AMD Radeon RX 460 review: An affordable graphics card with bleeding-edge tech

Test 8: Power

We test power under load by plugging the entire system into a Watts Up meter, running the intensive Division benchmark at 4K resolution, and noting the peak power draw. Idle power is measured after sitting on the Windows desktop for three minutes with no extra programs or processes running.

AMD’s Polaris GPU grants Radeon graphics cards a huge step forward in power efficiency, but it still isn’t as lean as Nvidia’s chips. The overclock and extra power connector see XFX’s Radeon RX 460 sipping exactly as much power as the GTX 950, while the power connector-less GTX 750 Ti comes in a full 30W behind. That said, the total system power consumption under load with all of these cards installed stayed far below 200W at peak. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

Test 9: Heat

We test heat during the same intensive Division benchmark, by running SpeedFan in the background and noting the maximum GPU temperature once the run is over. All three of our test samples use custom coolers; there’s not a single reference design in the mix.

All of these cards run cool thanks to the sparse innards of their GPUs, with the GTX 750 Ti being the standout. The 64 degree Celsius maximum temperature of the RX 460 means it should be just fine even in cramped cases, though.

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