At first we would like to thank HIS for offering a sample of their RX 460 Slim-iCooler OC 2GB Video Card for testing and reviewing.

 

 

About HIS:

 

“HIS - Hightech Information System Limited is an internationally acclaimed graphics cards company. Time and time again, HIS were compared and tested by hundreds of worldly renowned critics. The results are phenomena, HIS have proven to offer far superior, cooler, quieter, and faster graphic cards than any other leading rivals. Up to the fourth quarter of 2011, HIS has won over 1600 awards with AMD graphic solution from major media worldwide. HIS is being recognized by providing performance leading and award-wining products: IceQ, IceQ X and Turbo Edition.

HIS was established in 1987 with the mission to produce the highest quality PC products in the industry. Besides strong devotion to excellent products and services, HIS has been conducting business with the aim to "Glorifying God". Honesty and integrity are the two key principals of how HIS are conducted. Ethical business practice has been an everyday commitment to our clients, vendors, and investors.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, and with sales offices and distribution networks in Europe, Middle East, North and South America, Asia Pacific Regions; our worldwide customers benefits from efficient and localized services. ISO Certified, HIS's manufacturing facility in China is managed by a team of professionals with expertise in quality control and production planning. Working with world-class clients, HIS has been consistently meeting high quality standards and fulfilled volume order in short lead-time.

HIS is proud to be AMD's Authorized 1st Tier AIB Partner, Certified Partner and Launching Partner. Long term and favorable relationship with AMD, enable HIS to work closely with AMD to promote the HIS AMD Graphics Board; and to strive for best value on the marketing and sales of HIS AMD Product Line.

In Sept 2003, HIS incorporated the state-of-the art Supreme Cooling Technology in the award winning HIS 9800Pro IceQ, which caught the attention of worldwide media. Since then, HIS IceQ series and the latest IceQ X series has been the limelight in the market for its outstanding performance and features over the other rivals.

Today, HIS continues its avid commitment to quality product and service. HIS is certain to be Your Choice of Graphics Board Supplier.”

Product Features:

 

A brand new Singl-slot iCooler model of HIS RX 460 models

---equipped with Metallic Fan-shroud

---comes with strong Lion image

---without the need of external power

 

Why HIS RX 460 iCooler performs better?

 

Low TDP & More Power-saving

 

The single-slot RX 460 comes with low TDP (Thermal Design Power) merely at 75W but can run at overclocked performance at 1220MHz without the need of any 6-pin power socket, thus the user will find it more convenient to adopt this card and saves more power!

 

0dB Smart Fan

 

Prolong the life span of the fans

Start to spin when the GPU temperature reaches about 600C

Stays still in 2D mode when GPU temperature drops to about 50 degrees Celsius

Provides a silent environment for enjoying Home Movie & Casual Gaming

 

iCooler symbolizes "Quietness"

 

The card is equipped with the widely acclaimed HIS iCooler - certified by HIS that generates less than 28dB in 2D mode. HIS iCooler provides an outstanding cooling performance and quiet environment.

 

Factory-tuned OC Clocks for the GPU - 1220MHz

 

Product Specifications:

 

Last time we have taken a look at the RX 470 video card which was packing 4GB of GDDR5 RAM and has proven itself as a solid performer at Full-HD resolutions on high details, and in some cases the product made good impressions at 1440P resolutions too (with medium-to-high details). It is now time to check out the entry-level offering of the same series and to be more exact the RX 460 from HIS. This particular GPU is built upon the new Polaris 11 architecture (14nm FinFET), incorporates 3000M transistors, 896 Stream Processors which are found across 14 Compute Units and can be found in both 2GB and 4GB memory configurations.

 

While the RX 480 and the RX 470 video cards were communicating on a 256-bit interface with the memory, the RX 460 bus is 128-bit wide, but uses the same GDDR5 type of memory. The AMD stock specifications are mentioning a base frequency of 1090MHz, a Boost clock of 1200MHz but since we are dealing with a pre-overclocked card from the factory, the HIS RX 460 Slim-iCooler OC does feature a stock frequency of 1220MHz. while the memory has been left at the stock speed of 1750MHz.

 

HIS RX 460 Slim-iCooler OC video card we have received for testing and reviewing is the 2GB GDDR5 version and on the top area of the box we will learn that we are dealing with a Green Edition model (optimized for low power consumption):

 

 

 

On one of the box sides, the manufacturer has listed some words regarding the product, but also regarding the company itself:

 

 

 

Moving on, HIS is advertising the registration and its benefits:

 

 

 

A list of box contents is also present on the opposite side:

 

 

 

More details regarding the card can be checked out on the back and this means the main RX 460 Slim-iCooler OC highlights, system requirements and supported technologies:

 

 

 

After removing the top packaging, layer, we will end up with a plain cardboard box:

 

 

 

Here we will get to see the card along with its bundle:

 

 

 

The card bundle is only composed of an envelope that does contain the installation disk and a user manual:

 

 

 

 

For extra protection, the card is also wrapped inside an anti-static bag:

 

 

 

Besides the transparent plastic layer that is initially present on the aluminum shroud, we must also remove the PCI-Express and video out dust protectors:

 

 

 

This specific card was designed to be fitted in small form factor PCs and occupies only one slot together with its cooling system. The signature black lion is also present here as we have seen along with the RX 480 IceQ X2 Roaring Turbo 8GB and along the fan cutout we can also check an interesting pattern drawn on the surface:

 

 

 

If we look on the laterals, we will get to see how the top aluminum shroud is fitted to the main heatsink:

 

 

 

 

 

The central 11-blade fan is surprisingly silent for its size and succeeds to keep the GPU cool even in the most stressful conditions; a chromed HIS logo is also present in the middle:

 

 

 

By looking on the back side of the PCB, we will get to see a sticker with the cards’ serial number, but also the four spring-loaded screws which keep the cooling system in place; with this card, the rounded PCB edges are back, YEY!

 

 

 

Also here we will be able to spot a Richtek Dual-Output PWM Controller (RT8880C):

 

 

 

On the I/O, the card is equipped with a DisplayPort 1.4 port, a HDMI 2.0b port but also one Dual-Link DVI:

 

 

 

After removing the four mentioned screws, we can easily remove the said cooling system:

 

 

 

The tiny PCB houses the Polaris 11 GPU (code name Baffin) in the middle, along with four memory chips for a total of 2GB GDDR5:

 

 

 

This card is equipped with a 3+1 VRM system:

 

 

 

 

The memory ICs are manufactured by Elpida and house the W4032BABG-70-F code-name; these are specified to run at exactly 1750MHz (7000MHz effective):

 

 

 

The design of the cooling system is quite simple and does not imply usage of heatpipes; the memory ICs do not make contact with it, only the central GPU via a copper plate:

 

 

 

Test Setup

 

CPU: Intel I5 4690K Retail @ 4.6GHz

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX

Motherboard: BIOSTAR Z97X Gaming

RAM: GeIL Black Dragon 4x4GB DDR2133 (@1600)

Video: Currently reviewed card

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 240GB + OCZ Vertex 460

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

With the help of the GPU-Z utility, we could extract lots of information regarding the video card clocks,memory type, pixel and texture fill rate and so on:

 

 

To receive more in-depth information regarding the GPU, we have used the AIDA64 utility:

 

 

 

 

Temperature tests:

For finding out the temperatures in both IDLE and Full Load with the fan set on Auto, we left the computer IDLE for about 25 minutes and then started monitoring with HWINFO64 and logged the values obtained while running Heaven 4.0 at the 1920x1080 resolution for an additional 20 minutes, with details at Maximum and Tesselation set to Extreme. During this time, the ambient temperature was held steady at 19 degrees Celsius:

 

 

 

Noise measurements

Before measuring out the noise the video card was producing, we have first measured the noise inside the room the tests took place and we found out it was 29.2 dBA (with everything turned off).

At all times, the sound meter was placed 20cm near the video card.

The GPU fan was controlled by the latest version of the Sapphire TriXX utility:

 

 

 

3DMark 11

 

3DMark 11 is a DirectX 11 video card benchmark test for measuring your PC's gaming performance. 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of DirectX 11 features including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 consistently and reliably tests your PC's DirectX 11 performance under game-like loads.

 

 

3DMark 2013

 

3DMark includes everything you need to benchmark your hardware in one app. Whether you're gaming on a smart phone, tablet, notebook, laptop, desktop, or a high performance gaming PC, 3DMark includes a benchmark designed specifically for your type of device. And it's not just for Windows. You can compare your scores with Android and iOS devices too. It's the best 3DMark we've ever created.

 

 

Unigine Heaven 4.0

 

Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system's potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms, such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

 

 

Hitman Absolution

 

Hitman: Absolution is a stealth video game developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix. It is the fifth installment in the Hitman game series, and runs on IO Interactive's proprietary Glacier 2 game engine.

 

 

DIRT: Rally

 

Dirt Rally is a racing video game developed and published by Codemasters for Microsoft Windows. An early access version of the game was released on 27 April 2015, via digital distribution service Steam.

 

 

Sleeping Dogs

 

Sleeping Dogs is a 2012 open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games and Square Enix London. It was published by Square Enix and Bandai Namco Games for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

 

 

Tomb Raider

 

Tomb Raider is a media franchise that began as a video game series and includes comic books, novels, theme park rides, and movies, centering around the adventures of the British archaeologist Lara Croft.

 

 

Sniper Elite III

 

Sniper Elite III is a tactical shooter video game developed by Rebellion Developments and published by 505 Games for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

 

 

Metro Last Light

 

Metro: Last Light is a single-player post-apocalyptic-themed first-person shooter video game with stealth and survival horror elements, developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver.

 

 

Bioshock Infinite

 

BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K Games.

 

 

Crysis 2

 

Crysis 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek, published by Electronic Arts and released in North America, Australia and Europe in March 2011 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

 

 

Batman Arhkam Origins

 

Batman: Arkham Origins is a 2013 action-adventure video game developed by Warner Bros. Games Montréal and released by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 video game consoles.

 

 

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

 

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is an open world action-adventure video game set within Tolkien's legendarium, developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

 

 

Alien: Isolation

 

Alien: Isolation is a first-person survival horror stealth video game developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Sega.

 

 

GRID Autosport

 

Grid Autosport is a racing video game released by Codemasters for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 24 June 2014 in North America and 27 June 2014 in Europe.

 

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider was officially announced in June 2014. The game's storyline follows Lara Croft as she ventures into Siberia in search of the legendary city of Kitezh, whilst battling a paramilitary organization that intends on beating her to the city's promise of immortality. Presented from a third-person perspective, the game primarily focuses on survival and combat, while the player may also explore its landscape and various optional tombs.

 

 

 

Hitman

 

Hitman is an episodic action-adventure stealth video game developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It is the sixth entry in the Hitman series. While the game's prologue acts as a prequel to the series, the main game takes place 7 years after the events of Hitman: Absolution.

 

 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a cyberpunk-themed action role-playing stealth video game developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix. Set two years after Human Revolution, Mankind Divided features the return of Adam Jensen from the previous game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, with new technology and body augmentations.

 

 

 

Gears of War 4

 

Gears of War 4 is a third-person shooter video game developed by The Coalition and published by Microsoft Studios for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One. It is the fourth main installment in the Gears of War series, and the first entry not to be developed by Epic Games.

 

 

 

3DMark: Time Spy

 

Time Spy is a new DirectX 12 benchmark test, coming soon to all Windows editions of 3DMark. With its pure DirectX 12 engine, built from the ground up to support new features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, Time Spy is an ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of the latest graphics cards.

 

Developed with input from AMD, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and the other members of the Futuremark Benchmark Development Program, Time Spy shows the exciting potential of low-level, low-overhead APIs like DirectX 12.

 

 

 

 

With Polaris 11, AMD continues its line of low-end but cost-efficient GPUs and RX 460 cards prove that they can handle Full-HD games at medium (and sometimes) high details, depending on the optimization. RX 460 was mostly designed for competitive titles such as DOTA, League of Legends, Counterstrike: Source and not the most demanding ones which require quite a bit more performance and frame buffer. In most tests, it did trade punches with the R9 370 card from the previous generation and got incredibly close or even surpassed it in DirectX12 games, given the better optimization.

 

The card is packing some of the newer technologies from the latest generation such as DirectX12, Vulkan support, DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0b, while HIS designed the board BIOS to stop the fan completely when temperatures go under 50 degrees Celsius for the GPU so it will remain very silent when in 2D mode.

 

Given the single-slot format of the card and lack of PCI-E power connector, it is ideal to be fitted in smaller systems, which do not have a lot of available space inside the chassis. Given the absence of the extra power connector, we thought that we would immediately hit a wall as soon as we did try to overclock, but it was not the case:

 

 

(click to enlarge)

 

We were able to raise the GPU clock up to 1290Mhz, whole the memory clock climbed even higher to about 1870MHz!

 

For each card, we are now performing the SteamVR Performance Benchmark too; in this case, the card did not pass the test:

 

 

 

In Europe, we have only seen the HIS RX 460 Slim-iCooler OC 4GB available, but not the 2GB version yet, so we will update as soon we get some fresh info on this.

HIS RX 460 Slim-iCooler OC 2GB Video Card is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank again to HIS for making this review possible!