mITX Card?

[Lil Frier]

I've been prepping to convert my Haswell PC into a mITX chassis. However, going to that will mean I can't keep my current video card (Radeon 5850, needs replaced anyway, and it's pretty bulky). My lean has been towards the RX 460, but I've seen it comes in a lot of different variants. This is my main machine for now, but it will get a long-term replacement later in the year. I'm not going to bother paying for something above the 460's price point, because it will ultimately just be for basic media playback (it will do light gaming with Rocket League and Civ V in the short-term).

So, I have seen quite a few configurations with the RX 460, but am not 100% sure which to turn to. Some said not all use the 6-pin power connector, and that the card suffers without it. I saw there are 2- and 4-GB options, but going to a media PC from a 1-GB card, I'll probably stick with a 2-GB solution and save the $25 or so. Lastly, I'll be connecting the card to a pair of monitors.

Any recommendation on which to aim for? I'm not too sure which include he 6-pin connector, which was the main thing I wanted advice on recognizing.

 

[daxzy]

Maybe pick another mITX chassis? Node 202 or Silverstone ML08 have very low displacement (<15L) and can house full length GPU's.

Otherwise you could manually check each RX 460 on Newegg to determine which has PCI-E 6 pin or not. Because I have a PowerColor RX 460, I know it doesn't have a 6 pin power.

 

[Lil Frier]

Maybe pick another mITX chassis? Node 202 or Silverstone ML08 have very low displacement (<15L) and can house full length GPU's.

Otherwise you could manually check each RX 460 on Newegg to determine which has PCI-E 6 pin or not. Because I have a PowerColor RX 460, I know it doesn't have a 6 pin power.

Well, I don't want to pick a chassis to get around replacing a 7-year-old GPU. It needs put to rest already, haha.

I tried manually checking on Newegg, but I wasn't sure if I was missing something. They don't give images of the side of the card opposite the case mount, so I can't get just look at them to see if they have the power pin. I also didn't see a "powered by" spec, to see if they were powered via the PCI-E or a 6-pin. Thanks for the note on the Powercolor, though, I'll remember to avoid it. I think MicroCenter (Which I might visit Saturday) listed a Windforce that sounded promising, I'll have to look into it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Do you need single-slot? There's a single-slot RX 460 on Newegg.

 

[Lil Frier]

I'm not sure yet, it'll just depend on the case I end up grabbing. There were a few 2-slots cases I saw online, but I figure I'll check them out in-person on Saturday, when I go to MicroCenter. If there's a decently priced dual-slot mITX case, I'll go with that. MC also showed that Windforce card as being available in a 4-GB variant for under $110, with $20 rebate. I might go with that one, as I asked around and had some other 460 users say their cards without the 6-pin were working just fine.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Well, I don't want to pick a chassis to get around replacing a 7-year-old GPU. It needs put to rest already, haha.

That's not why - you get the case that supports full size GPUs (like the one in my signature) because the NEXT GPU you buy will also be a full length, double-slot, high end GPU!

 

[Lil Frier]

That's not why - you get the case that supports full size GPUs (like the one in my signature) because the NEXT GPU you buy will also be a full length, double-slot, high end GPU!

Oh, my next GPU won't be for this case. I guess I didn't mention it here (since it didn't apply), but this is a mITX build to house my Haswell CPU long-term. Once Zen and Vega are out, my mid-tower's getting new parts, and this thing will live on as an HTPC or something. I'm building this as a secondary machine long-term, but the video card's so old even that move is an upgrade.

 

[Triloby]

From what I've heard, the 4 GB versions of the 460 require the 6-pin power connector. So if you want to avoid that, just stick with the 2 GB versions as they won't have them. 2 GB versions are also cheaper as well. There's also the GeForce GTX 1050 non-Ti if you're willing to go for that.

Cheapest 2 GB 460 that I could find without needing a power connector are these:

MSI 2 GB RX 460 ($100): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137028
ASUS Dual-fan 2 GB RX 460 ($105): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814126125
GIGABYTE WINDFORCE OC 2 GB RX 460 ($120): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125898

 

[Lil Frier]

From what I've heard, the 4 GB versions of the 460 require the 6-pin power connector. So if you want to avoid that, just stick with the 2 GB versions as they won't have them. 2 GB versions are also cheaper as well. There's also the GeForce GTX 1050 non-Ti if you're willing to go for that.

Cheapest 2 GB 460 that I could find without needing a power connector are these:

MSI 2 GB RX 460 ($100): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137028
ASUS Dual-fan 2 GB RX 460 ($105): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814126125
GIGABYTE WINDFORCE OC 2 GB RX 460 ($120): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125898

I ended up going to MicroCenter today and picking one up. I got the 4-GB Gigabyte 460. The 2-GB was $115. The 4-GB model was $127, and has a $20 rebate. It didn't look like it had the 6-pin connector, either. I was actually kind of preferring to have it, since I thought I read there were some power issues, but then saw enough people say they were fine to not worry about it. I haven't actually opened it up to check the connection yet, since the board for my setup won't arrive until Monday.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, I think the 4GB Gigabyte WindForce RX 460 doesn't need the PCI-E 6-pin.

My Sapphire Nitro 4GB has it, but I have yet to clock mine higher than stock, but stock for this card has a 50Mhz core clock increase from the factory.

I tried the shader unlock, and that worked too, except for the new AMD drivers locking out shader-unlocked card from the newer driver support.

 

[StefanR5R]

I see this comes a bit too late --- but here is a link to an Austrian price portal, filtered to list RX460 cards with 6-pin power connector.
http://geizhals.at/?cat=gra16_512&v..._id=30&xf=5585_1x+6-Pin~9809_12+1953+-+RX+460