AMD Radeon R9 Nano to Feature a Single PCIe Power Connector

[Lionheart]

So it's as fast as GTX 970 and uses the same amount of power. And it's about the size of the ITX GeForce 970. So... what's newsworthy, that AMD has "only" taken a year to reach parity with nVIDIA?

What an arrogant comment! Least this card can count to 4...

 

[bubbleawsome]

Nano has 4 GB of HBM. 970 has 3.5 GB of GDDR5.
And you said "reach parity"? Oh well...
If not for HBM the fury line up could have been release much sooner, cause GCN 1.2 had been ready at the time of R9 285.

To be fair, it does have a full 4.0GB, but marketing happens.

 

[Casecutter]

Does anyone know what *21 and **22 notes on the last slide pertain to?

I think we need to not get into much speculation as what perf/watt, other than how AMD exposes it on that slide. I can see folks already starting to work this up into a lather… "these people said"… "they say"… and that’s when it all goes into full "AMD over-promised".

I will say it’s interesting that AMD shows on that first slide only two HBM as green? Could they be indicating that the Nano is positioned to say "up to 1440p", and they determine 2Gb of HBM more than sufficient for mainstream gaming especially into the future. I don’t see it as an improving efficiency thing, perhaps they get a lot of bad HBM/interposer surface mounts. IDK

But when you got lemons, you make lemonade…

 

[bubbleawsome]

If nano has 2GB I will be incredibly sad.

 

[the54thvoid]

Does anyone know what *21 and **22 notes on the last slide pertain to?

I think we need to not get into much speculation as what perf/watt, other than how AMD exposes it on that slide. I can see folks already starting to work this up into a lather… "these people said"… "they say"… and that’s when it all goes into full "AMD over-promised".

I will say it’s interesting that AMD shows on that first slide only two HBM as green? Could they be indicating that the Nano is positioned to say "up to 1440p", and they determine 2Gb of HBM more than sufficient for mainstream gaming especially into the future. I don’t see it as an improving efficiency thing, perhaps they get a lot of bad HBM/interposer surface mounts. IDK

But when you got lemons, you make lemonade…

You're very correct. At this moment we can only gauge the perf versus their own stable. Otherwise the shit slinging will get nasty in a week or so.

If nano has 2GB I will be incredibly sad.

It would but surely they wouldn't give a card the same or better perf than a 290X and hamper it with only 2GB Vram?

 

[N3M3515]

And it did that with 1/8th the budget.

You won the internet today!!!

Let's hope this card doesn't cost more than $330

 

[xorbe]

I am guessing this is a full fiji just down-clocked (and reduced power section). I much prefer that vs a cut chip clocked to the moon.

 

[mirakul]

I am guessing this is a full fiji just down-clocked (and reduced power section). I much prefer that vs a cut chip clocked to the moon.

Sadly there is term called "harvest". They need a card for bad dies, hence there will be always a cut down gpu.

Fiji down clocked can be found in Fury btw.

 

[64K]

A single 8 pin is plenty for the Nano. That gives it 225 watts to play with after including what is provided through the slot. The Asus 970 Strix uses a single 8 pin too and does just fine even with overclocking.

 

[Casecutter]

If nano has 2GB I will be incredibly sad.

Said like those who preached 4Gb HBM isn't enough... I take the wait and see.

Would you choose 4 GB DDR3 over 1 GB GDDR5? The choice between HBM and GDDR5 will be similar.

Or 3.5Gb DDR5 over 2Gb HBM.

 

[RejZoR]

I don't think 2GB would make ANY kind of sense on a card that is essentially as fast as R9-290X. I think it comes with 4GB as well. After all, space isn't an issue anymore...

 

[Crap Daddy]

What is "performance density"?

 

[Initialised]

What is "performance density"?

Think of it as TerraFLOPS/Volume

 

[iSkylaker]

"Energy efficient", I love that.

If all this is true, it only needs to be well priced to count with my support.

 

[newtekie1]

Nano has 4 GB of HBM. 970 has 3.5 GB of GDDR5.
And you said "reach parity"? Oh well...
If not for HBM the fury line up could have been release much sooner, cause GCN 1.2 had been ready at the time of R9 285.

Except HBM is the only reason this card can be this small, and the only reason it is capable of the performance.

What an arrogant comment! Least this card can count to 4...

No, that is an arrogant statement. The memory issue with the 970 doesn't much matter when it is kicking the crap out of everything AMD puts out, even with their 512-bit 4GB, and SLI 970s have been praised as the best bang for the buck for 4k for a good long while.

His statement was accurate, not arrogant. We are all getting excited over AMD finally doing something that nVidia did 9 months ago. And AMD has the advantage of HBM saving them an insane amount of PCB space.

 

[LightningJR]

They wont go 2GB, it'll be 4GB HBM. It's quite obvious to me idk how it isn't obvious to others. Giving the 390/X 8GB and then giving a fury card 2GB.. never.

 

[HTC]

What i fear here is that i didn't hear anything about the performance of the card in the presentation: only about performance over watts. BIG difference.

Supposedly, this card will make direct competition with 970, but is that on the performance side, on the performance over watts, both?

Reviews will tell.

 

[LightningJR]

What i fear here is that i didn't hear anything about the performance of the card in the presentation: only about performance over watts. BIG difference.

Supposedly, this card will make direct competition with 970, but is that on the performance side, on the performance over watts, both?

Reviews will tell.

She said it was faster than the 290X, "significantly faster", the 290X is around equal to the 970 so if it competes with the 980 and undercuts the price it's great competition.

 

[xvi]

Dear AMD marketing team,

Lead with this next time.

Sincerely,
The Consumers

 

[HTC]

She said it was faster than the 290X, "significantly faster", the 290X is around equal to the 970 so if it competes with the 980 and undercuts the price it's great competition.

Must have missed it: don't recall that bit

EDIT

Just checked: www.twitch.tv/amd/v/6240136?t=1h15m48s

She starts talking about the nano @ this time and indeed she says that.

Well see in them reviews.

 

[HumanSmoke]

And it did that with 1/8th the budget.

That's probably another one of those "facts" you found via your magic ass, right?
There is no way in hell, Fiji's (inc the ancillary tech - interposer design, HBM R&D etc) R&D costs equate to an eighth of what GM204 cost to develop. Even a simple glance at the R&D spend for each company (AMD and Nvidia) should tell you that is basically impossible.
If AMD can develop a 596mm² GPU utilizing a swath of new GPU tech for 1/8th the R&D budget of a 398mm² GPU based on refinement of previous design, it makes you wonder why they didn't apply the same fervour to some much smaller chips.

What an arrogant comment! Least this card can count to 4...

Well played!

What is "performance density"?

Probably someone in marketing noticed they didn't have enough bullet points on the slide then got the idea to divide transistor count per mm by some hand-tailored game image quality level and viola "Performance Density"!!
If AMD lead this particular metric, it should become the new "must have" feature very soon. Hallelujah! I was getting sick of DX12 feature level support being the defining factor for buying anything graphics related.

 

[Cool Vibrations]

The memory issue with the 970 doesn't much matter when it is kicking the crap out of everything AMD puts out, even with their 512-bit 4GB, and SLI 970s have been praised as the best bang for the buck for 4k for a good long while.

Sounds exactly like the 290 before the 9XX series came out.

Oh wait, the 290 had 4GB not 3.5GB.

I forgot it's okay to lie to the consumers if your company's name is Nvidia. Silly me.

 

[Casecutter]

I will say it’s interesting that AMD shows on that first slide only two HBM as green?

Ok have seen other pictures (slides) and it not that they're highlighting the HBM it's a reflection, so tin-foil is now off... or would that mean I need it back on?

 

[rruff]

Or 3.5Gb DDR5 over 2Gb HBM.

Please explain how fast vram can compensate for it's small size when a game is calling for >2GB of data for one frame.

 

[Casecutter]

Please explain how fast vram can compensate for it's small size when a game is calling for >2GB of data for one frame.

I'd defer back to btarunr he said it best!