AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review by TPU...Not

[Tsukiyomi91]

long story short, I chose Nvidia because of their product's efficiency. I moved from AMD for a reason ever since they started to fail at keeping up the competition against Nvidia & that is what made me disappointed and a little sad, despite having to drive the price down on all their products to keep them afloat. They are not like that. 8 years ago, all of them (including Intel) are very competitive with fierce competition on which have the best hardware. Now? there's hardly one except countless of expected events where Intel & Nvidia are dominating the market, overflowing with their offerings.

 

[dorsetknob]

this is the only nano that you can buy on the open market

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

Nano is a gpu? I thought it represents the chance amd has surviving beyond 2016

It is but with the lack of testing samples for reviewers to flex it's pixel-crunching muscles... it's kinda gloomy for AMD's future as not many wanted to read overglorified paper scores done in AMD's own testing environment.

 

[john_]

Problem with what you say is double standard. Nvidia took heat over gtx970. Thing is it was one few times nvidia messed up. AMD on other hand comes out makes a huge PR about how their card is so much faster then nvidia card or can do so much. Like 290x was one their new cards at time and how great and fast of card it was, but put a crappy cooler on it that crippled the card. Point I am making reason its easier for people to give nvidia a pass on things, most time they make claims about a product they put out, it gives the performance or works like they claim it does. On the other hand AMD makes claims about something ahead of time and it ends up being bit of a lie and not as fast as they claim (fury x vs 980ti for example) or not as good as they would liked people to believe( freesync vs g-sync, yea it worked like g-sync but ghosting issues, limited VRR window and tearing of image under min refresh rate). Even 1 claim was some current monitors that were out now could do freesync, which turned not to happen which if it was just a lie or turned out long term the monitors couldn't handle it is a unknown. AMD's PR department tends to promise a lot but their tech just tends to fall a tad short of claim.

Both companies have screwed up at times one things, it happens. Problem is that AMD if you look at their track record last 3-4 years its been 1 after another on top of them crying foul at nvidia saying they intentionally cripple performance on radeon cards yet AMD has been guilty of doing same thing on nvidia cards. At this point people are starting to get sick of it.

Nice try. But after the first sentence everything you write is only partially correct. Nvidia did saw negative posts over GTX 970, but not from the press. The majority of the press was doing damage control in favor of the company. You and others also participated in that by saying that "who cares if Nvidia lied? the performance is still there". Damage control all over the place. There is less buzz about Nvidia because Nvidia's wrongdoings are usually covered as non important. On the other hand anything from AMD is treated as the biggest lie/mistake/fail in the modern history of computers. So, you take this double standard approach from the press and make it look like it is a proof that AMD is a bad company that lies to everyone and everything. No surprise there.

 

[Folterknecht]

• AMD is so badly in the poop, finances-wise, that they can no longer afford to send free samples to reviewers.

Yeah well - obviously they have enough money to waste it on 3!!! halo cards and their marketing. And that's beside the fact that these cards are priced totally retarded in my book when considering their performance.

Instead of producing a 970/980 killer, we get rebranded overclocked 290(X)s with additional 4GB that nobody outside of CF needs for fantasy prices.

BTW, fyi, the German site PC Games Hardware will get a Nano sample. And people claim that it is one of the best, objective sites.

I stopped even visiting PCGH years ago. Not because they produce wonky benchmarks (numbers), but because they were much to tame in their conclusions - they didn't call out companies on their BS. What they produced was more like company PR + benchmark numbers.
If you want journalism in german language you have to read Igor Wallossek @tomshardware.de -- he isn't the loudest but sure knows what he 's doing and writing.

PCGH is more for the 14 year olds.

 

[remixedcat]

Yeah well - obviously they have enough money to waste it on 3!!! halo cards and their marketing. And that's beside they fact that these cards are priced totally retarded in my book when considering their performance.

Instead of producing a 970/980 killer, we get rebranded overclocked 290(X)s with additional 4GB that nobody outside of CF needs for fantasy prices.



I stopped even visiting PCGH years ago. Not because they produce wonky benchmarks (numbers), but because they were much to tame in their conclusions - they didn't call out companies on their BS. What they produced was more like company PR + benchmark numbers.
If you want journalism in german language you have to read Igor Wallossek @tomshardware.de -- he isn't the loudest but sure knows what he 's doing and writing.

PCGH is more for the 14 year olds.

This is the same crap amped wireless pulls these days.... soccer mommy type sites get review units while good sites don't and the sites they do give samples out to don't bench. or they test for like 10 minutes and are done. not nowhere near as long as I bench. I minimum bench for 2 hours per test per mode per frequency per adapter and I test multiple. yet, they can't give the units to honest and factual people like me and some other sites.

companies like them and amd have no place anymore.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Yeah well - obviously they have enough money to waste it on 3!!! halo cards and their marketing. And that's beside the fact that these cards are priced totally retarded in my book when considering their performance.

Instead of producing a 970/980 killer, we get rebranded overclocked 290(X)s with additional 4GB that nobody outside of CF needs for fantasy prices.



I stopped even visiting PCGH years ago. Not because they produce wonky benchmarks (numbers), but because they were much to tame in their conclusions - they didn't call out companies on their BS. What they produced was more like company PR + benchmark numbers.
If you want journalism in german language you have to read Igor Wallossek @tomshardware.de -- he isn't the loudest but sure knows what he 's doing and writing.

PCGH is more for the 14 year olds.

Technically speaking TPU is also a German site

 

[alucasa]

I need Nvidia for something I need.

Nvidia Iray. It obviously doesn't work on AMD GPU.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia-iray.html

 

[pr0fessor]

My favorite Site to read, hasn't got the most interesting AMD Graphic card for a while! I would suggest to test some more of the latest AMD Products like the R9 390 I was looking for, instead of tons of GTX 980 Ti from every brand. The AMD 300- Series deserve really more attention. No doubt they are good cards as well.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I would be grateful if we could get back to the topic of this news piece..... as opposed to discussing individual members, their behaviour and their comments, it is always an emotive subject I appreciate but there are a number of factors people like myself take into consideration when dealing with anyone, one of the most important factors will always be past history of conduct and whether a member actually has any intention to conduct themselves in an appropriate way, many innocent bystanders may not be aware of some of these factors....... that's the last thing I will say on this topic in this sub forum so move on please........ thank you.

 

[Pill Monster]

I think this has been said before in this thread, AMD are investing in Social Media Reviews and (Correct me if i'm wrong) TPU generally don't do Youtube. JayztwoCents is all over it.

Man u sure know how to put a spin on things. Do you work for Hallock?
Nobody said anything about Social Media Reviews". What WAS said is AMD are taking Social Marketing to a whole new level.

"Community Rep" is a euphemism for Internet/Online Marketer. "AMD reps" are paid to promote the products, help with SEO, attract interest, attempt damage control etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=O...&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=kD3sVYXqKoTcmAX314qABQ

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/...to-Your-Boss-7-Euphemisms-Everyone-Needs.aspx

This is how advertising is done these days,.... but the degree of BS can vary wildly depending on the company. AMD often misrepresent the truth.

Prime example is Matt stating on Guru that VSR would be supported on the 280x but not 79x0 because of "incompatibility". Which ofc was a flat out lie since they are identical.
Fwiw, I posted exactly that reply to Matt and was promptly banned by someone (admin) @Guru. I never found out who.

Hilbert reinstated my account the next day but by then thread had been picked up by reddit and Asder was busy modding drivers to make VSR work with the 7900.

A few days later after total silence, Matt posted again saying "sorry for the confusion, we want to make your experience better so our devs our working to get 7900 support for VSR" or something to that affect.
That summed up his (therefore AMD's) response, after not replying to a single comment or query posted to him by 7900 owners wanting an explanation..

More like AMD were in damage control mode after being caught red handed trying to obsolete a rebranded card to increase sales.

That's one example, but prob the most blatant.....


So now hopefully some people may understand why I get annoyed....

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

@Pill Monster seems that they did get caught with their pants down for that publicity stunt...

 

[Folterknecht]

Technically speaking TPU is also a German site

Havn't seen a german review here up until now. This day and age it doesnt really matter anyway.

And I like Igor for his approach to GPU reviews - shortly after the initial release you usually get a deep dive into certain aspects of the cards that no one else covers be it problems (e.g. noise + heat + throttle) and how to reduce it (290 + Accelero Xtreme) or finding the efficiency sweetpot of a product (really great article for the 970 iTX).

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Sorry, but we can't have your kind of posters on TPU. I gave you a long rope.

Thank you very much for taking action on this.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

this is the only nano that you can buy on the open market

OMG it's slammed!

My favorite Site to read, hasn't got the most interesting AMD Graphic card for a while! I would suggest to test some more of the latest AMD Products like the R9 390 I was looking for, instead of tons of GTX 980 Ti from every brand. The AMD 300- Series deserve really more attention. No doubt they are good cards as well.

There's not much point. The 3## series are rebrands from 2##. The only difference is a slight clock bump and maybe more memory. Example: see a benchmark that includes 290X, add 10% to its performance, and that's about where the 390X will be.


On topic: has AMD contacted TPU about this yet? You'd think the article would have turned some heads at AMD to try to expedite getting a card to TPU.

 

[the54thvoid]

My favorite Site to read, hasn't got the most interesting AMD Graphic card for a while! I would suggest to test some more of the latest AMD Products like the R9 390 I was looking for, instead of tons of GTX 980 Ti from every brand. The AMD 300- Series deserve really more attention. No doubt they are good cards as well.

This is the problem. The 390 isn't new. It's a tweaked 290X. It's the whole reason why we're pissed we wont get a Nano review. We want reviews of new products - not Rebrands. Truth is , AMD only has 3 new ones and they're all the same core (Fiji, Fiji shader hobbled or Fiji TDP hobbled). At least we have GM 204 and GM200. And there are tonnes of variations. There are ONLY AMD Fiji products and initially it was very few 390's as well (though it's more now as AIB's realise they wont be making money from non existent Fury's).

Don't get me wrong the 950 release recently was utterly 'meh'.

 

[Aquinus]

This is the problem. The 390 isn't new. It's a tweaked 290X.

A tweaked 290. It don't have the shaders a 290X does however it's tweaked enough and runs faster VRAM enough to get it to perform like a 290X. In all seriousness, I really like my 390 but, I was also coming from 6870s so the rebrand thing wasn't an issue to me because it was already a lot better than what I had.

The only part about the 390 that isn't a rebrand is the VRAM. It's faster and higher capacity. After some testing I've concluded that (at least in Valley benchmark,) that GPU performance scales linearly to memory frequency, even from as low as 1000Mhz up to 1600Mhz. Not to say gains a huge but, they're consistently linear. I would expect an overclocked 390 to outperform an overclocked 290 just because of the faster VRAM alone, even if the cores are the same.

Either way, what does it matter? The 290 is one of the best bang for your buck GPUs you can get with the 390 a little over it. The question is, do you think the extra and faster VRAM along with a tweaked BIOS is worth the extra price? I thought it was and I can't say I've been disappointed but I don't have a 290 to compare it to.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The 2## cards are a steal now going for 30% or more below their launch prices. $300 for a 290X is ridiculous. ...while supplies last.

 

[Cloudfire]

AMD rather give R9 Nano samples to unknowns like this blogger instead of respectable reviewers like TechPowerUp, TechReport or HardOCP.

Yup, this is AMD trying to BS the community by delaying the truth to be revealed. Shame on you AMD

 

[remixedcat]

these asshole companies would rather give thier stuff out to hipsters and soccer moms that have no idea what they are talking about just becuase they are big or have a certain image.. -_-

and wow I barely do anything with twitter and I have more followers than her

 

[FordGT90Concept]

AMD clearly wants to appeal to the masses instead of tech experts. Why does Beats come to mind?

 

[Cloudfire]

these asshole companies would rather give thier stuff out to hipsters and soccer moms that have no idea what they are talking about just becuase they are big or have a certain image.. -_-

As long as they write that R9 Nano is the best since sliced bread, they will get a sample from AMD.

I mean, an unknown blogger, instead of respectable reviewer sites that reach tens of thousands viewers? The signs are clearly there. Do AMD really think we are that stupid?
Must be very infuriating for TPU to see that the blogger above get one but they dont.

 

[remixedcat]

amd's next chapter is definitly 11

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It's torn_tv that got it and...fanboi much?

 

[Cloudfire]

It's torn_tv that got it and...fanboi much?

First of all, torn_tv and westickout are married.
Secondly, torn_tv is a member of the AMDRTP and is unknown in the reviewer industry compared to TPU.
Third, its called "Fanboy" and is a personal attack if you were referring to me.

I don`t need to say anything more