The popularity of fanless graphcis cards has declined in the last few years. However the pursuit for higher power efficiency is not slowing down. Thanks to newer architectures, we can enjoy much better graphics at lower power consumption. XFX Radeon RX 460 is an example of power efficient Polaris card for less demanding users.
Fanless Radeon RX 460 from XFX
This is in fact, the first fanless card based on Polaris architecture. XFX RX 460 comes with large fin array (slightly larger than PCB) equipped with two heat pipes. It appears that there are no heat spreaders over the memory, and VRM is also exposed to higher temperatures, but don’t forget RX 460 is based on Polaris 11, which does not require any additional power connectors, as all power is taken from the PCI-E slot.
According to Expreview, the operating temperatures of this card are not far off from other RX 460 solutions. We can expect 33C at idle and 62C when card is in use. Of course the efficiency of such cooler depends mostly on the chassis air circulation.
The XFX RX 460 ‘black wolf’ (as translated from Chinese) will be available for around 999 Chinese Yuan. However it remains unclear whether XFX has plans to introduce this model to other regions.
Source: Expreview
