Reaching the limits of my AMD RX460?

[Dolby]

Hello friends,

i am new here. First of all, i am new to all this stuff. I also have no idea about CPU's. Anyway, i used to play Gran Turismo on the PlayStation & had bought a relatively cheap computer some time ago. It has an Intel i5-6402P CPU with 2.80 GHz, 8GB of RAM, and a 2GB RX460 GPU.

Surely nothing impressive, but solid enough for me, coming from an old 2005 (?) dual core, onboard graphics card, machine, playing old C&C titles.

This aside, i don't think i can upgrade without buying a new tower (this is how the case is called, right?) and don't think it would be THAT kind of necessary, especially with my low budget. I'd rather take this RX460 to the limits. I recently discovered Assetto Corsa & Project CARS, and both run absolutely fine, but it could be better i've heard.

I've seen you can "unlock hidden shaders" on many cards, of different manufacturers (ASUS, Gigabyte, HIS, MSI, PowerColor, Sapphire, and XFX) - unfortunately my RX460 doesn't seem to be in that list. It looks like its the base version of AMD, with a boost clock of 1200 MHz. It doesn't look like any of them, at all. It probably isn't, because its already been in there, when i bought this computer, its like onboard.

There is no fancy case, no LED's, its small, with only one fan. GPU-Z told me, its made by "Elitegroup".

Straight forward, would it be possible to unlock all shaders on it?

And my second question, how much of overclocking would be possible? Surely there would be no huge improvements, but any gain of FPS would be appreciated. Some RX460 run on up to 1256 MHz (ASUS STRIX OC) and some overclocked different versions at 1300+ MHz. Any advice?

 

[Toothless]

1. No.

2. Just because their card can doesn't mean yours can. You can try to get 1300mhz but there are no promises.

 

[natr0n]

Turn shadows to low or off and you'll get better frames.

 

[eidairaman1]

Since your knowledge of pc's is very limited. I would suggest forgetting on trying to unlock additional shaders as you will brick the card and thus would have to buy a new card, so get it out of your mind.

Your computer motherboard or gpu is made by ECS. So it will be very limited in bios tuning, it sounds like an OEM system.

For the GPU, overclocking mileage varies from one card to the next, so always start with baby steps, bear in mind overclocking increases heat, so cooling in the tower is paramount it applies to the cpu too.

Use MSI afterburner to overclock the gpu.

That cpu clock rate needs to be bumped but with your system, the motherboard bios settings may be limited

 

[kruk]

Here is something I already wrote in another thread:

Before you do anything: reduce the GPU voltage. The card has probably a low power limit (48W) which you keep currently hitting, and that's why it might be throttling and being slower than it could be. You can reduce the voltages via Wattman. I suggest you use 10 mV decrements for the State 5, 6 and 7 and test stability afterwards. Use 3D mark/Unigine and don't bother with Furmark. After you get artifacts, increase the voltage 10 mV and you are done. A good chip should be fully stable at 1050 mV or less. At this stage you should be having stable 1200 MHz at any game you play. If the card can't reach that speed consistently, you have bad luck and any time spent overclocking will be a waste - skip the next section.

After the voltages are set, you can start with the OC. Try to push the clock up 10 or 20 MHz and run 3D Mark/Unigine. Closely watch for artefacts/boost clock fluctuation (use afterburner). If your boost clock doesn't hit the OC, then you are at the power limit again. You could increase the latter in wattman, but since your GPU has no power connector, this is very risky. The additional power will be transferred from your PCI-E slot and if the Motherboard is cheap, it can cause problems. I suggest you avoid this for now.

Good luck.

 

[Caelestis]

As others said before. Try to turn down some settings like light, shadows and reflections. They certainly look nice but can be very demanding on the GPU and not really necessary for a good racing experience.

Furthermore, download MSI Afterburner, raise the power limit to the maximum and try some core core/memory overclocking. Start with core clocks, raise it around 10%, test it with a synthetic benchmark like Valley or Heaven and if everything runs well, try a little bit more until it crashes. Afterwards do the same with the memory clocks.

 

[OneMoar]

rx460 is one of those dammed if you do dammed if you don't
best option is to replace it with something less suck
yes some of them are unlockable no its not for the novice,and its barely worth the effort
overclock it to the moon the biggest gains will be from raising the memory clock not the core clock on that

 

[Vayra86]

Pro tip: go big or go home.

Either go for a GPU upgrade if your power supply permits, or don't touch the RX460. There is give or take 5-8% performance in there you are not tapping, but that is never the difference between playable and not playable.

If you feel you're lacking performance now, the RX640 isn't going to offer it anyway.

 

[Vya Domus]

Don't touch the BIOS , most 460s OC to 1300mhz just fine.

By they way Project Cars is the worst game to run on AMD hardware , not a good benchmark.