Hardware AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review

Wow!

What a thing. What a gadget.

What a price!

 

Given the "niche" for this card it would have been nice to see an extra page devoted to how it performs when it IS thermally limited. Can it still hold its performance lead over a mITX 970 (which should also be tested in this scenario) or does it break under the heat?!

In a case large enough to take a 980Ti or normal Fury-X it is comically overpriced and completely and utterly pointless.

 

3-4 fps off the fury x at 4k resolution ( In the 2 tests that are relivent GTA 5 and Witcher 3) . For a card as tiny as this with no water cooling space requirements.

AMD will sell more Nanos than they will sell Fury X.

 

I don't know why the 970 is even being mentioned as a competitor to this TBH.

25% faster but 85% more expensive is rather a pointless metric given the price difference.

What people should be looking at, is that its 100% as expensive as a 980Ti but is 20-30% slower...

 

Won't be hard to sell more than Fury X as nowhere ever seems to have Fury X actually for sale.

So it's a Fury X without an AIO and power limited. All for the price of a , oh, a Fury X.

 

Because the 970 is the only card that comes close in the form factor front, which is the main selling point of this card. Why compare it to a much bigger card, regardless of the price?

 

I honestly wasn't expecting it's TDP to be so low. I was expecting much worse. Though still expensive, it's easily the best GPU of it's form factor, which probably explains the price. I don't think AMD is expecting to be selling these left and right and I don't think they intended to either. This is a niche market.

 

I guarantee the majority of these will end up in a regular size case, and those that don't would most likely be able to take a full sized card anyway.

 

What a complete waste of everyone involved time and effort.
LOOK AT THE PRICE FOR THE PERFORMANCE PEOPLE!!!

Instead how about one of these and use the change buy a GoPRO?
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2015/01/15/asus-geforce-gtx-970-directcu-mini-review/1

 

complete waste of money

 

I am probably AMDs least biggest fan if you ask people on this forum. But this card looks good and if I was building a Mini ITX PC for Lan Gaming it would be top of my requirements.

Performance its at worst 5% slower than the fury x in Witcher 3 and GTA5. Cost is not really relivent if you can afford £500 for a gpu your not exactly shopping on a budget.

Its about 15% slower than a 980ti at 4k in GTA 5. And closer to 5% in Witcher 3. 20-30% slower than a 980ti at 4k it most definitly is not. And thats from a huge Nvidia Fan. Not sure how any resolution sub 4k is relivent at this point either.

 

AMD seem to have shot themselves in the foot once again. In fact, they do this so often their shoes must look like a pair of Crocs by now.
I remember a time when people complained about the naming strategies of nVidia and Intel, but just look at what we now have from AMD... First, you have to try to understand the significance between R7 and R9... then the various versions within them 350/360/370 - 380/390 and then they throw 'X' at them seemingly at random.
If all that was too easy to decode then they go with a totally different naming strategy for the Fury and now the Nano... Oh and they again throw another 'X' in there as well.

This is all just before we hear that AMD is re-structuring AGAIN and moving their GPU department in to a separate entity, possibly as a precursor to a sell off. I swear, AMD changes form more often than the T-1000 Terminator... at least the Terminator was solid and often had a point!

 

This is constructive criticism, as I love bit-tech....

How do you write an article on one of the most powerful discrete graphics cards ever produced that can fit ITX and Micro Atx form factors, and not show how it fits into small cases/system builds>? Baffling! I would have very much like to see examples of it in practice!
http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2015/04/20/intel-nuc-competition-update/1

Show us the way BT, show us, the wayyyyyyyyy......

 

Um... 2 Things:
1) No GPU fits on to an NUC (as you linked to) as there is no PCI-e socket.
2) Because Bit-Tech are doing a review and need to fit it in to the same case they use for testing for fair and even results and so they most likely do not have the time to fit the GPU inside multiple cases purely for photo opportunities.

 

For the footprint and power use I think this is a super little buy

 

Coil whine and iffy driver support pass.

 

Not sure where this should lose marks for coil whine which is ridiculous on a top of the line graphics card (negative feature? ) like this, but imo it should get less than 28/30 for features considering the hdmi port is 1.4 not 2.0?

 

Yeah, I should've looked at the NUC specs, but modding small form factor cases and packing as much hardware into them has always been thematic here, that's what I was saying, not purely for photo ops (even though it would have been nice to see some sexy pics of the melody ensemble of silicon body parts!).

Installation and hands on experience with the hardware under examination is almost fundamental, whether liquid CPU cooler, motherboard, GPU, etc. I want to know what the card even SMELLS like, I love the smell of fresh GPUs in the mornin' . Considerations of size, ease of installation, and the personal experience of the writer/reviewer into the design of or addition to, a new or old computer regarding this card would've been appreciated by a long time bit-tech fan is all I was saying. It seems odd to only test the smallest most powerful graphics card in a full tower, as someone with a full or extended atx case would be just as odd to buy a small, less powerful, more expensive video card when they have the room for bigger/better. The chipset scales down to ITX/Matx right? Which would be the most logical pairing of GPU and FF. To say they don't have the time to try the card in different cases seems suspect, why not XD? I remember helping write and translating an article about cross platform PCIe to AGP GPUs in 2004-5 and staying up all night trying to get it right. I've had my own IT company at 15.... Putting a GPU in a motherboard and be doesn't exactly break the deadline. All lot of online sites these days want to be the first to publish a review of a new part for the traffic, but I don't come to bit-tech because they are first to the party, I come because the writers always offer personal perspective and write like eloquent, passionate, fans of the tech. The gamer and the hardware guru at one in the same here.. Or maybe times have changed... I will check to see if some of the old writers are still active here... "Theinquirer" has even changed a lot, no more quotes from Oscar Wilde and Churchhill with each new article... Rambling at this point

Peace