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[Various] AMD Radeon R9 NANO review(s)

41K views 742 replies 154 participants last post by  Disturbed117 
#1 ·


GURU3D
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Final Words & Conclusion

This certainly is a rather interesting release from AMD. With the Radeon R9 NANO AMD however is trying to launch a product into a very small segment of the market, ultra tiny petite PCs that you can place in your living room. Basically the thesis is that you can play Ultra HD games with your Nano based setup in your living room. From that point of view this release is a success as the NANO really throws big punches in these situations. Yeah, the performance for a tiny petite graphics card like this is pretty spectacular. As good as the card performs it does have thermal & power throttling, now honestly... throttling is not bad as I initially expected, and neither is the performance impact due to throttling. I'd say you are looking at say anywhere from 5 to 15% on the GPU core clock depending on the circumstances the Nano operates in. The lowest GPU clock we noticed the card throttling to was, give or take, 850 MHz while on average I'd say that 900 MHz is more the norm. That makes the NANO fully fledged yet a power & thermally throttled Fiji XT based GPU; a tough GPU to deal with but considering the intensely small package the results we see remain impressive and we all know that FIJI starts to show its true muscle at the higher image quality settings and resolutions. For what it is, a very powerful card combined with the small form factor, it works out really nicely. In the end, the performance the Radeon R9 NANO is able to deliver is really good, given the right circumstances. However there are factors and variables that come into play that you will seriously need to keep in mind though. We'll explain in more detail on this conclusion page.
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Anandtech
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Starting with the highlights then, let's talk about the size. As far as Mini-ITX cards go the R9 Nano is a card without an equal. It is the fastest Mini-ITX card on the market and comfortably so, thanks to the fact that all other cards in this space are based on lower performing parts such as the GeForce GTX 970 and Radeon R9 380. Producing a small card is a solid, practical application of the Fiji package and the space savings of HBM, allowing AMD to produce a card just 6 inches (152mm) long. If you need the fastest thing that fits into 170mm or less - and you don't mind paying top dollar for it - then the R9 Nano has earned its place right there.

Meanwhile when it comes to energy efficiency, the R9 Nano also marks a new high point for AMD. To cut right to the chase, AMD has struggled on the subject of energy efficiency for some time now, particularly since NVIDIA launched their Maxwell 1 and Maxwell 2 architectures last year. The release of the R9 Nano represents a significant improvement for AMD, showing us what an energy efficient implementation of Fiji is capable of.

Relative to the other Fiji cards - the Radeon R9 Fury series - AMD has been able to significantly cut their power consumption in exchange for a limited performance regression. At 2560x1440 - what I expect will be the gaming sweet spot for the R9 Nano - the card delivers 90% of the R9 Fury X's performance and 96% of the R9 Fury's performance. Though a tangible decrease in performance, it comes with 35% and 20% decrease in power consumption respectively, allowing AMD to offer better performance-per-watt than any other Radeon product to date.
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PCper
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Closing Thoughts

I can't help but be impressed by the AMD Radeon R9 Nano in several ways. First, the performance that the card provides in a 6 inch form factor is truly impressive and we have never had near-flagship performance capability in a Mini ITX form factor design. Gamers looking to build a custom design or get 4K-capable gaming performance in a chassis that can't hold standard length GPUs will find no other option capable of matching it from AMD or NVIDIA. The design of the card doesn't quite match the sexy that the Fury X had, but it's close and considering the size constraints and the need to include a beefy vapor chamber cooler, I think the engineers did a bang-up job.
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TweakTown:
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Wrapping up, do I recommend the R9 Nano? Definitely. If you're a member of Team Red, this is the card you have been waiting for, especially if you skipped over the Fury X. If you're in the market of building a new mini-ITX gaming PC, then the R9 Nano should be the only card you're looking at. It's going to introduce an entire new class of gaming PCs that can be super-small, but super-powerful. The Fury X need not apply.

But for everyone else, no. I think right now that the best video card for gaming is the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, as it offers some incredible value for money and there's a slew of different cards from the likes of ASUS, ZOTAC, MSI, and countless others who have weird and whacky GM200-powered cards. What AMD has here with the R9 Nano is the most interesting and in a way, innovative video card we've seen in quite a while. It's all thanks to HBM, but I think that AMD has a bit of tweaking to do before it really hits its stride. Even though it's not a perfect video card, it still earns our Best Features award given what it did do right.
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Hardware Canucks
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Conclusion; A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

I initially had my doubts about the R9 Nano. After AMD's preview the consensus on our forums and throughout the tech community was that it was far too expensive, didn't offer enough performance (based on initially vague estimates) and targeted a niche that had already moved beyond limited GPU support. Not much has changed from any of those standpoints but my overall outlook towards its positioning and future outlook has been thoroughly rearranged. I'm still not entirely sold on the Nano's appeal outside a very narrow subset of the ITX market but it is enlightening to see what happens when a company like AMD takes a chance and thinks outside the box.

The R9 Nano certainly isn't meant to be a volume leader and it likely won't help prop up their flagging balance sheet but AMD is evidently on the right track here. They needed something which highlights the benefits of HBM's unified core approach while also justifying the move to a new memory standard that has evidently hurt availability of key top-tier SKUs. Mission accomplished on those points.

More importantly, the Nano is a unique product in a market known for its sameness and proves that sometimes the best ideas come when your back is up against a wall. AMD faces falling a market share and to combat that, halo products like this one help prop up a brand's image and get folks excited again. And there's a lot here to be excited about since NVIDIA has absolutely nothing that can remotely compete against it in certain categories. This is truly a wolf in sheep's clothing, and a surprising one at that.
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KitGuru
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The AMD Radeon R9 Nano is a unique graphics card in many ways. It utilises a flagship GPU but houses it on a board which measures in at six inches long to make it a true mITX graphics card.
As far as small form factor graphics cards go, AMD has comfortably taken the performance crown with the R9 Nano. The previous fastest offerings were mITX GTX 970 designs from the likes of Asus. The fastest offering on AMD's side was the Sapphire R9 380 Compact ITX. Both of those cards were comfortably outperformed by the R9 Nano, but that is to be expected given the latter's significant price premium.
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PCWorld
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So there you have it: All of AMD's claims for the Radeon R9 Nano proved true in real life. This pint-sized powerhouse is one of the most capable graphics cards around, flirting with performance on a par with the Asus Strix Fury, a full-sized card with an imposing cooling setup. It demolishes the GTX 970, Nvidia's most capable mITX graphics card. It runs cool and quiet, and it manages to outpunch both the 290X and 390X while using far less power.

There's no other graphics card like it. If you want uncompromising gaming performance from a mini-ITX PC and play at resolutions higher than 1080p, the Radeon Nano is easily the most powerful option available. Its diminutive stature and cool performance will allow it to fit into itty-bitty cases that full-sized graphics cards couldn't even dream of squeezing into.
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MaximumPC
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Without talking pricing and other factors, R9 Nano looks good, and it looks great when you factor in the size of the card. But pricing has to be given some serious consideration. Like the Titan X where you're paying a huge premium for a 12GB halo product, the R9 Nano commands a large premium for its compact size. It's not too far off the pace when looking at other $500-$650 graphics cards, but the R9 Fury is slightly faster for less money if you don't care about size, and GTX 980 is very close in performance with a lower TDP and price. No matter how you want to slice it, the R9 Nano is going after a niche. If you fall in its target demographic, Nano excels at packing a lot of performance into a small space, but for general desktop use it loses some appeal.
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HISPZONE (nonenglish -chrome translation)
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So we can look at the Nano with a more realistic perspective and realize what it really means this card. It is much faster than the smaller of competition compact solution. It is a spectacular design that will allow us to play 4K in high quality , with ease, stockings with very high rates of FPS.

Within its ultra-compact size , great in hand or mounted, the graph provides a promising future in the hands of DirectX 12 and is another step forward, important certainly for those who like ultra-compact PCs, but really powerful, we can make our dream.

The format is definitive for the note that will give this product in our analysis. The reduction has been achieved with the HBM AMD memory is simply spectacular and this model is where this is most evident. The pity is that the introductory price of this model is 709.90 euros, more than the current price of Fury X, and certainly not easy to get in early. A wonder that can become exclusive few but will be the starting point for other cards, more affordable, attempting to overcome its spectacular balance between size and power consumption.
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EUROGAMER
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Regardless, the R9 Nano is a unique product. It's most likely a lower volume one for now, and for a very specific user building a very specific type of PC build, we suspect it will prove irresistible because there really is nothing like it offering anything like the same level of performance. The PC market is full of premium-priced products designed for specific niches, and this is another - the same reasoning that gave us the $999 GTX Titan also explains a $650 Nano. For those that need its specific, unique attributes, the value will be there. But what is more exciting is this new, alternative path for GPU technology that AMD has pioneered, and where its competitor is almost certain going to follow. The Nano is the first in a new wave of graphics cards - and once the form-factor has traction, doubtless we will see the console-style cases that make the most of the tiny dimensions. In the meantime, we'll be fascinated to see what kind of bespoke creations we see based around the product from the smaller-scale boutique PC manufacturers.
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Tom'sHardware
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Hardcore AMD fans, hardcore mini-ITX fans and hardcore collectors will make sure that the AMD Radeon R9 Nano flies off the shelves. This graphics card might cost $649, but it'll still be semi-permanently sold out everywhere, which is why we're not lamenting its MSRP too much.

What we'd really like to see are changes to AMD's other graphics cards' power limits that take those boards into the same general direction as the new Radeon R9 Nano. In conjunction with the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, it shows very nicely that it's not the GPU that's to blame for those graphics cards' shortcomings. Without its brakes applied at the right time, the Fury X draws power like there's no tomorrow.

The AMD Radeon R9 Nano shows that you don't always have to be the fastest to win the race. Some races are more of a marathon, and it's more important to pace yourself well.
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SWECLOCKERS (nonenglish chrome translation)
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In line with the rest of the family Fiji, the performance mainly to his right at the higher resolutions, where the entry-level 1920 × 1080 pixels does not allow the circuit to stretch your legs. It sounds even well with marketing from AMD - 4K UHD and virtual reality is what both R9 and R9 Nano Fury cards should push around.

Even the audio and power front, it looks good. A certain spoltjut aside, the Radeon R9 Nano is quiet under load despite the shrunken format with limited cooling capacity. Power-wise, it's about more or less the same level as the Nvidia Maxwell, which is a great result.

The elephant in the room for the Radeon R9 Nano do not concern the performance itself, but rather the size. The card is an impressive piece of engineering where AMD hijacked outer dimensions to the max, giving a record amount of force per centimeter. A big help on the road is without doubt the memory type HBM, which allows the company to save a lot of space on the circuit board.
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HardwareHeavan
The only other significant negative with this product is the branding… it wouldn't be an AMD launch if they didn't try to overcomplicate things. R9 has been branding used for nearly 2 years now and the NANO has less in common with cards released back then than the new range. This is a Fiji/Fury GPU… own it AMD. This is Fury Nano.

Anyways… as far as overall design goes. Great stuff here. Compact, nice matt PCB, compact cooler, metal shroud. A backplate would have been pretty nice to have. Maybe some sort of grill on the back end of the card next to the power socket. But overall no complaints.

For performance as we noted earlier this is a low noise card, the power use for its class is excellent too and thermals very impressive considering the spec. Framerates were also very good. It compares well with the standard Fury card at standard resolutions and at 4k. Compared to the GTX 970, its direct competition when that card is in the ITX form factor, the R9 Nano provides higher framerates across a wide range of games.

Summary: A product which pushes boundaries… sometimes too far. Not cheap but for certain consumers who want to work around its issues this will be a product which brings new performance levels to small form factor systems.
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Hardware.FR (nonenglish chrome translation)
The goal of AMD Radeon R9 with Nano was to propose the most efficient compact graphics card market. Faced with the GeForce GTX 970 Mini, such as the Asus board, the contract is fulfilled quite easily. Thank goodness some would say given the transistors debauchery and operation of a new generation of memory. It will be difficult for NVIDIA to really compete with the Radeon R9 Nano, and it is likely that the manufacturer did not bother. If the GPU GM200 is able to do even better in terms of fuel efficiency and raw performance, it is not suitable for such a compact size considering its GDDR5 memory bus 384-bit that takes up space. With firstly the Radeon R9 Fury X and also the Radeon R9 Nano, AMD benefits from a diverse technology showcase, which shows the range of possibilities of a large modern GPU such as Fiji. Of course, the work done around the HBM memory, was crucial to the development of these new formats, though it will take a major effort next year to really get the benefit.
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ComputerBase.de(nonenglish chrome translation)
In total, the Radeon R9 Nano makes more power than ever before possible in compact Mini-ITX systems. Even Ultra HD with reduced details in it. However, depending on the cramped conditions, the louder the Nano - despite the impressive energy efficiency as a result of the combination of full expansion and clock. This should users who are planning such a system, concerns remain.

If you want to build a small ITX computer with high-end hardware for maximum performance together, has no alternative and must invest 699 Euro. Thanks to the cooling system, which does not project beyond the slot cover beyond the Radeon R9 Nano is in some systems, for that reason alone the only choice.
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HardwareLUXX
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AMD aims the Radeon R9 Nano at a very specific audience. On paper, the model is near identical to the R9 Fury X. The biggest change of course comes from the cooling solution. Of course, the cooling solution on the R9 Fury X is the reason it can hit its maximum GPU clock. The R9 Nano on the other hand isn't able to achieve its 1000MHz clock, instead it bounces between 850 - 950MHz.

Viewed objectively, this means performance of the R9 Nano at times is even slower than a Radeon R9 Fury. The Radeon R9 290X finds itself sitting 10 to 30% behind. In this respect, AMD has kept to its promise. Just like we saw during the launch of the R9 Fury (X), a clear trend can be established. The higher the resolution, the more likely the AMD offering is able to come out ahead. While the GTX 980 can come out ahead at 1080p and 1440p, moving to 3840 x 2160 often sees the R9 Nano jump up in performance.

In terms of performance, the R9 Nano provides everything that was expected. When it comes to the size, no other card can compete, and while the ASUS GTX 970 OC Mini comes close, it does sit slightly longer and slightly taller. Whether the size is a big enough selling point for users is something that remains unknown.
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#4 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defoler View Post

No HDMI 2.0 for something which is more of a HTPC than a basic desktop. That, is a complete bust.
Not saying it won't be excellent for a normal desktop with DP 1.2, but seriously.... what were they thinking
doh.gif
I think we are still a ways off when it comes to content catching up with the new HDMI 2.0 capability. 4K content is still pretty limited, and HDMI 1.4 can handle the majority of movies just fine. Maybe in another year we will see some other films push the limits of HDMI 2.0, like The Hobbit, but until then I just don't think the technology is there yet.
 
#7 ·
Hardware canucks reviewed it also, if you want to add that to the first post. They and Guru3d (the only reviews I looked at) both complained about the coil whine - seems to be a Fury trend. Better performance than I would have expected though.
 
#9 ·
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Originally Posted by Noufel View Post

Nice card, it's without a doubt the most powerfull sff gpu on the matket the only think that concern is the price
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it is not a concern because it is not targeting performance/price, it is targeting performance/watt.

Think of it it like intel ultra low voltage CPU, slower performance but same price.
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#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defoler View Post

No HDMI 2.0 for something which is more of a HTPC than a basic desktop. That, is a complete bust.
Not saying it won't be excellent for a normal desktop with DP 1.2, but seriously.... what were they thinking
doh.gif
This.

It's a great and tiny card that has good power numbers, but without HDMI 2.0, the need for the card is limited, ESPECIALLY given the price (the same as a Fury X, and more expensive than a Fury). There is hardly a case out there that can't handle either of those other two cards, or most all other nVidia cards, so one of it's greatest benefits is totally lost ... size.

Having said that, IF the card was exactly what it is now and $150-200 cheaper, it would be a hit. IF it had HDMI 2.0 and there were a ton of cases where only it could fit, then you could justify it's high price.

But as is, and for the price they want, it's going to flop.

As HWC said ...
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With that being said, AMD will likely face an uphill battle when trying to actually sell this card. It is small and seems to pack an almighty framerate wallop but you'll need to pay a hefty price of $650 (nearly $1000CAD) for the luxury of owning the fastest compact graphics card on the market. However, the actual market for it may be a bit limited since most of today's SFF chassis are designed in such a way that they easily accept longer, less expensive options. In addition, the Nano lacks features like HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 support, both of which would make it infinitely more appealing for the HTPC market. Naturally, the stringent binning process will likely lead to the Nano becoming something of a rarity on retailers' shelves ...
Now I did find this interesting at the bottom of the review ...
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Now before I wrap this up there is a small caveat to this whole conclusion which I didn't want to bring up until now since it will affect each buyer differently. The R9 Nano isn't a quiet card at all. The fan itself isn't the culprit since it remains blissfully quiet while gaming. Rather, this thing's inductors squeals like a scorched pig in higher framerate scenarios and emits chugging noises when rendering less than 40FPS. Some may be willing to overlook this or jam the Nano into an acoustically dampened case but that's still not an excuse for once again failing to address a major limitation on a halo product.
And PCPer pretty much says the same thing, even down to how noisy this card is ...
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The coil whine issue on the card is something of a sore spot for me though as the rest of the technical design and implementation is spectacular. Why AMD can't address these small bugs and issues before the cards are released (see also the Fury X pump whine) is beyond me as the company has intelligent people throughout. If it's not something as simple as a component or inductor swap, and instead is something more complicated like the power delivery design on such a short PCB, then I can see why AMD would have to push forward with the release. Still, it's just one detail that leaves the door open for criticism from us and gamers looking for that perfect card.

The lack of HDMI 2.0 support should again be noted - it's something else that AMD can be correctly criticized for with the R9 Nano and all Fiji-based cards. But for the R9 Nano, that would otherwise make a perfect HTPC option for enthusiasts looking to add 4K / 60 Hz gaming capability to the living room, the omission of support is even more dramatic.

With a price tag of $649, AMD knows that the Radeon R9 Nano is not going to be a card for the masses. As I stated in my video review and throughout this story, if you are building a system that can hold a full length card, then do not buy an R9 Nano. The AMD Fury, Fury X, GTX 980 or GTX 980 Ti are going to provided more performance with less tradeoffs (cost, noise, etc.). The R9 Nano is really only for users that have a specific need for an incredibly dense discrete GPU design. And if you need or want more performance than the NVIDIA GTX 970 Mini ITX offerings can provide (along with the lower cost) then consider the R9 Nano custom built for you.
 
#12 ·
I will wait for some OCN numbers to corroborate what these sites are saying. I do not really want to restart the whole PR fiasco
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#13 ·
A step towards the right direction. Good job AMD. Still expensive considering all options from both AMD and Nvidia but very interesting product none the less. Will still wait and see how these reviews turn out considering the whole "selective reviewers". Maybe there is QC concerns or poor yields. I don't know.
 
#14 ·
They way i see a use for this card or the tech that was used to create such a powerful card at a small size, is with consoles.

The ability to get very high end performance in such a small scale only bodes well for the future of gaming.

Imagine consoles of the near future runnning cards at the same high level of PC's, but still having the benifits of consoles today.
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defoler View Post

No HDMI 2.0 for something which is more of a HTPC than a basic desktop. That, is a complete bust.
Not saying it won't be excellent for a normal desktop with DP 1.2, but seriously.... what were they thinking
doh.gif
active DP 1.2 to HDMI 2.0 is a possible solution if you want to hook this card to a TV at that res and refresh rate.
 
#16 ·
1) Yeah I realized last night that I was going to have to wait until morning for reviews - Dmitri gave an update on twitter around 1am or so - saying that HWC's Nano review was still being worked on haha.

2) Feel free to add Eurogamer's R9 Nano review to the first post:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-amd-radeon-r9-nano-review
Quote:
AMD Radeon R9 Nano - the Digital Foundry verdict

The R9 Nano packs an unprecedented amount of rendering power into an absolutely tiny product, and possesses superb build quality. The background 'buzz' on our sample is a concern, but in terms of the overall cooling assembly, it works very well - the Nano's acoustics are as discrete as its form-factor, and its thermal performance is very good too. It is absolutely in a class of its own, and will doubtless find favour with a very specific, discerning PC owner. Indeed, it would be a complete no-brainer for someone looking to build a high-end small form-factor PC, were it not for a number of factors.
I noticed that Tom's also used that same phrase, class of its own, repeatedly in their review
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-r9-nano,4285.html
Quote:
AMD doesn't overstate the Radeon R9 Nano's status in its marketing materials. This board really is "In a Class of Its Own." Affluent enthusiasts who either don't have or don't want to make the space for a mid-tower PC case, but still want to game at high resolutions, will clearly find the pinnacle of this brand-new segment in AMD's new graphics card.
And now I have confirmation that is indeed an official AMD talking point - and specifically for affluent AMD gamers
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#18 ·
From Anand:
Quote:
Relative to the other Fiji cards - the Radeon R9 Fury series - AMD has been able to significantly cut their power consumption in exchange for a limited performance regression. At 2560x1440 - what I expect will be the gaming sweet spot for the R9 Nano - the card delivers 90% of the R9 Fury X's performance and 96% of the R9 Fury's performance. Though a tangible decrease in performance, it comes with 35% and 20% decrease in power consumption respectively, allowing AMD to offer better performance-per-watt than any other Radeon product to date.
A very nice paragraph where power consumption is the de facto criteria for getting this card. I would accept this but the price is telling me that it should perform better
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#21 ·
Doesn't seem to be any surprises in their review. Hopefully custom models will be out soon enough with unlocked voltage.
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Originally Posted by maarten12100 View Post

active DP 1.2 to HDMI 2.0 is a possible solution if you want to hook this card to a TV at that res and refresh rate.
Are there any out yet?
 
#22 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by anujsetia View Post

Interestingly except TR, TPU & HoCP almost everyone else have got the card and reviewed.

I have read reviews on Anandtech, Toms, HotHardware, PCPer, Guru3d, Hardware.fr, hardwareluxx, computerbase.de, kitguru, maximumpc, hardwarecanucks, hardwareheaven etc.
HWC has excellent video content to accompany their website reviews - see HWC's video case reviews (insane production value).
I can see why AMD would prioritize sampling to to HWC.
 
#25 ·
I didn't expect the reviews to be this positive, I guess the $650 price tag isn't as big of a concern as I thought.
 
#26 ·
I don't feel like Nvidia or their partners will bother, but imagine if all of a sudden there was a GTX 980 ITX. It'd be really easy for them to do seeing as it's already done with the GTX 970 which has basically the same power consumption and it would perform roughly the same as the Nano but cost at least $100 less. Again I don't think Nvidia or their AIB partners would bother with it, but it seems like it'd be really easy for them to completely kill the Nano if they felt like it.
 
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