AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review by TPU...Not

[Tsukiyomi91]

wonder why they would do that... it's not AMD at all for doing such things... for the whole thing about RTP standing in for Red Team Plus...

 

[alucasa]

Sooo much rage over a card...

I guess DoA is what this feels like.

 

[arbiter]

The R9 Nano won't be the "best bang for your buck" card with that $650 price tag... comparing it with the GTX980Ti, clearly the 980Ti is... but comparing with the GTX970, it's a little not fair as they're comparing a sub-$350 card, yet alone an ITX version of the card.

GTX970 mITX cards can be had for 300$.

I actually hadn't even thought about that. The price versus performance level versus the 970 (albeit limited ITX) cards. I'd hope a card that costs several hundred dollars more is substantially better. In fact, 30% faster by AMD metrics but 90% more expensive..... Hmm

We all know what AMD metrics means, ~30% slower then what they claim if you use Fury X as a base. Performance per $ will be almost 2x in favor of gtx970.

Sooo much rage over a card...

I guess DoA is what this feels like.

Rage is stiming from people wanting AMD to survive and be competitive, But its just been them shooting them selves in the foot time after time. I can understand marketing products towards its strength's but when market you are aiming towards is mostly software that doesn't use those strength's it makes the marketing worthless and a waste of time. For example the APU's they market it using like 3dmark, and BasemarkCL. Those apu's are marketed mostly to normal people that want a cheap laptop for things like internet and email. Problem is How many email clients are gpu accelerated? Yea browsers are but even that is kinda limited in its use.

In case of nano, Price and performance just doesn't have a good balance. Yes AMD said 30% using their idea of settings for a game, but end users probably only be around 5-10% at best faster then a card of competing size, when your card cost 2x the price the other one. Can't pull what Apple does and have mass amount of people blinding throwing money down.

 

[64K]

Even the Fury X is only 30% faster in 4K than a GTX 970 in the benches done here. Below that resolution the performance lead begins to drop off.

Spoiler: Fury X Benches.

I will be surprised if the Nano performs as well as the Fury X and I suspect this is the reason AMD is being selective about which sites are being sent one for review.

 

[HumanSmoke]

In case of nano, Price and performance just doesn't have a good balance.

Precisely why any site that has performance-per-$ summaries hasn't been given a review sample. If a company knows the end result isn't going to favourable from the outset, then eliminate the opportunity. Basically, AMD are taking a leaf out of Apple's (mac) book. Apple aren't generally disposed to handing out review samples because the comparison metrics on paper/screen aren't favourable to their product. Just as Apple's appeal is its entire package (software, support, aesthetic), Nano's appeal is also somewhat intangible concerning a straight up numbers comparison - small card with a big punch for a small segment of users requiring a system of small footprint/volume. That metric isn't something that can be quantified in a statistical graphic - which more people will notice.
What remains to be seen is if the demographic holds up. AMD are positioning the Nano above the GTX 970 mITX based on its 4K ability. If the card is truly 4K capable then it hits the mark. If the performance is geared towards 1080p/1440p....not so much.

I'm actually wondering what the scenario would be if the roles were reversed. What kind of reaction would there be if TPU refused to launch review a card that AMD was launching that would top the metrics charts that W1zz uses (perf/$, perf/watt, overall performance)? It wouldn't matter, right? Plenty of bloggers and other sites to review the card?

 

[Folterknecht]

Even the 980Ti is debatable @4K as a single GPU card (eyecandy + fps) and that one has good OC-potential. The Nano won't even come close to that. Marketing the Nano as 4K card is laughable. Same as demanding 2x the price of the 970 with only a performance lead of maybe 15% at best in the relevant resolutions.

 

[GhostRyder]

Even the Fury X is only 30% faster in 4K than a GTX 970 in the benches done here. Below that resolution the performance lead begins to drop off.

Spoiler: Fury X Benches.

I will be surprised if the Nano performs as well as the Fury X and I suspect this is the reason AMD is being selective about which sites are being sent one for review.

That maybe why, but it will depend on the 175watt TDP and how that is handled more than anything. A 1000mhz, the 50mhz difference is not much so it could be fine. However we have no idea what actual limits are imposed on it which is where the problem lies in its performance. For all we know, this selective binning process mixed with that 50mhz is enough to keep the power way lower (But that is being way generous).

I actually hadn't even thought about that. The price versus performance level versus the 970 (albeit limited ITX) cards. I'd hope a card that costs several hundred dollars more is substantially better.
In fact, 30% faster by AMD metrics but 90% more expensive..... Hmm.. Now we can argue the 970 only has 3.5gb memory but most people (including Guru) have said its performance is still stellar for its price and power consumption.
So, the Nano, if priced at the presumed level with 970 beating performance is almost 'Titanesque' price/perf metric.
And I did not know the RTP stood for Red Team Plus. That's just embarrassing.

Well I guess they are thinking since NVidia does it and its successful maybe that's something to try lol? Its really going to come down to its actual performance which if we guess its at least at the level of the Fury then its going to be at least a decent card. But that is also assuming it does not have some serious throttle that keeps it from its peak clock speeds (Or at least that you are able to override that).

 

[Basard]

Thats SO TRUE

Before CD and DVD Roms were Cheap enough to buy for everyday use i went out and bought a LS120 drive ( for moving big files )

Drive still works but times have passed on and the drive / format never caught on
because of the pricedrop / availability of CD's
Even today i can still find a use for it Excuse coming
its ide and 1.44 backwards compatable so can be used on not so old systems that do not have a 3 1/2" floppy drive for flashing from 1.44 media or loading retro programs from "Floppys" excuse ended and thats the justification i'm sticking to

So you would recommend it? I'll have to pick one up...

 

[dorsetknob]

So you would recommend it? I'll have to pick one up...

Would i recommend buying a nano well understand this
I have always had AMD/ATI graphics Cards ( ever since 3Dfx got bought out by them and gutted )

Would i buy or recommend a nano
Not until it has had lots of Believable Reviews and there is a price Drop and they become popular sales on Flea bay as for new right now i recommend AVOID LIKE IT's INFECTED AND WILL GIVE YOU THE CLAP. ( PERSONAL OPINION ONLY )

 

[Basard]

I was talking about the LS120 man! lol...

I've never paid more than 175 for a GPU... With inflation that comes to about 250 I guess... maybe 300. I'd rather just not play the new games, or play them on low settings until I can get a faster GPU. I can see my 5870 (no, I didn't buy it new) lasting for another year at LEAST--that's probably blasphemy to a lot of you guys.

I was honestly expecting the Nano to be cheaper than the Fury and Fury X. Which is why I was so excited for it.

 

[Aquinus]

. I'd rather just not play the new games, or play them on low settings until I can get a faster GPU. I can see my 5870 (no, I didn't buy it new) lasting for another year at LEAST--that's probably blasphemy to a lot of you guys.

That's how I kind of looked at it. The 1GB on 6870s in CFX is a nonstarter for many new video games with half decent graphics. So for me a 390 was a good step up for 330 USD.

I found that interesting though that the 6870s had more compute to use but a lot of the issues were coming out of trying to stream video memory from system memory.

It's insane because AMD could have done many things to nano and none of this makes sense IMHO. I kind of want to stop talking about it until we can see ourselves some legitimate information about what Nano is and what is can do because no one really seems to know "fo sho".

 

[Basard]

The 1GB on 6870s in CFX is a nonstarter for many new video games with half decent graphics.

It's a good thing I have the 2GB version then, eh? mua haha! Good friends are rare. Good friends that give you their old 5870 for damn near free are almost unheard of.

I dunno why AMD even bothered with the 300 series. They could have scrapped the whole line and just made one mid-range fiji-type setup.

 

[HumanSmoke]

[OT- Just a little break from our regularly scheduled content]

Would i recommend buying a nano well understand this
I have always had AMD/ATI graphics Cards ( ever since 3Dfx got bought out by them and gutted )

Technically, 3Dfx's creditors initiated a liquidation order against the company. 3Dfx owed money all over the place, and rather than pay them off decided to spend $186m on acquiring GigaPixel. 3Dfx's creditors weren't really happy with that and initiated a winding up order against the company. Gary Tarolli and co. then cut a deal with Nvidia (not ATI) to buy some 3Dfx IP and get themselves jobs with Nvidia (they became the core of the NV30 team) since 3Dfx's lawsuit/counter-lawsuit with Nv was going south (3Dfx's suit was thrown out, Nvidia's was looking likely to be upheld). Creditors were still squabbling over the remaining IP and trying to eke out some recompense a decade later. ( Most of this is available from the mouths of Tarolli and Co in a filmed interview given for the Computer History Museum).
[/OT]

 

[dorsetknob]

By Them i meant the green Team not Ati
my choice was Dictated by wanting TV on the Pc my Last 3DFX Card was the Voodoo 3500 Tv
NVidia at the time and still never done proper TV cards if they had i might have considered buying one as it was i went for a AIW 9800se

Still got the Voodoo 3500 in its retail packaging and it still works
you can see photo's in the nostalga thread

 

[HumanSmoke]

By Them i meant the green Team not Ati

Ah, I see. Your wording seemed to imply ATI.
You're right. Nvidia never really cottoned to the TV tuner graphics card concept. I remember installing a few FX 5200/FX 5700 Personal Cinema cards back in the day, but wouldn't recommend one to my worst enemy.

 

[dorsetknob]

used the word them to try and avoid the flaming and trolling when one mentions one and the other maker

Ati got the graphics card tuner combo quite well sussed out pity they stopped production and updating that range would be nice if they still done it just to free up a slot for other use
modern m/b seem to lack slots these days

 

[fullinfusion]

I didn't read much of this thread but all I'm going to say is AMD just pissed there chances away imho.

Wizz can be to some, a bit of a green team lover. But then again I believe he calls a spade a spade and dosnt blow smoke up ppl's ass like some other un-named sites do..

I love AMD, but would I buy this card? Nope not in a million years.. There price is way off base for this card. If you ask me this card should be in the $280 ish range and that's taking the American dollar in hand... So if I were to buy it I'd expect to walk Into a local store and with taxes I'd be happy with paying $320 where I live.. But $600 plus from what they're saying?

@amd, this is for you, are you guys really trying to kill what you have left of a company over this? Here's a rope, there's a tree... Swing baby swing

 

[Prima.Vera]

Sooo much rage over a card...

I guess DoA is what this feels like.

Exactly my thoughts. Looks like 3dfx Voodoo 5 6000 story all over again

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

thing is... if AMD were to kill off the R9 300 series card in favor for a Fiji lineup series, they won't even make it to the end with getting at least 3rd place in the competition... I'm still wondering how will they survive if they are imposing $650 for a card that's not being tested in proper environment but rely on irrelevant paper scores that seemed beneficial only to them?

 

[Dany]

I didn't read much of this thread but all I'm going to say is AMD just pissed there chances away imho.

Wizz can be to some, a bit of a green team lover. But then again I believe he calls a spade a spade and dosnt blow smoke up ppl's ass like some other un-named sites do..

I love AMD, but would I buy this card? Nope not in a million years.. There price is way off base for this card. If you ask me this card should be in the $280 ish range and that's taking the American dollar in hand... So if I were to buy it I'd expect to walk Into a local store and with taxes I'd be happy with paying $320 where I live.. But $600 plus from what they're saying?

@amd, this is for you, are you guys really trying to kill what you have left of a company over this? Here's a rope, there's a tree... Swing baby swing

280$ for NANO which outperforms gtx 980 , are u serious , really ? NANO is so small , power efficient and it even beats gtx 980 which is 500$ so your price tag of 280-ish is kinda childish... , you wish what you really cant buy , period , cheers !!

 

[Aquinus]

280$ for NANO which outperforms gtx 980 , are u serious , really ? NANO is so small , power efficient and it even beats gtx 980 which is 500$ so your price tag of 280-ish is kinda childish... , you wish what you really cant buy , period , cheers !!

Too bad 280 isn't how much it's slated to sell for...

The first signs of that are, AMD making it prohibitively expensive at $650

 

[btarunr]

I would've been willing to cough up $450 for this card, but that would cannibalize R9 390X. In the documents that I've read, AMD is calling this a "co-flagship" product. While the R9 Fury X offers the highest single-GPU performance from the AMD camp, this one's USP is its size. There's no other card that can let you build a tiny cube-sized ITX gaming desktop that can let you max out games at 1440p, and so AMD is selling the shit out of that. To achieve R9 Fury non-X like performance at 175W, AMD would need to bin the very best chips out of its Fiji yield (better than even what would normally make it to Fury X manufacturing).

There are many reasons why I think we (along with sites like TR) didn't get this card:

• AMD assumes that we'd treat this like any other VGA (blind performance and perf/W or perf/$ numbers) and not take into consideration that this card is targeted at a specific audience (compact gaming PC builders). This was never the plan on our side. We've reviewed "compact ITX" versions of GTX 760 and GTX 670, and we overlooked their price premiums for the size advantage
• A possible power-management bluff that sites like TPU and TR would be quick to call. How much power did the R9 295X2 draw per 8-pin connector, again? We have the tools to test card-only power.
• Noise and temperature, along with thermal imaging. The smaller it gets, the hotter it will. We don't test VGAs in open-air benches. Noise has always played a big role in our score.
• Our test suite is large, and our settings don't change (AA/AF). We always disable proprietary features (TressFX disabled for TombRaider, Hairworks disabled for Witcher, etc).

 

[remixedcat]

This site's been having a lot of downtime/issues after this post was posted. is AMD THAT butthurt?

 

[dorsetknob]

This site's been having a lot of downtime/issues after this post was posted. is AMD THAT butthurt?

A Fellow Tin hat wearer welcome to the conspiracy Theory club.
Mine is the tin hat with the full length neck guard.
( complete with full coverage cricket Box woven silver foil and Kevlar )

 

[btarunr]

A Fellow Tin hat wearer welcome to the conspiracy Theory club.
Mine is the tin hat with the full length neck guard.
( complete with full coverage cricket Box woven silver foil and Kevler )

No, we're moving servers, and doing it as gradually as we can (so there are many short downtimes, rather than a huge downtime).