AMD Radeon R9 Nano to Feature a Single PCIe Power Connector

[btarunr]

AMD's Radeon R9 Nano is shaping up to be a more important card for AMD, than even its flaghsip, the R9 Fury X. Some of the first pictures of the Fury X led us to believe that it could stay compact only because it's liquid cooled. AMD disproved that notion, unveiling the Radeon R9 Nano, an extremely compact air-cooled graphics cards, with some stunning chops.

The Radeon R9 Nano is a feat similar to the NUC by Intel - to engineer a product that's surprisingly powerful for its size. The card is 6-inches long, 2-slot thick, and doesn't lug along any external radiator. AMD CEO Lisa Su, speaking at the company's E3 conference, stated that the R9 Nano will be faster than the Radeon R9 290X. That shouldn't surprise us, since it's a bigger chip; but it's the electrical specs, that make this product exciting - a single 8-pin PCIe power input, with a typical board power rated at 175W (Radeon R9 290X was rated at 275W). The card itself is as compact as some of the "ITX-friendly" custom design boards launched in recent times. It uses a vapor-chamber based air-cooling solution, with a single fan. The Radeon R9 Nano will launch later this Summer. It could compete with the GeForce GTX 970 in both performance and price.



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[KarymidoN]

Looks Really cool...

 

[CyberBuddha]

Looks like AMD could possibly be powering next generation of consoles, again...

Edit: And I forgot to mention ultra portable gaming machines like Steam consoles.

AMD did a great job there, I am wondering how do they achieved it with such a small budget for R&D

 

[dj-electric]

It has been a long time since i was really impressed with a technology by AMD. Now is the time.

 

[RejZoR]

Question here is, how are they achieving this. Only explanation can be cutting it down on shaders and/or clocks. I can't see any other way in getting such small thermal output and still calling it Fiji/Fury.

 

[Chaitanya]

Since its AMD, I am going to be skeptical about all the claims until proven by a reliable 3rd party authority.

 

[ZoneDymo]

It has been a long time since i was really impressed with a technology by AMD. Now is the time.

Its been a long time since I've been impressed with gpu tech at all, but yeah now is the time.

 

[CyberBuddha]

AMD rolled out some pretty interesting tech ...

 

[DarkOCean]

I want to see this yesterday ! I'm tired of waiting a new gpu from amd.

 

[revanchrist]

Looks like AMD could possibly be powering next generation of consoles, again...

Edit: And I forgot to mention ultra portable gaming machines like Steam consoles.

AMD did a great job there, I am wondering how do they achieved it with such a small budget for R&D

That Quantum Project of AMD already shows what a next-gen console should looks like. Undoubtly Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will stick with AMD again.

 

[GhostRyder]

I will still be waiting for some confirmation on this card.

However, the card is really small which is a great start and shows it has a lower thermal output with that cooler design. Would love to see it in action so we can know exactly where it falls.

 

[FrustratedGarrett]

According to PCPerspective, the nano Fury packs more performance than the 290X.

On stage at the AMD E3 2015 press conference, AMD's CEO Lisa Su announced the Radeon R9 Nano, a 6-in PCB small form factor graphics card that will feature "2x the performance per watt of the R9 290X" as well as "significantly" more performance than the R9 290X.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Announces-Radeon-R9-Nano-6-Graphics-Card

 

[RejZoR]

R9 Nano seems like a pilot project for Arctic Islands...

 

[SonicZap]

A single 8-pin power connector and faster than the R9 290X. Unless they're drawing a lot more from that power connector than the PCI-E specification allows, Fiji really is a lot more efficient than GCN 1.1 (Hawaii) / 1.2 (Tonga). And that's great. I doubt it'll catch Maxwell, but if it'll be as good as the hype shows it will be, it'll be very close.

 

[FrustratedGarrett]

R9 Nano seems like a pilot project for Arctic Islands...

Yeah, doesn't look like a harvested Fiji. Fury seems to have 150% perfromance/Watt increase vs 200% performance/Watt on the Nano.

 

[Haytch]

Looks like a great product so far. Would love to get my hands on the full specification list.

 

[ZeDestructor]

According to PCPerspective, the nano Fury packs more performance than the 290X.

On stage at the AMD E3 2015 press conference, AMD's CEO Lisa Su announced the Radeon R9 Nano, a 6-in PCB small form factor graphics card that will feature "2x the performance per watt of the R9 290X" as well as "significantly" more performance than the R9 290X.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Announces-Radeon-R9-Nano-6-Graphics-Card

If by significantly you mean 15-25% (175W/150W (since it has 2x perf/w of 290X) = 1.16666) sure. The impressive bit is the powerconsumption, not the raw performance. if you want raw performance, you have to go up to the Fury or Fury X. Still waiting on actual 3r-party results though.

 

[horik]

Was looking at an GTX970 card and price droped 10€ after AMD`s presentation, might just get one. I`m tired of waiting.

 

[$ReaPeR$]

oh... this is veeeeeeeery exciting!!!!!!!!! cants wait for the benchmarks...

 

[happita]

That Quantum Project of AMD already shows what a next-gen console should looks like. Undoubtly Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will stick with AMD again.

I'm not sure. It's too early to tell because I think current consoles will last us just as long as the X360 and PS3 did. Nvidia isn't some slouch when it comes to cards, but maybe because of the small profit margins associated with consoles, they pretty much just gave it to AMD.

OT though, AMD has certainly surprised us all with their product line. I was thinking the only "new" cards were going to be Fury-X/Fury. Seems it's more than just that and it's making my purchase finger twitch a little.

 

[Assimilator]

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?

 

[bubbleawsome]

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?

Let's start with the basics of how competition works. Ya know, competition. Second, if AMD is showing promise with a card that can match the 970 it shows that they've overcome most arguments against them. (Power consumption mostly) If the fury line succeeds then stock in the market goes up. Eventually the R&D budget goes up and we get even better cards.

What is special about the card itself? Not much. Assuming the core is truly an exact equal with the 970 the only advantage it has is a true 4GB VRAM with HBM to boot. That introduces an option to people buying a card at the 970 price point. Nvidia may drop prices, then AMD may do the same. Overall it is much better for the market, in the short and long terms.

 

[btarunr]

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?

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

 

[GhostRyder]

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?

You do realize the R9 290X is more powerful than the GTX 970 right? If its supposed to be more powerful than the R9 290X, then its more powerful than the GTX 970 while also having the full amount of memory (Presumably 4gb of HBM).

R9 Nano seems like a pilot project for Arctic Islands...

It seems like it really is another experiment similar to the R9 285. Looking like its better though at least because it only has a single 8 pin which hints at the lower power consumption and the promise (Though I tend to not hold my breath) that its more powerful than a 290X.

All that together makes it a pretty compelling buy especially if priced right. Still, I am more interested in the Fury X overall.

 

[mirakul]

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?

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.