Friday, September 4th 2015
AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review by TPU...Not
There won't be a Radeon R9 Nano review on TechPowerUp. AMD says that it has too few review samples for the press. When AMD first held up the Radeon R9 Nano at its "Fiji" GPU unveil, to us it came across as the most promising product based on the chip, even more than the R9 Fury series, its dual-GPU variant, and the food-processor-shaped SFF gaming desktop thing. The prospect of "faster than R9 290X at 175W" is what excited us the most, as that would disrupt NVIDIA's GM204 based products. Unfortunately, the most exciting product by AMD also has the least amount of excitement by AMD itself.
The first signs of that are, AMD making it prohibitively expensive at $650, and not putting it in the hands of the press, for a launch-day review. We're not getting one, and nor do some of our friends on either sides of the Atlantic. AMD is making some of its tallest claims with this product, and it's important (for AMD) that some of those claims are put to the test. A validated product could maybe even convince some to reach for their wallets, to pull out $650.
Are we sourgraping? You tell us. We're one of the few sites that give you noise testing by some really expensive and broad-ranged noise-testing equipment, and more importantly, card-only power-draw. Our reviews also grill graphics cards through 22 real-world tests across four resolutions, each, and offer price-performance graphs. When NVIDIA didn't send us a GeForce GTX TITAN-Z sample, we didn't care. We didn't make an announcement like this. At $2,999, it was just a terrible product and we never wished it was part of our graphs. Its competing R9 295X2 could be had under $700, and so it continues to top our performance charts.
The R9 Nano, on the other hand, has the potential for greatness. Never mind the compact board design and its SFF credentials. Pull out this ASIC, put it on a normal 20-25 cm PCB, price it around $350, and dual-slot cooling that can turn its fans off in idle, and AMD could have had a GM204-killing product. Sadly, there's no way for us to test that, either. We can't emulate an R9 Nano on an R9 Fury X. The Nano appears to have a unique power/temperature based throttling algorithm that we can't copy.
"Fiji" is a good piece of technology, but apparently, very little effort is being made to put it into the hands of as many people as possible (and by that we mean consumers). This is an incoherence between what AMD CEO stated at the "Fiji" unveil, and what her company is doing. It's also great disservice to the people who probably stayed up many nights to get the interposer design right, or sailing through uncharted territory with HBM. Oh well.
The first signs of that are, AMD making it prohibitively expensive at $650, and not putting it in the hands of the press, for a launch-day review. We're not getting one, and nor do some of our friends on either sides of the Atlantic. AMD is making some of its tallest claims with this product, and it's important (for AMD) that some of those claims are put to the test. A validated product could maybe even convince some to reach for their wallets, to pull out $650.
The R9 Nano, on the other hand, has the potential for greatness. Never mind the compact board design and its SFF credentials. Pull out this ASIC, put it on a normal 20-25 cm PCB, price it around $350, and dual-slot cooling that can turn its fans off in idle, and AMD could have had a GM204-killing product. Sadly, there's no way for us to test that, either. We can't emulate an R9 Nano on an R9 Fury X. The Nano appears to have a unique power/temperature based throttling algorithm that we can't copy.
"Fiji" is a good piece of technology, but apparently, very little effort is being made to put it into the hands of as many people as possible (and by that we mean consumers). This is an incoherence between what AMD CEO stated at the "Fiji" unveil, and what her company is doing. It's also great disservice to the people who probably stayed up many nights to get the interposer design right, or sailing through uncharted territory with HBM. Oh well.
759 Comments on AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review by TPU...Not
900 MHz is not bad at 75C.
It beat the 390X in almost every benchmark...impressive. At $200 more than 390X though, this is only going to appeal to people where a 390X or Fury can't fit.
I wonder if Nano is going to spur the creation of ITX-length computer cases--cases that aren't so deep. AMD Nano-ready cases, as it were.
Until they fix that coil whine, I'd never recommend it. I have a sound card that does it and it's really freaking annoying.
This card is targeted to a niche audience, and it seems AMD skimped on testing, and even reduced that target audience furthermore by not even including HDMI 2.0, which would have made this card perfect for ultra small factor HTPC builds, very few 4K TVs have DP, but most 4K TVs sold after 2014 include at least HDMI 2.0 (I know my Sony Bravia does, and most Samsung models do as well), so by saving a few cents by not investing on a higher spec HDMI port or even getting some decent inductors that don't squeal like the ones in this card, I see even less of a reason for AMD to charge $649 for it, then again, I'm not the target audience for it, this is basically a halo product, albeit one that makes very little sense when you can get Fury-X for the same amount of money, and even most small form factor cases can accommodate at least one 120mm rad.
Too bad, I was really looking forward to replacing my 290Xs, but this round was a complete miss for AMD.Exactly, W1zzard started with Atitool many years ago, I remember visiting the OCFAQ forums (the vestigial predecessor to TPU) and how passionate W1zzard was at supporting all Ati cards more than a decade ago, so much for any semblance of gratitude from AMD :shadedshu:
Computer gaming is becoming way too expensive these days. :(
900 CAD = 680.37 USD
Cheap oil is blamed. Theoretically, the CAD will recover when Saudi Arabia and Iran stop dumping oil.
Hello new member
Hello 'old' member? (I really wonder how old you are as a person not as a member though) ..
I dont think you know that this "up to %.." Thing Was first used by nvidia, then AMD followed up..
And yes nVidia products are overrated here, TPU is one of the fewest sites that justified the 1000$ price tag of Titan..
I am a new member but i am regular visitor of TPU since 2005 or 2006..
As a reply to your post, I post, I reply to everything I found interesting, not just AMD related news.
whereas you, we all see what you did there with your 13 now 14 posts.
I have bad experiences with AMD for their 4850, 4870X2, 5850, and I found their marketing rather misleading, therefore my negative attitude towards this company.
Edit - oohhh wait, mine was the #666th, Hooray~~!
Nano is slower, noisier and costs the same as a Fury X. Lots of praise for it is lost on me when Fury X blazed the SFF PCB footprint.
As for TPU being butthurt. No, vindicated. That coil complaint from almost every review shows that it's noise output (AMD sell it as a quiet card) is terrible.
Let's hope the dual Fury eliminates that shoddy choice of chokes.
And for the guys that will spout verbal shit about me being Nvidia biased, no, just no. I'm logical about things, almost autistically so. Nano makes no sense for its price (came out after Fury X, performs worse, is louder and costs more) or its size.
HBM allowed Nano to be so small and the Fury X demonstrated that first too.
Yes I'm dead serious.. If anything is childish, its a comment about dont wish for what ya cant afford!! So dont concern yourself with what I can or can't afford there mate ;). It was an (IMO) comment mkay.
In capitalism it is very simple. Just try selling something on ebay.
If the price is right people will buy, if not and you still want to sell it you decrease the price ... and so on until you find a buyer, which considers your product to be rightfully priced for what it offers.
It is the same with companies. If people buy, then the price is right.
If too many people want it then you increase the price (see the bitcoin mining craziness), if too less you decrease the price up until you reach your profit/production costs targets at which point you can choose to discontinue the product or to sell it at a loss.
Hello, yet another new member,
c'mon, you guys are just too obvious.