall we? But right now, you are correct rush21hit, Nvidia has nothing to compete in this price range. I look forward to seeing the changed Best Graphics Cards for the Money article. ;-)

I wouldn't count on a 1040 showing up- Nvidia hasn't gone below the "50" model for desktops since the 6xx series in 2012.

 

[jeffredo]

If you play nothing but DX12 or Vulcan titles I suppose its great. I have way, way more DX9/10/11 games that I still play. Price seems fine though.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

This is it. For an entry-level and low powered $100 card at this caliber nVidia can't touch this. This is the winning chip.

If there will ever be cutdown 1060 with 3B as planned, knowing nVidia, it won't even come near this price.

The 1060 is whoppingly better. Why would it ever come to this price? Pinch me also if you honestly see an RX 460 for $110.

I think rush21hit was talking about the rumoured 3GB 1060 which was supposed to be "severely cut down," to put it mildly, not the real, actual 1060 which is in a whole different class. One can almost buy 3x 460s for 1x 1060.

Having said that... Let's just wait for the 1050 and 1040 to drop before we declare an absolute winner in this price segment, shall we? But right now, you are correct rush21hit, Nvidia has nothing to compete in this price range. I look forward to seeing the changed Best Graphics Cards for the Money article. ;-)

I wouldn't count on a 1040 showing up- Nvidia hasn't gone below the "50" model for desktops since the 6xx series in 2012.

There is a GT 710, 730, and 740.

 

[nitrium]

Would love to see some MCPC analysis for a card like this (e.g. MadVR performance).