Question 1

Is this card compatible with PCI Express 2?

Accepted Answer

yes. you simply dont get the pcie 3 benefit of higher traffic/throughput

Question 2

How does it cool without a fan?

Accepted Answer

It has a large passive heat sink.  Seems to work fine, I haven't had any overheating problems.

Question 3

What are your idle and load temperatures?

Accepted Answer

I put this in a mini-itx build for my brother to play Steam on his TV. I don't recall the temps but I did test to make sure they stayed on the lower side as the case is quite small. The card has two 80mm case fans blowing right on it. They are PWM fans and don't actually spin up all that loud. I tested with the CPU and GPU under full load. So actual usage the temps are lower. If the card is going in a roomier case then a single 120mm case fan blowing on it should be enough. Even a cross breeze from just a front intake fan I would think is enough to help cool it.

Question 4

Has anybody found an HTPC case that will fit his card? It's very "wide" for a tower or "high" for a HTPC Case. 5.5" is "tall", Most cases support less then 5.25". Is there a HTPC case out there that can run this?

Accepted Answer

I put this card in a COOLER MASTER Elite 110 and there is room for two 80mm case fans right next to the heatsink. Also have a 120 AIO water cooler on the CPU, mounted on the front of the case. GPU card still has clearance.

Question 5

Will this fit in a desktop case like the Silverstone Grandia GD09B (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163257&ignorebbr=1)? Those heat pipes look like they would be touching the top of the case.

Accepted Answer

Hi John, the fit should be no problem; there's plenty of room in the case above the card.

I have to tell you though that I had trouble running the DP output to a 4K display. The screen would periodically go white, and I'd have to reboot.

Question 6

My question is this. I'm looking to upgrade my 1gb Radeon/ddr5 R7-200 gpu. How much of an upgrade will this be? I trying to run the video editing program called Power Director. My present GPU is "almost" enough. Any suggestions or thoughts? I have a pretty decent build, i5 processer, SSD, 16gb of ram, etc.

Accepted Answer

The Rx 460 will be about 265% better, as an average of everything. It's several generations beyond your R7. Depending on what you need (say performance OVER silence) you might find a Gigabyte GTX 750ti (4gb) version or the Sapphire Nitro Rx 460 will do the job and save you a few bucks.

Questions & Answers