Best Gigabyte RX 460 WindForce Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals & Sales 2020:

The Gigabyte RX 460 WindForce OC 2G (GV-RX460WF2OC-2GD) looks pretty good for a model with an entry-level GPU. The Taiwanese manufacturer thus offers a custom card benefiting from a factory overclocking on the GPU and a cooling system with double ventilation.

Best Gigabyte RX 460 WindForce Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals & Sales 2020

1. Gigabyte Radeon Rx 460 Windforce OC 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Cards (GV-RX460WF2OC-4GD)

2. Gigabyte Radeon RX 580 Gaming 8GB Graphic Cards GV-RX580GAMING-8GD REV2.0

3. Gigabyte GV-N1030OC-2GI Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 OC 2G Graphics Card

4. Gigabyte Radeon Rx 590 Gaming 8G Graphics Card, 2X Windforce Fans. 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5, Gv-RX590GAMING-8GD Video Card

5. GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1660 Ti OC 6G 192-bit GDDR6 DisplayPort 1.4 HDMI. 2.0B with Windforce 2X Cooling System Graphic Cards- Gv-N166TOC-6GD

Noise

The cooling system used is called WindForce 2X. If we have already encountered it in the past, it evolves somewhat here towards a relatively basic system. Most of the brand’s models use radiators with fins clipped parallel to each other. Here, the radiator is a simple piece of extruded aluminum lightly machined to accommodate the position of the GPU. The graphics chip is simply in contact with this radiator which therefore does not offer any heat pipes, any more than there is a radiator on its supply stage or on the graphic memory.

Two fans then push air to cool the card. If the radiator is therefore fairly basic, this does not prevent you from being entitled to silent cooling, even after more than an hour of non-stop play. In a closed case, the breath generated is not discerned from the ambient noise. And as long as to do without the silencer, Gigabyte had the good idea to use a system that allows to cut the ventilation when the card is at rest or below 60 ° C.

Factory frequencies and manual overclocking

If Gigabyte puts forward the overclocking of this model, it is clear that it is extremely conservative since the GPU is displayed at 1212 MHz against 1200 MHz recommended by AMD. A gain of just 1% therefore. The 2 GB of GDDR5 do not benefit from any boost in terms of their frequency, which is therefore at 1750 MHz as on non-overclocked models.

In video games and after more than half an hour of uninterrupted activity, the frequency of the Polaris 11 chip is very far from 1212 MHz. Our test copy only allowed to maintain a frequency between 1100 and 1135 MHz depending on the games and with a strong oscillation. We could not get big gain in manual overclocking and just managed to maintain a frequency closer to 1200 MHz. The memory went to 1800 MHz.

Performance in games

With its slight overclocking , this model finally offers a performance close to that of any non-overclocked model. And like any Radeon RX 460, the card is intended for use on a Full HD or lower definition monitor with more or less strong concessions on graphic details, depending on the game.

More prosaically, the Gigabyte RX 460 WindForce OC 2G is located under an overclocked GeForce GTX 950, like the MSI GTX 950 Gaming OC, with an average difference of 23% in favor of the latter. An XFX RX 470 RS True OC offers double the performance. AMD has indeed created a gap between its 460 and 470 models.

Consumption

On this model, Gigabyte opted for a consumption limit of 48 watts at the GPU level, which therefore sticks to the less than 75 watts announced by AMD for the entire card. The absence of a PCIe connector also goes in this direction since the maximum consumption authorized by the PCI Express specifications in this configuration is 75 watts.

Suddenly, we are faced with a model that does not exceed 70 watts peak, with an average close to 65 watts. This is absolutely low power consumption, but you still have to calculate the energy efficiency to find out if this is a good compromise between performance and consumption. At this level, unsurprisingly, it’s a little worse since we are only at the level of. Maxwell (that is to say previous generation) graphics cards from Nvidia which, as a reminder, were engraved in. 28 nm and not in 14 nm like here.

Still, this is a false problem for the person who purchases a graphics card. At the time of purchase, it should be seen if this model has a good quality / price ratio. At this level of electrical consumption, it is not a few watts more or less that will change the electricity bill. On the other hand, this rather shows that AMD is going to have a hard time stably increasing the frequencies of its different models without exponentially increasing power consumption and therefore heating it up.

STRONG POINTS

  • Very quiet in games.
  • Fans stopped when the card is at rest.

WEAK POINTS

  • Overclocked frequency announced never reached in practice.

CONCLUSION

A model that offers a performance fairly close to that of non-overclocked models. Its cooling system, although basic, offers a solid performance with an operation that could not be quieter.

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