AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review by TPU...Not

[btarunr]

Soooo what do we think of the dual Fiji? Should it be dual Fury/X or dual Nano? I want both.

Yes, I expect it to be a dual-GPU card of two ASICs of the same tuning as the Nano. Should beat Titan-Z and then some.

 

[gaximodo]

Soooo what do we think of the dual Fiji? Should it be dual Fury/X or dual Nano? I want both.

Fury/X and Nano got the same chip.

 

[Xaled]

Wow what's the matter all I did was saying hello - and very nice 666th reply to the thread,

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~~!

And since then, your negative attitude towards the company had you get into profile page of people who say things you dont like and check if they are new members or not? Now if i say that you are a smart guy? Then that means you are stupid because i am a new member ?
And no, your post was 667th and mine was 666th, yiu had right first but in the end you were wrong

 

[Frick]

Fury/X and Nano got the same chip.

Well duh. Should it be dual Nano, ie downclocked with limited power or dual Fury X so it's closer to a 295x? I want the world to have a dual Fury X card.

 

[gaximodo]

And since then, your negative attitude towards the company had you get into profile page of people who say things you dont like and check if they are new members or not? Now if i say that you are a smart guy? Then that means you are stupid because i am a new member ?
And no, your post was 667th and mine was 666th, yiu had right first but in the end you were wrong

I did this not because of you are a new member,

And dude, I caught your friend too,

You and your friend's profile and behavior are suspicious, it doesn't take a click to tell but I need evidence so I clicked into your profile page and SSed.

I didn't clicked into all other members have positive attitude towards AMD and I have nothing to say to these people.

DAMMIT! I WISH MINE WAS THE 666TH.

Well duh. Should it be dual Nano, ie downclocked with limited power or dual Fury X so it's closer to a 295x? I want the world to have a dual Fury X card.

Yeah with most X2's, they do it with their flagship chip and most of the time they downclock it and they call it flagshipX2. Even when they don't downclock it they still call it flagshipX2, and power requirement will always be less than 2xflagship.

The point is - whether they downclock it or not it will not be small format, so it is a FuryXX2.

 

[john_]

Personally, I'm waiting for BIOS flashes... Because it seems to me if you could THAT would make the cost explained. You buy the card without the watercooler (and the cooler's power supply), and get a higher-quality chip, perhaps. Flash the BIOS, and you got one killer GPU, if overclocking tools worked.

It's that sort of stuff the sites that didn't get cards typically look at, isn't it?

Noob question.
Isn't the only one 8pin PCIe going to be a limiting factor for high overclocks? The card looks like it was made for 225W max TDP, so maybe you can't go high enough anyway, even if the chip does have the potential, because you can't supply it with enough power to go that high.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

@Frick that would be an interesting card... hopefully it won't have limiters, crappy coolers & whatnot, then it would really give Nvidia a good competition.

 

[john_]

Hardware Canucks

They got a card? WTF? They gave cards to every "We love Nvidia" hardware site out there, but not at TPU and TechReport?

Damn, they are stupid... They gave cards to every Nvidia loving site, thinking that this will make those sites change their ways of views and show more love to AMD in the future, and they didn't gave cards to sites that they know that, whatever happens, those sites will continue posting fair reviews. This is politics. Politics of the morons. I see this kind of politics constantly in Greece, and I don't think I have to mention the results.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

@john_ single 8-pin won't be enough to provide sufficient power unless the card has some sort of trick power management to allow more juice for OCing... It should have 2 x 6-pin or 6+8-pin for stable delivery...

 

[Dany]

AMD R9 Nano has been officially reviewed by tech sites such as :

• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ DGLee
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ Anandtech
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ TweakTown
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ Guru3D
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ TomsHardware
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ Hexus
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ MaximumPC
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ TechSpot
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ Hothardware
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ EuroGamer
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ PcWorld
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ PcPer
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ ExtremeTech
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ HardwareCanucks
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ Bit-TEch
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ KitGuru
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ Forbes
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review @ LegitReviews

 

[HumanSmoke]

Noob question.
Isn't the only one 8pin PCIe going to be a limiting factor for high overclocks? The card looks like it was made for 225W max TDP, so maybe you can't go high enough anyway, even if the chip does have the potential, because you can't supply it with enough power to go that high.

225W is the nominal power input (75W slot + 150W from the PCI-E 8pin). How much wattage can be delivered is variable. In the case of an 8-pin connector, you have 3 * 12VDC wires, so the total input is 3 * 12 * Amperage = Watts.
The variability arises in the amperage. A cheaper PSU using 18 AWG cabling is capable of sustaining less amperage than a higher quality PSU using 16 AWG for example ( >> relative amperage guidelines << ). If you were using a reasonably strong PSU, then ~8A per line should be a reasonable standard to work from (so, 3 * 12 * 8 = 288W per 8-pin) in theory.
Where the theory differs from reality is the strength of the PSU ( how stable the load is and rail loading), and the card itself. The PCB traces (lands/wiring) needs to be able to sustain the load, so trace thickness and distance between traces needs to taken into account. Usually PCB real estate is at a premium so the traces are laid out across the PCB as well as vertically through the PCB layers. The larger the number of layers, the greater the separation - cleaner power delivery at higher amperage's reducing crosstalk. The second variable is the VRM circuitry itself - rated and actual load. A lot of variables to consider, which is why the PCI-SIG is conservative in its rating.
Another thing to consider would be AMD's board power limit, which would render the theoretical limits strictly theoretical.

 

[rtwjunkie]

So seems like TPU was not good to AMD, since every other site got the card for review?

So, you've not paid attention? Many sites didn't get one, not just TPU.

 

[Ferrum Master]

VRM circuitry itself

Seems to be the old IR3564B, I've seen it on some cheap motherboards too. It was the ISL95820 and CHL8328 analogue. Do you know what are the power mosfets?

 

[remixedcat]

let's make #fireroy a thing on twitter and tag him in it!!!!!

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

he's gonna be famous for all the wrong reasons...

 

[geon2k2]

Hello, yet another new member,

c'mon, you guys are just too obvious.

In which sense am I too obvious?

I just started posting recently, however I've been following this site and other tech sites for years.

Am I biased ... maybe I don't know.

I'm actually one of the guys which bought an 8 core AMD FX and returned it 2 days later and went Intel, but I do have an R9 in my system and I bought it while I was truly impressed by the GTX 900 series.

But I chose what I though it would best fit my needs, I didn't care if it is company A or B.

I do wish AMD will succeed, because if not ... we are all doomed to extremely high prices and little progress.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

@Dany: yeah...so...what did TPU do to piss AMD off?

 

[the54thvoid]

@Dany: yeah...so...what did TPU do to piss AMD off?

Hint - W1zzard has commented on coil whine before. Most sites are reporting it and even HC said AMD were aware of it but didn't see it as an issue. They knew about his 'coil' problem.

 

[btarunr]

what did TPU do to piss AMD off?

We write fair reviews.

 

[64K]

Some are pointing to W1zzard saying "AMD is fucked" at the end of the GTX 970 review as the reason why AMD is angry at TPU and didn't send a Nano for review to TPU. If that were the case then why did they allow a Fury X, Fury, 390X and a 390 to be sent? All of those cards were released after the 970.

The plain and simple truth is that Nano's weaknesses would have been revealed here and the coil whine is just one problem. Not picking on AMD exclusively. I was on the shit-flinging train when Titan Z came out and the shortcomings of the 970 too even though I owned a 970 and was very happy with it's performance. A lot of people don't remember when the shit hit the fan with the 970 that W1zzard posted "Nvidia lied to us and they lied to you."

 

[Dany]

@Dany: yeah...so...what did TPU do to piss AMD off?

check out reviews and u'll see why , AMD is charging for NANO and thats the right way to go 'cause lets face it AMD must regain its lost market share , i believe thats just okay from AMD's point of view , they need cash and not hopes , lets not forget what AMD gave us over the years and lets be fair and appreciate a good product and stop saying : oh well , this is good but nvidia is better , thats not fair-play , i've read so many reviews and oh well there are so many " i love nvidia " tech websites , nobody is saying nvidia is bad but every time thats said towards AMD , i really dont like that at all , personally i like both products AMD&NVIDIA , we need to learn to stop this fanboy wars , overall NVIDIA is a little bit better than AMD , just to be honest not a single review out there is saying that 980Ti had coil-whine issues , especially G1 Gigabyte , why is that ? when it comes about AMD's gpu , many reviewers are complaining about fury x coil-whine , you as a reviewer you need to be fair and honest all the way from the beginning to the end , thats a good review , we need competition from AMD and 2016 will be an interesting year for cpus/gpus markets , thats all , cheers !!

 

[FordGT90Concept]

We write fair reviews.

And that pissed AMD off? Certainly you or some other TPU staffer has contacted AMD about getting a review sample. What did they say?

 

[NC37]

Some are pointing to W1zzard saying "AMD is fucked" at the end of the GTX 970 review as the reason why AMD is angry at TPU and didn't send a Nano for review to TPU. If that were the case then why did they allow a Fury X, Fury, 390X and a 390 to be sent? All of those cards were released after the 970.

The plain and simple truth is that Nano's weaknesses would have been revealed here and the coil whine is just one problem. Not picking on AMD exclusively. I was on the shit-flinging train when Titan Z came out and the shortcomings of the 970 too even though I owned a 970 and was very happy with it's performance. A lot of people don't remember when the shit hit the fan with the 970 that W1zzard posted "Nvidia lied to us and they lied to you."

I'm surprised how good the reviews have been. For a card that barely gets faster than a 390X and for such an insane price, every one of the reviews I've read has a been a rave. I'd like to think that if TPU got it, they'd downmark it for being very overpriced. Bout the worst I saw was Toms giving it high marks yet at the same time not recommending it. If you can't recommend it then why give it high marks?!

 

[the54thvoid]

I'm surprised how good the reviews have been. For a card that barely gets faster than a 390X and for such an insane price, every one of the reviews I've read has a been a rave. I'd like to think that if TPU got it, they'd downmark it for being very overpriced. Bout the worst I saw was Toms giving it high marks yet at the same time not recommending it. If you can't recommend it then why give it high marks?!

Nano is the most powerful gfx card for it's footprint on the planet (so was Fury X)- of course it gets good reviews. For a SFF case it's kind of great although many SFF cases do allow full length cards...

BUT

They're all saying how bad the coil whine is....... Far worse than normal. Is there a chance the small PCB with circuitry and traces running closer could have any effect on voltage and the vibrations caused in the chokes?

 

[john_]

I still believe that the two editorials about the WHQL driver and AMD not trusting it's own processors for the Quantum did the damage.

An unfair review can create a negative image for a product. An unfair editorial can create a negative image for a whole company. The first one you can deal with it. Improve your product. The second one you can't deal with it, or at least it will take much more time. No matter what you do, no matter how good products you will make, people will be negative towards you for a long time.