# AMD Radeon R9 Nano Nears Launch, 50% Higher Performance per Watt over Fury X



## btarunr (Aug 24, 2015)

AMD's ultra-compact graphics card based on its "Fiji" silicon, the Radeon R9 Nano (or R9 Fury-Nano), is nearing its late-August/early-September launch. At its most recent "Hot Chips" presentation, AMD put out more interesting numbers related to the card. To begin with, it lives up to the promise of being faster than the R9 290X, at nearly half its power draw. The R9 Nano has 90% higher performance/Watt over the R9 290X. More importantly, it has about 50% higher performance/Watt over the company's current flagship single-GPU product, the Radeon R9 Fury X. With these performance figures, the R9 Nano will be targeted at compact gaming-PC builds that are capable of 1440p gaming. 



 

 



*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## dj-electric (Aug 24, 2015)

I like the idea, and the R9 NANO is probably my favorite from AMD's show a while ago.
But.

This is not the product AMD needs right now, at all.
We dont need more product that cost 100+$ above the GTX 970 and perform just slightly better. (slideshow shows 30.5FPS for  R9 290X and 33FPS for R9 NANO, so... about 390X levels.)
We need a competition that will actually drive the market and get AMD out of its bankrupcy danger.


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## Sony Xperia S (Aug 24, 2015)

This Thursday, August 27. 

Can't wait to see what this cutie is capable of.


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## tabascosauz (Aug 24, 2015)

FC4 is a rather demanding game on Tahiti, so the fact that the Nano may be able to achieve significant efficiency boosts there makes the Nano look very appealing indeed.

I hope AMD skimped on neither the Fiji binning nor the vapor chamber, because this card is going to need both.


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## RejZoR (Aug 24, 2015)

It's their loss for being so damn slow with the release of Fiji cards...


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## Ferrum Master (Aug 24, 2015)

Does it clock and how it scales with CFX!


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## arbiter (Aug 24, 2015)

Hrm, so 2-3fps is AMD's idea of significantly faster then 290x. Wonder why when they did power tests they used amd 8350 and then used an i7 for performance test. Something sounds bit fishy there. The performance was done using 290x so 2-3 fps means its pretty much same as 390x version.


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## gaximodo (Aug 24, 2015)

arbiter said:


> Hrm, so 2-3fps is AMD's idea of significantly faster then 290x. Wonder why when they did power tests they used amd 8350 and then used an i7 for performance test. Something sounds bit fishy there. The performance was done using 290x so 2-3 fps means its pretty much same as 390x version.



I guess 8350 will bottleneck all the GPUs. The figures will be a lot closer so they won't be able to claim 'significant faster'.


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## arbiter (Aug 24, 2015)

gaximodo said:


> I guess 8350 will bottleneck all the GPUs. The figures will be a lot closer so they won't be able to claim 'significant faster'.


Part that is most fishey as to why they did it on power test side. It wasn't shock they used intel for performance, even AMD knows their cpu would bottleneck. But odd they did it for power testing maybe doing some trickery. We will find out when independent reviews come out. its AMD doing something like that wouldn't shock me.


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## RejZoR (Aug 24, 2015)

Well, if it can't push higher framerates, it'll also use less power. It's a very simple thing.


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## Assimilator (Aug 24, 2015)

Hey look it's another AMD marketing press release that will likely bear zero similarity to actual results achieved by independent third-party reviewers.


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## SonicZap (Aug 24, 2015)

I'm interested in Fury Nano. Not because I'd buy one, but I want to see the maximum power efficiency that AMD is able to achieve with Fiji. If it beats Maxwell in power efficiency, there might be hope left for Arctic Islands GCN.


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## Furunomoe (Aug 24, 2015)

I wonder if they will allow the OEMs to do a custom card of this? Single slot R9 Nano would be awesome.


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## arbiter (Aug 24, 2015)

Furunomoe said:


> I wonder if they will allow the OEMs to do a custom card of this? Single slot R9 Nano would be awesome.


Yea no chance for single slot version of this card what so ever.


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## vega22 (Aug 24, 2015)

arbiter said:


> Yea no chance for single slot version of this card what so ever.



with the right water loop it is very doable.

ek gear would look great on these.


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## arbiter (Aug 24, 2015)

marsey99 said:


> with the right water loop it is very doable.
> 
> ek gear would look great on these.


um with water block, single slot 295x2 is do-able


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## Jack1n (Aug 24, 2015)

Dont really believe anything AMD has to say after Fury.


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## Dieinafire (Aug 24, 2015)

This may be the last gpu amd comes out with before they go under.  I hope it's amazing!


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## currob (Aug 24, 2015)

Jack1n said:


> Dont really believe anything AMD has to say after Fury.



Exactly this ^


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## Aquinus (Aug 24, 2015)

Jack1n said:


> Dont really believe anything AMD has to say after Fury.


We all know that the AMD PR machine is good at generating hype. I don't trust any internal numbers from AMD because of this.

Better performance per watt than Hawaii, sure. I will laugh when those numbers don't hold up to scrutiny. I would rather wait for HBM 2.0 so we can let all of the early adopters adopts the early problems.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 24, 2015)

So it still looks like it is slower than 390X.  If "Hawaii" is 290X, Nano looks about 5% faster.  390X is about 10% faster than 290X, no?


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## Xaled (Aug 24, 2015)

When would AMD learn this? DONT RELEASE SOMETHING THAT IS SLOWER AND MORE EXPENSIVE THAN YOUR PREVIOUS PRODUCTS, nobody would buy it, this is a major business mistake that AMD has been doing since bulldozer


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## geon2k2 (Aug 24, 2015)

Actually the whole slide related to performance  and performance per watt has a 3 in the tile, which implies that footnote 3 applies to the whole slide.

Also I don't know where you see that part with significantly faster than 290x, they mentioned it will be faster ... not significantly faster.

Still looks like an amazing card ... unfortunately it will probably have a price in the range of the current R9 390x. I would like to see a Fiji based card in the mid range. Maybe with only 2 GB of HBM and 2000 processing units and with a price in the range of R9 285/380.

Either way lets see the price and reviews first, maybe this time it is worth to go over the mid-range budget.


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## Sihastru (Aug 24, 2015)

Disappointment #HYPE train... coming to a station near you soon... ciuuu... ciuuu!


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## ensabrenoir (Aug 24, 2015)

..........wow the day is finally here when having a small graphics card dose not negatively effect your e-peen status......and there is an universal "this is gonna be cool" sentiment  for AMD.............there is hope yet for man........


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## jboydgolfer (Aug 24, 2015)

Jhust en tymez fur ma burthdeigh


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## RejZoR (Aug 24, 2015)

Basically, R9 Nano is what R9-390X should be in the first place...


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## Sony Xperia S (Aug 24, 2015)

RejZoR said:


> Basically, R9 Nano is what R9-390X should be in the first place...



With a die shrink?



ensabrenoir said:


> ..........wow the day is finally here when having a small graphics card dose not negatively effect your e-peen status......and there is an universal "this is gonna be cool" sentiment  for AMD.............there is hope yet for man........



I detect an AMD hater - all non-AMD components?

What "impresses" me in quite bad way is how negative the most opinions are.
If you don't learn to appreciate even the little (of course not now because NANO will be a wonderful product) AMD gives you, in the future you will appreciate monopolies by nvidia and intel and skyrocketing prices. It's your choice.


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## okidna (Aug 24, 2015)

geon2k2 said:


> Also I don't know where you see that part with significantly faster than 290x, they mentioned it will be faster ... not significantly faster.



They (Lisa Su, CEO of AMD) made the claim during the announcement event. Watch this, around 1:50 mark : 










"...significantly more performance than R9 290X..."


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## the54thvoid (Aug 24, 2015)

Sony xperia, I think you misread ensabenoir's post. He's saying you can now have a powerful gfx card in a small form. He is saying its a good thing.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 24, 2015)

That first slide btarunr posted is explained in the second slide:


			
				AMD said:
			
		

> Testing conducted by AMD engineering on the AMD Radeon R9 290X GPU vs. the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X GPU.  Measured performance and power on *Far Cry 4*.  System Configuration: Core i7-5960X (3001 MHz), AMD Catalyst 15.20 Beta.


About 5% faster than 290X, 5% slower than 390X, and 90%+ less power than both.

What should be noted is that this was likely tested on Windows 8.1, not 10, and Far Cry 4 is not a DirectX 12 game.  It'll be interesting to see how the three cards compared in DX12.


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## Aquinus (Aug 24, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> That first slide btarunr posted is explained in the second slide:
> 
> About 5% faster than 290X, 5% slower than 390X, and 90%+ less power than both.
> 
> What should be noted is that this was likely tested on Windows 8.1, not 10, and Far Cry 4 is not a DirectX 12 game.  It'll be interesting to see how the three cards compared in DX12.


Farcry 4 at what resolution? At framerates that low, it *must* be 4k because I get better numbers in surround on Farcry 4. We know that the Fury series likes higher resolutions but I'm wondering if it's actually slower at 1080p versus Hawaii/Grenada. 

Edit: The source states that it was 4k performance that was tested. That's a sure fire sign that Nano very well might be worse at 1080p than the 290X in terms of performance...


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## Lionheart (Aug 24, 2015)

Jesus christ negativity galore in here! Any whoo I'm curious to see what this card can do...


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## Aquinus (Aug 24, 2015)

Lionheart said:


> Jesus christ negativity galore in here! Any whoo I'm curious to see what this card can do...


...and what do you expect? It's not like AMD hasn't over-hyped stuff in the past.


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## Dieinafire (Aug 24, 2015)

Lionheart said:


> Jesus christ negativity galore in here! Any whoo I'm curious to see what this card can do...



I don't know what your reading.  This is the most positive stuff I read on amd in months


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## BadIronTree (Aug 24, 2015)

I will wait for the next version Fury 2.0


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## buggalugs (Aug 24, 2015)

Dieinafire said:


> I don't know what your reading.  This is the most positive stuff I read on amd in month



 He is talking about the same handful of users here that pounce on any AMD related thread and write negative comments,


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## Dieinafire (Aug 24, 2015)

buggalugs said:


> He is talking about the same handful of users here that pounce on any AMD related thread and write negative comments,



They only do that because amd is vastly better


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## Aquinus (Aug 24, 2015)

Dieinafire said:


> They only do that because amd is vastly better


I have a 390 and had 6870s before that and a 4850 before that. I like AMD but I don't think they're vastly better. I personally nail them on PR stuff because of what they've "claimed" in the past. I'm just not convinced that it will live up to scrutiny. We'll see but, 5% faster than the 290X at 4k isn't exactly a good sign considering Fiji doesn't seem to do as well at lower resolutions. With that said, don't say stuff like the quote above because people are going to scream "OMG FANBOY!" AMD has plenty wrong with them and it's absurd to ignore that.


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## Crap Daddy (Aug 24, 2015)

As we got used lately, AMD is about to launch a competitive product which unfortunately comes late, in low volumes, at the wrong price and is unnecessarily over-hyped. This should have been the card to take on the GTX970 at $350, instead in terms of performance it's the 390X again after 2 months. It is a total mess and people should stop wondering why Nvidia is releasing the GTX 950 at the price they do, we are witnessing a totally unbalanced market and NV is becoming the Intel of discrete GPUs.


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## GhostRyder (Aug 24, 2015)

Well, it will be interesting to see none the less.  Here's hoping its a cool card!


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## Disparia (Aug 24, 2015)

Cool, looking forward to the Nano.


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## 64K (Aug 24, 2015)

Crap Daddy said:


> As we got used lately, AMD is about to launch a competitive product which unfortunately comes late, in low volumes, at the wrong price and is unnecessarily over-hyped. This should have been the card to take on the GTX970 at $350, instead in terms of performance it's the 390X again after 2 months. It is a total mess and people should stop wondering why Nvidia is releasing the GTX 950 at the price they do, we are witnessing a totally unbalanced market and NV is becoming the Intel of discrete GPUs.



This is the problem. Nvidia lacks competition. It was obvious when they released the GTX 680 as a high end GPU for $500 because it was a little faster than AMD's high end GPU the HD 7970. The GTX 680 was really a mid range GPU and the high end Kepler was the 780. Nvidia has continued this course with the 970/980.

AMD can't compete with Intel or Nvidia on R&D and we, the consumers, are going to pay for it in terms of price and performance.


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## ensabrenoir (Aug 24, 2015)

Sony Xperia S said:


> With a die shrink?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




.....lets see first vid card....vision tek .....something  Amd based, then went onto a  MSI 5670 then to HIS 6870 then to  HIS 6870's in xfire  still use a 7850 in one of my rigs  so no.....   went from a Cosmos II to a SGO5 and now to two node 304(one black one white)  and 2 804's.  ( I have an itx idiction- two matx builds couldn't break it) Totally jones-ing for this card.  Saw a vid somewhere about a Fractal core 500 itx.....sooooooooooo gonna feed the adiction


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## Fx (Aug 24, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> It'll be interesting to see how the three cards compared in DX12.



That is a good point. Those figures are more than likely invalid for many gamers who have already switched to W10 or will be soon.


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## moproblems99 (Aug 24, 2015)

My point still stands from a few threads ago:  Less than 20% is not significantly faster.  Less than 10% is barely faster.  Especially considering the fury line has had no OC potential.  I am so glad I did not wait for this to come out.  The only way this card isn't a total flop is if the price is about $300-$350, and I don't see that happening.  This is going to fall in somewhere north of $400.


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## Phobia9651 (Aug 24, 2015)

I just do not understand what the product placement is going to be for the Nano. One way or another it sounds like it is going to compete with AMD's own GPU's, since they already have a competitor for both the GTX 970 and the GTX 980 with the 390 and 390X (although they are both outmatched).


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## Steevo (Aug 24, 2015)

Does W1zz have one yet? No? Then its all marketing hype. 

Numbers matter.


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## moproblems99 (Aug 24, 2015)

Yeah but even AMD's own slides show they pretty much contradict their own marketing hype....


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## newtekie1 (Aug 24, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> So it still looks like it is slower than 390X.  If "Hawaii" is 290X, Nano looks about 5% faster.  390X is about 10% faster than 290X, no?



Man, I'm trying to remember where someone already said the Nano would fall between the 290X and 390X...where was that?


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## Lionheart (Aug 24, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> ...and what do you expect? It's not like AMD hasn't over-hyped stuff in the past.



I get the extreme dislike of AMD's PR & overhyped BS but the constant negativity just keeps growing.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 24, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> Man, I'm trying to remember where someone already said the Nano would fall between the 290X and 390X...where was that?


*cough*

Morale of the story is these are the same numbers, more or less, AMD put out during the conference.


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## Casecutter (Aug 24, 2015)

AMD said said:
			
		

> Data obtained through isolated direct measurement of GDDR5 and HBM power delivery  rails at full memory utilization.  Power efficiency calculated as GB/s of bandwidth delivered per watt of power consumed


 
*So the Performance/Watt is not about FpS, but the efficiency of the bandwidth?*



64K said:


> The GTX 680 was really a mid range GPU and the high end Kepler was the 780. Nvidia has continued this course with the 970/980.


While yes 680 could be considered Nvidia's mid-range, one could consider Tahiti was the mid-range.  At the time AMD could see Nvidia couldn't absolutely start flooding the Full-Keplers into the gaming market for many months... while yes Titan showed @ $1,000 Feb 2013...  AMD saw no reason to substantiate what was a semi-quasi Professional offering.  Had they had 7990 prior to Titan they could've at least had something but it took till April at that point it had little value. 

The true GTX Gaming version showed as GTX 780 June 2013; AMD had Hawaii in the market Oct 2013, but yes the 290X was 5 months behind.  That's was where AMD really started faltering, not have the money or foresight to get moving with big die's like Hawaii and Fiji has been their Achilles Heel.


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## deemon (Aug 24, 2015)

now if they only made it 
*50% Higher Performance per €/$ over Fury X *


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## apoe (Aug 24, 2015)

Assimilator said:


> Hey look it's another AMD marketing press release that will likely bear zero similarity to actual results achieved by independent third-party reviewers.



Exactly my thoughts when I saw the headline. Too much hype, all the time.


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## NC37 (Aug 24, 2015)

Hilarious watching everyone moan about 970 this, 970 that, when there are many 970 owners who have come out and stated the VRAM situation causes performance stuttering when being pushed over 3.5GB. Just ask 980 owners who came from a 970. The 980 doesn't have the issues even when it is pushed over 4GB. 

So you want AMD to release an ultra competitive GPU that takes on the 970 directly? Are you blind? They already have one in the 390. It goes toe to toe and beats the 970 for the same price. Just because it doesn't have an "X" means you don't consider it? For the same price you get 8GB VRAM, around the same performance, and no stuttering issues. So what if it gulps power instead of drinks. The only better option is almost $200 higher which isn't much better in fps. Until NV drops the 980 under 390X prices, there is no competition.


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## arbiter (Aug 24, 2015)

64K said:


> This is the problem. Nvidia lacks competition. It was obvious when they released the GTX 680 as a high end GPU for $500 because it was a little faster than AMD's high end GPU the HD 7970. The GTX 680 was really a mid range GPU and the high end Kepler was the 780. Nvidia has continued this course with the 970/980.


GTX680 was a bit faster then 7970 at the time. Which is why AMD released the bios update and released the cards with 1ghz clocks to make their cards closer to the 680.



buggalugs said:


> He is talking about the same handful of users here that pounce on any AMD related thread and write negative comments,





Dieinafire said:


> They only do that because amd is vastly better


Most people are pointing out how AMD has made claims about fury being like 20% faster then a gtx980ti, in real world use with settings gamers use it was even and even fury is a hair slower at times. If you go back to last few years, AMD has a history of saying their part is faster then it ends up being cause how they do their benchmarks. Like their A series APU, they claim it was faster then i7 in mobile but when you look at benchmarks they used it was All GPU accelerated ones. Most of which normal buyers of their product wouldn't use.



moproblems99 said:


> My point still stands from a few threads ago:  Less than 20% is not significantly faster.  Less than 10% is barely faster.  Especially considering the fury line has had no OC potential.  I am so glad I did not wait for this to come out.  The only way this card isn't a total flop is if the price is about $300-$350, and I don't see that happening.  This is going to fall in somewhere north of $400.


I had that arguement with someone over that 5-10% over 290x, they were hell bent defending AMD for it. 


Lionheart said:


> I get the extreme dislike of AMD's PR & overhyped BS but the constant negativity just keeps growing.


When PR ends up being not being entirely true and it happens over and over, only so much of it before people start noticing it.


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## EpicShweetness (Aug 24, 2015)

All I'm gonna say, AMD PR.

Ok maybe that, and we'll see


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## tabascosauz (Aug 25, 2015)

I think people are missing the point here a bit.

The R9 Nano is designed to be a niche product. It aims to prove that GCN is still a slightly viable architecture to work with (and maybe, just maybe AMD is still a viable choice for your consumer graphics needs), despite the fact that both fully fledged 1.0 (Tahiti) and 1.1 (Hawaii) were monsters with respect to power consumption. It is not a direct competitor to the GTX 970; the R9 390 and 390X are supposed to be the hard-hitters that take on the GTX 970 and GTX 980 (with the latter having stiffer competition in the R9 Fury). Before you are quick to mention that Asus and GB have "mini-ITX" versions of the GTX 970, the R9 Nano is restricted to that niche, unlike the GTX 970, whose most popular variants are cards like the Strix, TF5, and ACX 2.0. The SG08 is a wonderful example of a single (1, not all of the mini-ITX cases, but 1 among perhaps 3 or 4 in total) mini-ITX case that has the strict limits on PCIe card length that may demand a card like the GTX 970 DC Mini or the R9 Nano, depending on the length of the PSU that you choose.

If the R9 Nano is released with a high asking price, it shouldn't be of any surprise to anyone since the card was never marketed as a GTX 970-killer - a GTX 970 DC Mini competitor, perhaps. However, I still cling to the belief that the Fiji product family shouldn't have warranted 3 separate, obscure launches. The Fury X release was the only one that drew significant attention (save for the R9 Nano, of course, we'll see how this one turns out), with most of that attention turning into hype and eventually, disappointment. The R9 Fury kind of just appeared in the background, and seemed incredibly delayed.

We've endured this kind of horrible marketing from AMD since, I dunno, forever? It isn't even something to take note of anymore. When you're losing to the competition in just about everything, what do you do? Find one of the rare things in which you aren't losing, and put it up on your PR slides. Duh. Would "Fury X is more expensive and slower than the GTX 980 Ti" be a better title for AMD's release event? It's just marketing. Learn to read the fine print. He even had a picture dedicated to the fine print.


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## moproblems99 (Aug 25, 2015)

I didn't forget, but when your CEO says something is significantly faster, don't show me a slide saying that it is 5% faster in best case.  But your other points are valid.


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## arbiter (Aug 25, 2015)

moproblems99 said:


> I didn't forget, but when your CEO says something is significantly faster, don't show me a slide saying that it is 5% faster in best case.  But your other points are valid.


If 5%-10% is acceptable then it would be very hypocritical of people to say that it is. Then all the complaints about intel cpu's only being ~10% faster well turns in to complete load of dung.


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## moproblems99 (Aug 25, 2015)

Exactly.  10% is borderline.  If Hawaii wasn't a couple years old it would be closer to acceptable.


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## Zen_ (Aug 25, 2015)

Plot twist: It will be an amazing cryptocurrency miner, and thus, no gamers will be able to buy one for nine months.


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## Xzibit (Aug 25, 2015)

*DGLee*


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## Bansaku (Aug 25, 2015)

tabascosauz said:


> FC4 is a rather demanding game on Tahiti,



Demanding yes, but still capable. I can get 60fps @1200p maxed settings if I dummy down the AA, 55fps in eyefinity with OC CFX.


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## nem (Aug 25, 2015)

*True innovation 175w tdp*. 





























http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=892&pgno=2


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## vega22 (Aug 25, 2015)

arbiter said:


> um with water block, single slot 295x2 is do-able



yes. so please tell me more about how, no chance anybody could make one of these single slot


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## decends (Aug 25, 2015)

SonicZap said:


> I'm interested in Fury Nano. Not because I'd buy one, but I want to see the maximum power efficiency that AMD is able to achieve with Fiji. If it beats Maxwell in power efficiency, there might be hope left for Arctic Islands GCN.


I thought with the Arctic Islands was gonna be based off a completely new architecture and leave GCN behind......


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## RejZoR (Aug 25, 2015)

I don't think AMD will be dropping GCN. It has been hugely successful. They'll just upgrade it to v2.0 or something...


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## SonicZap (Aug 25, 2015)

decends said:


> I thought with the Arctic Islands was gonna be based off a completely new architecture and leave GCN behind......


I'm pretty sure it'll just be another newer version of GCN. AMD doesn't have the resources for designing a new GPU architechture and GCN has been succesful in many ways, they've gained market share in professional graphics and it also did well against Kepler. Performance and efficiency wise Fiji is doing okay-ish against Maxwell, but is hurt by very low yields because of manufacturing the HBM and the interposer.


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## newtekie1 (Aug 25, 2015)

NC37 said:


> Hilarious watching everyone moan about 970 this, 970 that, when there are many 970 owners who have come out and stated the VRAM situation causes performance stuttering when being pushed over 3.5GB. Just ask 980 owners who came from a 970. The 980 doesn't have the issues even when it is pushed over 4GB.



I think most of the 970 stuttering claims were made by people that never even owned a 970 actually.  Also, any situation that would put a 970 over 3.5GB would also require SLI to run smoothly, so anyone with a single card(or claiming to have a single card) that complained of stuttering was over driving their card anyway.

As an actual 970 owner, an SLI 970 owner, I can tell you the stuttering was way over exaggerated.  I get no noticeable stutter in any of the modern games except one.  The one game I do get stutter on is Shadow of Mordor with the HD Textures installed.  And the reason it stutters is for some reason it actually ignores the extre 0.5GB of memory and once it fills the 3.5GB it starts using system RAM.  And I had the same problem with my 980, it just happened at 4GB.  Shadow of Mordor actually will use close to 6GB of VRAM with the HD Textures, and once you start paging out to system RAM you will get stuttering.  It isn't any worse on the 970 compared to the 980.



NC37 said:


> So you want AMD to release an ultra competitive GPU that takes on the 970 directly? Are you blind? They already have one in the 390. It goes toe to toe and beats the 970 for the same price. Just because it doesn't have an "X" means you don't consider it? For the same price you get 8GB VRAM, around the same performance, and no stuttering issues. So what if it gulps power instead of drinks. The only better option is almost $200 higher which isn't much better in fps. Until NV drops the 980 under 390X prices, there is no competition.



The 390 has virtually no overclock potential though, because AMD is already pushing the Hawaii silicon to its clock speed limits with the stock clocks.  You are looking at sub-100MHz overclocks on the 390 while I haven't seen a 970 yet that couldn't do a 200MHz overclock.

And lets face it, overclock the video card is no mainstream.  With every card coming with some kind of overclock utility bundled with it, and the warranties now covering overclocking, people do consider how a card will overclock in their final decision, especially people on an enthusiust tech site.

Then there is the fact that the 390 is more expensive, by about $30, than the 970. So the 390 is more expensive, performs worse once both are overclocked, performs equally when not overclocked, it uses way more power, puts out way more heat, and takes up way more space in your case. The 970 is already available in basically the same size form factor as the Nano, you'll never find a 390 in that form factor. The only benefit of the 390 is 8GB of VRAM, and all the reviews straight up say 8GB on this card is useless except in select couple of situations.


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## Aquinus (Aug 25, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> The 390 has virtually no overclock potential though, because AMD is already pushing the Hawaii silicon to its clock speed limits with the stock clocks. You are looking at sub-100MHz overclocks on the 390 while I haven't seen a 970 yet that couldn't do a 200MHz overclock.
> 
> And lets face it, overclock the video card is no mainstream. With every card coming with some kind of overclock utility bundled with it, and the warranties now covering overclocking, people do consider how a card will overclock in their final decision, especially people on an enthusiust tech site.


Yeah but, I bought my 390 with the intent that it would be good out of the box. You're right, I can't usually pull more than 1160Mhz on it without pumping a good bit of voltage and even then. The question was what were the alternatives. Paying a tiny bit extra for the 970 didn't make sense when the 390 does almost the same but gives you that 8GB of VRAM. Not to say that's useful yet but I've been occasionally touching that limit in Farcry 4.

The 390 has a lot of texturing capability versus the 970. On paper you would expect the 390 to do something vastly better than the 970 but we don't see that in a lot of cases. I suspect when we start using more memory for higher resolution textures that the 390 will suffer a lot less than a 970. This is all to be seen though. More demanding games are in order for us to see how that all goes over.


----------



## newtekie1 (Aug 25, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Yeah but, I bought my 390 with the intent that it would be good out of the box. You're right, I can't usually pull more than 1160Mhz on it without pumping a good bit of voltage and even then. The question was what were the alternatives. Paying a tiny bit extra for the 970 didn't make sense when the 390 does almost the same but gives you that 8GB of VRAM. Not to say that's useful yet but I've been occasionally touching that limit in Farcry 4.
> 
> The 390 has a lot of texturing capability versus the 970. On paper you would expect the 390 to do something vastly better than the 970 but we don't see that in a lot of cases. I suspect when we start using more memory for higher resolution textures that the 390 will suffer a lot less than a 970. This is all to be seen though. More demanding games are in order for us to see how that all goes over.



Sure, but the 390 isn't any better out of the box than the 970.  At 1440p, their target market, they're basically dead even.  And at this point the 970 is cheaper than the 390, so the question comes down to paying more for a card that is currently equal in performance, is worse in every other way, just in the hopes that the 8GB of memory becomes useful.  And most of the experts(reviewers) have already said the 8GB won't be useful because the core just isn't powerful enough to utilize it.  By the time you crank up the graphics to the point that the 8GB would be useful, the core is so bogged down with processing that you get no benefit anyway.


----------



## GhostRyder (Aug 25, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> Then there is the fact that the 390 is more expensive, by about $30, than the 970. So the 390 is more expensive, performs worse once both are overclocked, performs equally when not overclocked, it uses way more power, puts out way more heat, and takes up way more space in your case. The 970 is already available in basically the same size form factor as the Nano, you'll never find a 390 in that form factor. The only benefit of the 390 is 8GB of VRAM, and all the reviews straight up say 8GB on this card is useless except in select couple of situations.


Not exactly, the 390 can overclock a bit further than its predecessor 290 because of improvements on the silicon similar to the 390X's improvements.  Just because the numbers on the clocks are higher does not result in more performance.








Now that's one situation and its all based on silicon lottery, however 1150+ is much more possible than it was before which results in a decent amount of performance.  Most cards including those by NVidia have a point where overclocking starts to show diminishing results.  So really the situation is going to matter what happens in SLI or CFX is where VRAM will have an impact.  However on a single card to card basis, neither are going to really shine brighter than the other except depending on the silicon lottery.

Nano is adorable, I am curious about this cooler more than anything and how it performs with this card especially considering the small size.  Though its not going to be my cup of tea unless I decide to make a new portable system.


----------



## 64K (Aug 25, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Not exactly, the 390 can overclock a bit further than its predecessor 290 because of improvements on the silicon



I thought the 390 was a 290 with higher clocks. Is there something new with the architecture?


----------



## GhostRyder (Aug 25, 2015)

64K said:


> I thought the 390 was a 290 with higher clocks. Is there something new with the architecture?


 Nope, just a more mature and refined process.  Most of what I have seen show 390 exceeding 1150mhz where as before 1100+ was hit or miss.  Not much of an improvement, but enough it would seem to keep it relevant (For instance my 290X trio while each is slightly different get a little ridiculous beyond 1130).


----------



## EarthDog (Aug 25, 2015)

64K said:


> I thought the 390 was a 290 with higher clocks. Is there something new with the architecture?


Nope. Just clocks.


----------



## newtekie1 (Aug 25, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Not exactly, the 390 can overclock a bit further than its predecessor 290 because of improvements on the silicon similar to the 390X's improvements.



I didn't say anything about the 290.  Regardless of these "improvements" the 390 is still pushed almost to its limit with the stock clocks, which results in poor overclocking potential.  The 970 is a much better overclocker, there is no arguing that.

And, IMO, the better overclocks are coming from the better PCB designs, not necessarily anything to do with the GPUs themselves.


----------



## Aquinus (Aug 25, 2015)

64K said:


> I thought the 390 was a 290 with higher clocks. Is there something new with the architecture?


Just the extra VRAM, faster VRAM, and higher stock clocks. Nothing different with the GPU itself.


newtekie1 said:


> Sure, but the 390 isn't any better out of the box than the 970.  At 1440p, their target market, they're basically dead even.  And at this point the 970 is cheaper than the 390, so the question comes down to paying more for a card that is currently equal in performance, is worse in every other way, just in the hopes that the 8GB of memory becomes useful.  And most of the experts(reviewers) have already said the 8GB won't be useful because the core just isn't powerful enough to utilize it.  By the time you crank up the graphics to the point that the 8GB would be useful, the core is so bogged down with processing that you get no benefit anyway.


Will it? AMD's GPUs tend to be TMU heavy for the price you pay for them but less pixel pumping power which would explain lesser AA performance. The question is will an AMD GPU suffer as much as a nVidia one as more and bigger textures are used? I wonder if certain parts of the GPU are being left under-utilized because of how games run or what their demands actually are.

Either way, a little bit of patience and we'll see.


----------



## GhostRyder (Aug 25, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> I didn't say anything about the 290.  Regardless of these "improvements" the 390 is still pushed almost to its limit with the stock clocks, which results in poor overclocking potential.  The 970 is a much better overclocker, there is no arguing that.
> 
> And, IMO, the better overclocks are coming from the better PCB designs, not necessarily anything to do with the GPUs themselves.


 Well I just meant there are improvements.  But even so my point was that while the GTX 970 and others overclock to levels of 1400-1600, that is on the same levels as the R9 390 at just 1150-1200 according to benchmarks that I have been seeing.  I am not arguing which is a better overclocker (As around 500 MHz versus up to 200mhz is obviously better), just that the numbers don't tell the whole story.

Also I do not think the better PCB designs are the only reason because we had non-reference 290X's and 290's that didn't yield automatic higher clock unfortunately.


----------



## anubis44 (Aug 25, 2015)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> I like the idea, and the R9 NANO is probably my favorite from AMD's show a while ago.
> But.
> 
> This is not the product AMD needs right now, at all.
> ...



If AMD sells a shed-load of these NANOs, that will help their bottom line without doubt. It's looking like a pretty darn nice card, and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't lots of custom cooled versions that might overclock very nicely. This, plus the greatly buffed Radeon performance in DX12, and AMD's upcoming Zen CPUs/APUs, and a nice uptick in PS4/XBox 1 sales will all contribute to AMD's financial success.


----------



## cadaveca (Aug 25, 2015)

anubis44 said:


> If AMD sells a shed-load of these NANOs, that will help their bottom line without doubt.




AMD fails to meet price/performance offered by NVidia at all price points in my local market. As such, no sales person in any PC store will recommend AMD unless it's specifically asked for. There's no features or anything at all - not even a free game - to entice the public to buy Nano. Fans of AMD will buy for sure, if priced right, but given that this is back-to-school season, and then holidays... I about a single SKU will really help AMD at all. They'd need to sell 500k units just to break even on this single SKU, IMHO, and I doubt they will have capacity for even half that.

But, I'd buy one, heck I'd buy a quartet of FuryX, if I could find them on the local market. I doubt that will happen soon since FuryX isn't even here yet.


----------



## Casecutter (Aug 25, 2015)

While not the proper thread to discuss this... AMD should have never waited the release the 300 Series Re-Fresh cards and never all at the same time. I suppose there was the whole "working down inventory in the channel" was a major problem. While I think AMD was working hard to complete some _driver_ "secret sauce", so perhaps it hinged on those two points.

Today seeing the "refresh" of the 300 Series as a pertinent adjustment, it distressing that they didn’t (juggled against selling down 290's) just released the 390; even if 290’s ($270) still had to have a place in the product stack.  As all the refresh cards are furnishing the opposition a decent buzz in the market, getting them out early would’ve be advantageous.  Even if it meant having the 200 Series below them, and the 300 Series above at the same point in time.  In retrospect it doesn’t seem that problematic as not having something to maintain some usable PR on the front pages.  Imagine AMD 390 in the market mid-April touting 8Gb and vying the 970, while the a Memory Allocation was somewhat still a sore subject. Then the 390X showing mid-May, finally the 380 like two week later.

A nice staggered release of new reviews leading up several week before the FuryX , then 3 weeks from that Fury, and now Nano. All that perhaps taking pressure from the drumming Fiji/HBM. AMD might have had to be less "talkative" on that subject, holding to "it's planned for a July release".  AMD would’ve almost assuredly had more and favorable reviews (AMD needs to provide more reviewer samples), but no they choose "months" of silence and the mounting pressure to "do something". It all came apart at the seams as the "where’s Fiji/HBM" overtook their own PR with crazy speculation in the forums, all the while the "re-brand tag" really got unwanted traction.  If AMD had a glut of 200 Series inventory in the channel, that was unhealthy, but the 6 months of their silence and the web's speculation was just as life-threatening.


----------



## anubis44 (Aug 26, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Yeah but, I bought my 390 with the intent that it would be good out of the box. You're right, I can't usually pull more than 1160Mhz on it without pumping a good bit of voltage and even then. The question was what were the alternatives. Paying a tiny bit extra for the 970 didn't make sense when the 390 does almost the same but gives you that 8GB of VRAM. Not to say that's useful yet but I've been occasionally touching that limit in Farcry 4.
> 
> The 390 has a lot of texturing capability versus the 970. On paper you would expect the 390 to do something vastly better than the 970 but we don't see that in a lot of cases. I suspect when we start using more memory for higher resolution textures that the 390 will suffer a lot less than a 970. This is all to be seen though. More demanding games are in order for us to see how that all goes over.



Your 390 with 8GB will get a nice boost in performance in DX12. GTX970 on the other hand will be stuck with the same performance in DX12 as DX11, and only 3.5GB of 'normal' memory.


----------



## 64K (Aug 26, 2015)

More news about the Nano

http://videocardz.com/57409/amd-radeon-r9-nano-confirmed-to-feature-4096-stream-cores


----------



## moproblems99 (Aug 26, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> As such, no sales person in any PC store will recommend AMD unless it's specifically asked for.



Serious question, who actually goes to a store and buys PC products?  At least near me, the only thing there is Best Buy, and well...its Best Buy.


----------



## Aquinus (Aug 26, 2015)

64K said:


> More news about the Nano
> 
> http://videocardz.com/57409/amd-radeon-r9-nano-confirmed-to-feature-4096-stream-cores


The source's source seems of questionable integrity.


----------



## xenocide (Aug 26, 2015)

anubis44 said:


> Your 390 with 8GB will get a nice boost in performance in DX12. GTX970 on the other hand will be stuck with the same performance in DX12 as DX11, and only 3.5GB of 'normal' memory.



We can't really know that for sure.  A single game that uses DX12 (which was originally optimized for Mantle) isn't a good way to definitively say the AMD cards will be better in DX12.  I found it odd that in the Ashes benchmarks at all resolutions the AMD cards saw noticeable improvements going from DX11 to DX12, but the Nvidia cards almost overwhelmingly got worse in every instance or broke even.  You would think by virtue of DX12 being a more efficient API they would at least break even under both,


----------



## cadaveca (Aug 26, 2015)

moproblems99 said:


> Serious question, who actually goes to a store and buys PC products?  At least near me, the only thing there is Best Buy, and well...its Best Buy.


We have several large retailers in Edmonton with large stock on most items. I will not mail order something when I can get it "price-matched" locally when building rigs for other locals. It just doesn't make any sense when it comes time to deal with returns and RMAs, since local shops are pretty good with quick turn around for RMA, and exchange or return is simple.

check out "memory express", they are just one of the shops I tend to visit on a near weekly basis. Since they price match any online retailer that is based on Canada, they've cornered the market for me since I get the price of other shops, but never pay shipping fees, even if just buying thermal paste (which is something I buy monthly).


----------



## moproblems99 (Aug 26, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> We have several large retailers in Edmonton with large stock on most items. I will not mail order something when I can get it "price-matched" locally when building rigs for other locals. It just doesn't make any sense when it comes time to deal with returns and RMAs, since local shops are pretty good with quick turn around for RMA, and exchange or return is simple.
> 
> check out "memory express", they are just one of the shops I tend to visit on a near weekly basis. Since they price match any online retailer that is based on Canada, they've cornered the market for me since I get the price of other shops, but never pay shipping fees, even if just buying thermal paste (which is something I buy monthly).



I envy you, that is a really cool getup.


----------



## EarthDog (Aug 26, 2015)

Lol dave, buy a baster's worth and stop the frequent trips.


----------



## anubis44 (Aug 26, 2015)

Casecutter said:


> *So the Performance/Watt is not about FpS, but the efficiency of the bandwidth?*
> 
> 
> While yes 680 could be considered Nvidia's mid-range, one could consider Tahiti was the mid-range.  At the time AMD could see Nvidia couldn't absolutely start flooding the Full-Keplers into the gaming market for many months... while yes Titan showed @ $1,000 Feb 2013...  AMD saw no reason to substantiate what was a semi-quasi Professional offering.  Had they had 7990 prior to Titan they could've at least had something but it took till April at that point it had little value.
> ...



AMD has plenty of money to evolve their cores, just like nVidia does. The fact that nVidia gives them completely different names like 'Kepler' and 'Maxwell', and AMD uses revision numbers like GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.2 doesn't mean AMD's cores aren't changing. Since GCN 1.0, Radeon cores have been optimized for DX12. It's not AMD who's behind, it's nVidia. nVidia has pushed out DX11 junk as recently as Maxwell, and tons of people have lapped it up. Instead of seeing that nVidia shoved out Maxwell last September because they were scared sh!tless DX12 benchmarks would expose their weakness in that API, tons of nVidiots went out and bought $400+ Maxwells like they were going out of style only based on DX11 benchmarks. Now they're going to regret their decision shortly when they see a $250 R9 290 pushing pixels like a $1,000 Titan in DX12.


----------



## moproblems99 (Aug 26, 2015)

anubis44 said:


> AMD has plenty of money to evolve their cores, just like nVidia does. The fact that nVidia gives them completely different names like 'Kepler' and 'Maxwell', and AMD uses revision numbers like GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.2 doesn't mean AMD's cores aren't changing. Since GCN 1.0, Radeon cores have been optimized for DX12. It's not AMD who's behind, it's nVidia. nVidia has pushed out DX11 junk as recently as Maxwell, and tons of people have lapped it up. Instead of seeing that nVidia shoved out Maxwell last September because they were scared sh!tless DX12 benchmarks would expose their weakness in that API, tons of nVidiots went out and bought $400+ Maxwells like they were going out of style only based on DX11 benchmarks. Now they're going to regret their decision shortly when they see a $250 R9 290 pushing pixels like a $1,000 Titan in DX12.



How long did it take DX11 to become mainstream?  I think people have plenty of time to enjoy their current purchases.


----------



## geon2k2 (Aug 26, 2015)

xenocide said:


> We can't really know that for sure.  A single game that uses DX12 (which was originally optimized for Mantle) isn't a good way to definitively say the AMD cards will be better in DX12.  I found it odd that in the Ashes benchmarks at all resolutions the AMD cards saw noticeable improvements going from DX11 to DX12, but the Nvidia cards almost overwhelmingly got worse in every instance or broke even.  You would think by virtue of DX12 being a more efficient API they would at least break even under both,




Well there are some reports on the web that AMD has more lanes to communicate with the CPU and that it will for sure see better performance improvements with the DX12. Even the game in which AMD cards sucked really bad on DX11, Project Cars, seems to benefit a lot from DX12.

Read more here:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1861353&page=4

There was another article on a tech site not on a forum, however I cannot find it now ....


----------



## arbiter (Aug 26, 2015)

anubis44 said:


> AMD has plenty of money to evolve their cores, just like nVidia does. The fact that nVidia gives them completely different names like 'Kepler' and 'Maxwell', and AMD uses revision numbers like GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.2 doesn't mean AMD's cores aren't changing. Since GCN 1.0, Radeon cores have been optimized for DX12. It's not AMD who's behind, it's nVidia. nVidia has pushed out DX11 junk as recently as Maxwell, and tons of people have lapped it up. Instead of seeing that nVidia shoved out Maxwell last September because they were scared sh!tless DX12 benchmarks would expose their weakness in that API, tons of nVidiots went out and bought $400+ Maxwells like they were going out of style only based on DX11 benchmarks. Now they're going to regret their decision shortly when they see a $250 R9 290 pushing pixels like a $1,000 Titan in DX12.


Wow just Wow i don't even know where to start on tearing up everything you just said as complete stupidity.


----------



## anubis44 (Aug 26, 2015)

The anti-AMD lunacy in this thread is breath-taking.

News flash. AMD is the one who has been giving more value for money than nVidia. All GCN Radeons (but especially GCN 1.1 and newer) will tend to be MUCH faster in DX12 than they were in DX11, since GCN was designed to for compute performance fed by multi-core CPUs running multi-threaded code. nVidia GPUs, including the current Maxwell, are designed to be fed by a single-core in serial. In other words, all current nVidia GPUs are rendered obsolete by DX12, if you'll excuse the pun.

Don't belivee me? Read this explanation by a retired AMD GPU engineer. This guy REALLY knows what he's talking about, he's no fanboy, he's an actual, bonna fide expert, his posts (go ahead and read through the thread and be prepared to be blown away) should silence the idiotic nVidia fanboyism on here:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1569897/...singularity-dx12-benchmarks/400#post_24321843


----------



## 64K (Aug 26, 2015)

@anubis44 The question I have is how long before there are enough DX12 games for it to matter. When I play a game and I enjoy it then I will likely play it again after a couple of years. All those DX9 and DX11 games in my library are still a factor for me to consider. If more and more DX12 games start showing up that run better on an AMD card then it will be time to go red but that could conceivably take a couple of years.

Both AMD and Nvidia are deceitful at times so I would rather wait until some DX12 games drop before deciding.


----------



## moproblems99 (Aug 26, 2015)

Also, I have no hate for AMD.  They were just too late to the dance this time.


----------



## cadaveca (Aug 26, 2015)

anubis44 said:


> The anti-AMD lunacy in this thread is breath-taking.
> 
> News flash. AMD is the one who has been giving more value for money than nVidia. All GCN Radeons (but especially GCN 1.1 and newer) will tend to be MUCH faster in DX12 than they were in DX11, since GCN was designed to for compute performance fed by multi-core CPUs running multi-threaded code. nVidia GPUs, including the current Maxwell, are designed to be fed by a single-core in serial. In other words, all current nVidia GPUs are rendered obsolete by DX12, if you'll excuse the pun.
> 
> ...


That's all nice, but I don't use any DX 12 apps at this time, so there is zero value to me from such until I buy a game, and then it'll be that one app. It's hard for me to be excited about something I will only use in the rare occasion. Do also keep ion mind I used to run around calling myself AMD's #1 fanboy. I cannot at this juncture, because their offerings and false marketing and lies left a bitter taste in my mouth. Nevermind that they have failed to keep high-end SKUs in stock locally.

I made many AMD GPU purchases on tech they touted as new and all that, but not once did they ever actually deliver on it until many many months later, if at all (Crossfire (broken cursor), Eyefinity (First was Crossfire running Crysis on three dell 30-inch screens, never did work in native res although they had live demos running at LANs and when I was there, they wouldn't let me see the back of the monitors or PC) + (Frame time problems that I complained about for years before they actually acknowledged, and only did when they had ZERO choice), CTM (never made it to prime-time, precursor to DX12), Mantle (New CTM, backed by better code, still not used by more than 10 or so games right now).

It's not that I favor AMD, it is that they fail to deliver. While for me personally and my own purchases, NVidia HAS delivered. NVidia touts features...and they work! What a novel idea!

Until AMD actually PROVES that what they hype before a lunch is actually a true statement, it'll be hard for most anyone to take them seriously.

That same post about ashes was also made here on TPU, but yet you link to another site... Interesting.


----------



## EarthDog (Aug 26, 2015)

64K said:


> @anubis44 The question I have is how long before there are enough DX12 games for it to matter. When I play a game and I enjoy it then I will likely play it again after a couple of years. All those DX9 and DX11 games in my library are still a factor for me to consider. If more and more DX12 games start showing up that run better on an AMD card then it will be time to go red but that could conceivably take a couple of years.
> 
> Both AMD and Nvidia are deceitful at times so I would rather wait until some DX12 games drop before deciding.


Its worth it to QFT and give thanks...

While I understand what our AMD fellow is getting at, this is the WHOLE POINT. I could buy AMD now, have a DX12 AAA title or a few come out in the next 2 years and have better performance in those. OR I can buy a different card now that has better performance in the VAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST majority of games. Then, in two years when more DX12 titles are available in the market, then look at who's top dog and make a purchase then.


----------



## arbiter (Aug 26, 2015)

anubis44 said:


> Don't belivee me? Read this explanation by a retired AMD GPU engineer. This guy REALLY knows what he's talking about, he's no fanboy, he's an actual, bonna fide expert, his posts (go ahead and read through the thread and be prepared to be blown away) should silence the idiotic nVidia fanboyism on here:





cadaveca said:


> I cannot at this juncture, because their offerings and false marketing and lies left a bitter taste in my mouth. Nevermind that they have failed to keep high-end SKUs in stock locally.
> 
> I made many AMD GPU purchases on tech they touted as new and all that, but not once did they ever actually deliver on it until many many months later, if at all (Crossfire (broken cursor), Eyefinity (First was Crossfire running Crysis on three dell 30-inch screens, never did work in native res although they had live demos running at LANs and when I was there, they wouldn't let me see the back of the monitors or PC) + (Frame time problems that I complained about for years before they actually acknowledged, and only did when they had ZERO choice), CTM (never made it to prime-time, precursor to DX12), Mantle (New CTM, backed by better code, still not used by more than 10 or so games right now).
> 
> It's not that I favor AMD, it is that they fail to deliver. While for me personally and my own purchases, NVidia HAS delivered. NVidia touts features...and they work! What a novel idea!


@cadaveca Said pretty much what has been the truth about AMD for last 3 years. Claim stuff about their product but not living up to the claims, Claiming new gpu's when they are rebrands (aka 300 series they claim are new when in fact they are rebrands). In terms of pushing things in the industry, with new innovative things like shadowplay and g-sync. AMD has been 2 steps behind in those buying in to another company to do their recording and throwing together tech to compete with g-sync in 6 months and shipping it way before it was ready.



64K said:


> Both AMD and Nvidia are deceitful at times so I would rather wait until some DX12 games drop before deciding.


AMD in last few years has been most deceitful last 3-4 years with claims of xxx performance but giving what usually is a bit less.

SO what AMD seems to have higher performance in a game that was original built using their 3rd party locked up API. That performance transfered over to DX12 which nvidia is starting from square 1.  AMD had what almost a year heard start working with that were i doubt nvidia had more the a month or 2. Please don't say nvidia had access to source for a year, they have had access to DX11 but DX12 for it likely much difference story.
Last fact is this is ONE game in ALPHA stages, Doesn't mean very much.


----------



## Xzibit (Aug 26, 2015)

arbiter said:


> SO what AMD seems to have higher performance in a game that was original built using their 3rd party locked up API. *That performance transfered over to DX12 which nvidia is starting from square 1*.  AMD had what almost a year heard start working with that were *i doubt nvidia had more the a month or 2*. Please don't say nvidia had access to source for a year, they have had access to DX11 but DX12 for it likely much difference story.
> Last fact is this is ONE game in ALPHA stages, Doesn't mean very much.



So your rational is to say Microsoft which consults with Intel/AMD/Nvidia to come up with DX12 standards some how excluded Nvidia from the process ?

Nvidia also sits on the presidency of Khronos consortium which adopted Mantel into Vulkan.

Nvidia was the first one to team up with Microsoft for a DX12 demo. Well over a 1yr+.









Nvidia is well placed to know where things are going well in advance.

Don't forget how bad the DX12 test makes AMD look in DX11 yet

Apples-to-Apples




















_*I know its just one game with Hairworks._

The Ashes of the Singularity wasn't so much that AMD was ahead but how Nvidia fell behind.


----------



## moproblems99 (Aug 26, 2015)

I almost bought the 380, that last graph makes me so happy I didn't.


----------



## arbiter (Aug 26, 2015)

Xzibit said:


> So your rational is to say Microsoft which consults with Intel/AMD/Nvidia to come up with DX12 standards some how excluded Nvidia from the process ?
> 
> Nvidia also sits on the presidency of Khronos consortium which adopted Mantel into Vulkan.
> 
> ...


in witcher, is it really Apple to Apples or does AMD use the setting in their control panel to DUMB down tessellation to lower level? Wouldn't shock me if that is what they did. I am sure if most people knew about that little setting they would wonder as well.
That is 1 thing you have to wonder but even with DX12 being worked with nvidia for 1+year doesn't mean that much when it comes to a game.


----------



## Xzibit (Aug 26, 2015)

arbiter said:


> in witcher, is it really Apple to Apples or does AMD use the setting in their control panel to DUMB down tessellation to lower level? Wouldn't shock me if that is what they did. I am sure if most people knew about that little setting they would wonder as well.
> That is 1 thing you have to wonder but even with DX12 being worked with nvidia for 1+year doesn't mean that much when it comes to a game.



That same logic can be applied to anything.

We wont know if AMD is dumbing down, you like to point to the tessellation and others point to the DirectCompute of Nvidia.  Unless both all of a sudden become transparent with their drivers there wont be an answer.


----------



## Casecutter (Aug 27, 2015)

moproblems99 said:


> I almost bought the 380, that last graph makes me so happy I didn't.


Which part... that neither offer playable Witcher with AA On, 16AF, High Post Process -HBO+, Ultra Graphics - Default HairWorks (normally at 8X) for around $200?

So what you intend?  To pay more rather than setting Hairwork to a lower setting (4X) to get playable?  The Witcher canned B-M is impractical in determining if a $200 card is worthy/practical to provide immersive graphics experience. Nvidia wants you to think that you must go to a $300 to make the experience enjoyable and that's just disingenuous.  There are plenty of “tweaks” for Foliage, Grass, Shadows, that are max’d out in the B-M that in my opinion don’t superbly enhance the immersive experience.

Have a look at the difference here between, hair, foliage, grass, shadows. Some like shadows in 8x (default) look to razor-sharp, not the natural soften shadows that appear in real world (go outside and look). For Hairworks their comparison has you looking the guy’s head in a way that I don’t believe the game ever get that close, while at that close the hair for 8X to me still looks horrible.  While between 8X/4X perhaps the most improved area is the sideburns.  So are you saying your okay paying $100 more for "in your face" sideburns, and that doesn’t burn you?

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/gu...king-guide#nvidia-hairworks-config-file-tweak


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## moproblems99 (Aug 27, 2015)

No it meant that it wasn't going to play any game that I have at anything near the level of detail I wanted.


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