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Review: Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Nitro 4GB

by Tarinder Sandhu on 8 August 2016, 14:01

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qac5d7

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Testing Methodology

Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Nitro 4GB Specification


GPU Comparisons

 
GPU
Memory
Miscellaneous
Cores
Base
(MHz)
Boost
(MHz)
Size
(MB)
Clock
(MHz)
Bus
(bits)
Power Config
Driver
Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Nitro
896
-
1,250
4,096
7,000
128
6
16.7.3
Asus GeForce GTX 950
768
1,026
1,190
2,048
6,610
128
-
368.81
Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti
640
1,020
1,085
2,048
5,400
128
-
368.81

HEXUS Graphics Test Bench

Hardware Components Product Page
Processor Intel Core i7-6700K (overclocked to 4.4GHz) intel.com
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D15S noctua.at
Motherboard Asus Z170 Pro asus.com
Memory Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-2400 crucial.com
Power Supply be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W bequiet.com
Primary Storage 256GB Samsung 950 Pro samsung.com
Secondary Storage 512GB SK hynix Canvas SC300 skhynix.com
Chassis Fractal Design Define R5 Windowed fractal-design.com
Monitor Philips Brilliance 4K Ultra HD LED (288P6LJEB/00) philips.co.uk
Operating system Windows 10 (64-bit) microsoft.com

Benchmark Suite

Synthetic Benchmarks
3DMark Fire Strike, Time Spy and Time Spy Stability Tests
Gaming Benchmarks and Settings
Dirt Rally DX11, 4xMSAA, High and Ultra Quality
Doom OpenGL and Vulkan, TSSAA (8TX), High and Ultra Quality
Fallout 4 DX11, TAA, High and Ultra Quality
Hitman DX12, SMAA, High and Maximum Quality
Rise of the Tomb Raider DX12, FXAA, High and Very High Quality
Tom Clancy's The Division DX11, FXAA, High and Ultra Quality
Total War: Warhammer DX12, MLAA, High and Ultra Quality
General Benchmarks
Power Consumption To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record system-wide mains power draw both when idle and while playing Dirt Rally.
Temperature To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record GPU core temperature both when idle and while playing Dirt Rally.
Noise A PCE-318 meter is used to record noise levels when idle and while playing Dirt Rally.
Overclocking Maintaining out-the-box voltage, we increase the card's power target and aim for an optimal balance of core and memory overclock. With the heightened frequencies in place, the 3DMark, Dirt Rally and Rise of the Tomb Raider tests are re-run at FHD settings.

Notes

To minimise the impact of any CPU bottlenecks, our test platform is configured with a quad-core Intel Core i7-6700K processor overclocked to 4.4GHz across all cores and 32GB of Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 memory set to run at 2,400MHz using the built-in XMP profile.

The usual benchmark runs take in three resolutions and put the GPUs through the wringer by running them at ultra-quality settings. Such an approach would work in this instance, but, considering the RX 460 is a mainstream GPU, what would an average 8.4fps at 4K really tell you?

Rather, we have taken a different tack. Benchmarks are conducted at 1,920x1,080 alone. And while we run our ultra-quality tests which provide cross comparisons against all recent high-end cards, we also notch the quality down to high, to see if we can manage playable frame rates in these popular titles.

Comparisons wise, we include a GeForce GTX 950 card that's priced at the same £130 or so as the Sapphire, and it has the benefit of running without an additional power connector. Offering more context and often amongst the most popular GPUs on the Steam Hardware Survey, we've dusted off our GeForce GTX 750 Ti and run the numbers for good measure on the latest drivers.

We're expecting these £100-£130 GPUs to make a good fist of gaming at 1080p, so let's get to it.