Sapphire Nitro RX 460 OC Graphics Card Review

John Williamson / 8 years ago

Final Thoughts

Price

At the time of writing, the most affordable RX 460 model is being manufactured by XFX and retails for an estimated price of £109.99/$109.99. Please take into account that this edition has 2GB of video memory and features a 1220MHz base clock. In contrast to this, the Sapphire Nitro RX 460 OC will cost £129.99 in the UK and $139.99 for US customers. Unfortunately, the UK is experiencing some pretty harsh conversions caused by the recent devaluation of Sterling. This pricing is perilously close to the blower design Sapphire RX 470 with a current cost of £164.99. Given the huge gain in performance, I’d expect there to be a larger difference in the UK retail prices. Speaking of today’s market prices, the graphics card costs about the same as a custom cooled GTX 950 sporting 2GB of VRAM or R7 370 2GB. This is the reason why I’ve focused on these cards in the review as a way of doing a fully up-to-date price to performance comparison. While the graphics card’s abilities won’t make you rush out to buy one, it’s a solid product for a low-cost gaming solution. The problem is that the GTX 950 can be faster and cheaper in some scenarios.

Overview

As mentioned earlier in the review, the RX 460 is tailored towards eSports gaming and titles which don’t require a great deal of processing power. In theory, I could have benchmarked the product using popular competitive releases like Dota 2 and League of Legends but they’re so easy to run that it wouldn’t have provided insightful results. Granted, I appreciate AMD’s aims in trying to upgrade the hardware used by legions of eSports fans in China and around the world. Whatever the motive, the RX 460 should be compared only against GPUs within a budget price category. As a result, the testing was conducted using a range of affordable solutions including the RX 470 at sensible visual presets. Additionally, 1440p results were omitted because the graphics card isn’t suitable for this resolution.

Performance-wise, the RX 460 is mediocre if you’re looking to enjoy a decent boost compared to existing lower-end GPUs. Sadly, the graphics card struggled to defeat the GTX 960 and often fell behind the GTX 950. The only NVIDIA option it consistently outperformed was the GTX 750Ti which is to be expected. Of course, the graphics card performed much better when employing the Vulkan API and almost surpassed the GTX 960 in the Doom benchmark. Bizarrely, the GTX 950 recorded a higher minimum frame-rate during Ashes of the Singularity which tends to favour AMD products due to asynchronous compute. This lack of competitiveness really took me by surprise. Thankfully, the situation improves and the graphics card posted good results in Just Cause 3 and had a comprehensive lead over the GTX 950 while running the Hitman benchmark. Saying that, this success is short-lived as the RX 460 falls behind the GTX 950 in both Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of Mordor.

When analysing the RX 460’s performance, your viewpoint may vary depending on perspective. If you’re content with the product offering similar performance to existing solutions costing the same, and simply want something new to play eSports titles, then it’s a pretty good offering. Additionally, the GPU can uphold decent frame-rates for a card of this calibre and copes fairly well with high graphical presets. On the other hand, it’s an evolutionary not revolutionary creation and struggles to beat the GTX 950. This cannot be overlooked and really overshadows the sense of value. Hopefully, the price point is lowered to reflect this.

In terms of overclocking headroom, the GPU isn’t able to reach 1350MHz despite utilising Sapphire’s overclocking tool which contains more options than AMD Wattman. The final stable result was a 1332MHz boost and applying large amounts of voltage wouldn’t allow the boost to run beyond this figure. On a more positive note, the memory reached a very impressive 1997MHz which is way beyond what I’ve encountered on other Polaris samples. Although, AMD Wattman prevented me from trying this kind of overclock on previous reviews. Once overclocked, there is a good boost in performance especially when playing Doom. Personally, I would have liked a higher boost figure but this wasn’t possible and the full overclocking potential of the RX 460 will be known after more reviews have been completed.

The Sapphire model is made to a high standard and utilises a good cooling solution which works effectively without making the GPU unsuitable for smaller builds. While the temperatures could be better, the noise output is excellent and I didn’t encounter any thermal throttling. Under load, the GPU was quiet and a major improvement compared to the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 470 OC. On a more technical note, the graphics card’s premium 4+1 power design and 6-pin PCI-E connector provides enough power to deal with the 1250MHz boost. Another major highlight is the graphics card’s aesthetic design which creates the sense that it’s a premium product. I particularly like the Sapphire branding on the PCB which lights up in an attractive fashion. Although, it would have been beneficial to include RGB functionality as the green colour might not be to everyone’s tastes.

To summarise, the RX 460 is a laudable effort but it really left me feeling underwhelmed. Surely, it should have defeated the GTX 950 in every benchmark and offered a direct competitor to the GTX 960. When you consider the price is £129.99 in the UK for the 4GB model and it’s often beaten by a card within the £120-£130 price range, then something is amiss. Evidently, the 4GB frame buffer is a huge plus compared to the aforementioned GTX 950s and comes into play when using advanced textures. On the other hand, how often is the extra VRAM going to be used before the GPU runs out of graphical horsepower? Perhaps I’m being overly critical as the 2GB model is cheaper than the GTX 950 and acts a more direct comparison. Personally, I expected more and wanted a really affordable graphics card to go beyond the GTX 950. Despite this, the product is still worthy of receiving the Gamers Choice award because it provides a good gaming experience for users on a tight budget.

Pros

0dB fan mode
4GB VRAM is handy when using higher-quality textures
Extremely quiet
Gorgeous design
Innovative PCB branding
Marvellous Vulkan performance
More than ample for eSports gaming
Premium power circuitry
Relatively low power consumption
Wonderful packaging

Cons

Hotter than the GTX 950 and R9 380
Lingers behind the GTX 950 in some games
Not a major performance boost from the R7 370

“The Sapphire Nitro RX 460 sports a sleek, sophisticated design and remains extremely quiet under load. Sadly, the performance is lacking and you’re better off spending the extra on the RX 470.”

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