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
Also, try to use the edit button please!
I don't object to your comment, but if those editorials can't be a reason, then the reviews can't be either. At least that's what I believe. I don't know what or if they where thinking at AMD, when they decided to not sent a nano to TPU, but the fact is that looking WHO got a Nano, I don't think it has anything to do with reviews. Maybe I am also wrong about the editorials. Maybe we are all wrong trying to find any logic in their decision. KitGuru was directly attacking AMD a few months ago for not getting a Fury X. I mean, direct attack and baning who ever was posting in favor of AMD in the comments. They got a Nano now. F logic.
I like how all those 'fair' reviews have slammed it's noise output. Maybe AMD wont send any cards out to anyone anymore?
TBH - I think the more we read the reviews, the more of a mystery it becomes. W1zzard would have had the same conclusion as most - excellent product but very niche, a tad expensive and too noisy. That is the general consensus. The sites that are lapping up Nano's balls obviously have already forgotten about Fury X but as I keep saying - Fury X and Nano are contrived siblings. AMD thought how best to carve out products from a very poor set of options and this is what they made. Fury X, no custom models. Nano, no custom models. And something in between that cant be confused with either (an air cooled bigger card). Seriously, this is what AMD have done - it's not a plain, top SKU down to bottom SKU, it's a same SKU but given different clothes and some minor tweaks.
I don't blame AMD, the HBM on die step is a massive leap for gfx and AMD MUST be applauded for it. But that very step has made any top to bottom branding impossible. Therefore Fiji exists as a holy Trinity of products but only really differentiated by what cooler got strapped onto it. It's obvious. If AIB's could redesign the Fury X, they'd do things to make Nano look silly.
I hope that AMD get's off it's high horse and lets the partners, Asus in particular, work on the Fury X2 (or whatever). Ares Fury is an awesome product name.
I'd sell my Kingpin for one.
39:27 Titan Z, but if you see his whole speech - ignore Allyn - it's easy to see that he can't find logic in AMD's decision. The part talking about Nano is only about 6 minutes, but it is interesting to see and hear.
Whatever the reasons, they have to put a rule in Roy's contract. "STOP USING TWEETER" all capital letters.
With all new gear coming out and out no stop, we do need a site that we can trust and assume that site is legit.
I think out there TPU is the greatess site out there abou review, news and people reading here.
Keep up the good work TPU, we love u and i think there some greater review coming for all of us ! :lovetpu::toast:
Very limited supplies methinks but hey, perhaps they can ramp them up. TBH, I think as everyone has been saying, Arctic Islands and Pascal will be the next major step. And with AMD's initial experience they hopefully will have a better handle on that release with supply and market segment.
2016 - goodbye GDDR5 for good. Hello all the weirdness of interposer layers and HBM 2.
@btarunr or @W1zzard , can we get an answer on this one or is there a reason for it staying hush hush?
Back :)
AMD is sending a card on Monday, and I also bought a Sapphire retail card for €699, which will be sent off on Monday too.