Radeon RX 460 graphics card finally on sale, but you won’t find AMD’s version

AMD launched the Radeon RX 460 graphics card on Monday, the third release in the company’s RX 400 series aimed at providing tons of performance per watt at a reasonable cost for general consumers. The card is aimed at eSports PC gamers, and follows the previously released RX 470 for high-definition graphics and the RX 480 for an awesome VR experience for very little money. AMD wants to bring high-quality gaming to the masses, and the company has done just that with the launch of these three cards.

If you missed the official specs of the RXS 460, this new compact card features 896 stream processors, 14 compute units, a base clock speed of 1,090MHz, and a boost clock speed of 1,200MHz. Other ingredients consist of GDDR5 on-board memory, a 128-bit memory interface, a memory bandwidth of 112GB per second, and a memory clock speed of 1,750MHz.

Moreover, the typical power draw is around 75 watts, and its actual size is a relatively short 7.52 by 4.37 inches, making it a great addition to a small form factor PC for gaming at LAN parties and tournaments. It’s compatible with DirectX 12 and OpenGL 4.5 (Vulkan too), and provides one HDMI port, one DisplayPort jack, and one Dual-Link DVI-D port.

Given that AMD isn’t releasing a reference design to the masses, customers will have to turn to the company’s partners for RX 460 solutions including Gigabyte, EVGA, Sapphire, XFX, Asus, and more. Prices start at a mere $100, meaning you may see base models at that price and those that are slightly overclocked for a little more cash. For instance, one offered by Gigabyte has a boost clock speed of 1,212MHz for $120. This card only has 2GB of GDDR5 memory while others on the market have 4GB. It also has two fans to keep it cool whereas others on the market just have one.

If you check out our review of the Sapphire Nitro Radeon RX 460 OC graphics card, you’ll see that it’s great for a lot of PC games running at a 1,920-by-1,080 resolution. This card has an overclocked base speed of 1,175MHz and a boost speed of 1,250MHz. It also has a six-pin PCIe power connection although it ran just fine without it.

However, in the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark, the card’s GPU score was lower than the AMD R7 370, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, and the GeForce GTX 950 in addition to falling behind its two RX 400 Series siblings. Yet it performed slightly better than the AMD R7 370 card during the 3DMark Sky Diver benchmark while still falling behind the rest of the tested cards. Again, we’re talking about a $100 card, so don’t expect GeForce GTX 1080 speeds in this affordable, compact solution.

So where can you get this little graphics powerhouse? Glad you asked! Here’s a list of what we’ve dug up so far just on Newegg alone:

PowerColor Red Dragon AXRX 460 2GBD5-DH/OC ($110)
Sapphire Nitro Radeon RX 460 100409NT-4GOCL ($140)
Sapphire Radeon RX 460 100409-2GOCL 2GB ($120)
Gigabyte Radeon RX 460 Windforce OC 2GB ($120)
Gigabyte Radeon RX 460 Windforce OC 4GB ($130)
XFX Radeon RX 460 RX-460P2SFG5 2GB ($120)
XFX Radeon RX 460 RX-460P2DFG 2GB ($130)
XFX Radeon RX 460 RX-460P4DFG5 4GB ($150)
Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX 460 4GB OC Edition ($140)
Asus Radeon RX 460 2GB OC Edition ($120)

You can also check out the listings for Radeon RX 460 cards on Google here and on Amazon here.