The AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review: The Power of Size
by Ryan Smith on September 10, 2015 8:00 AM ESTGRID Autosport
For the racing game in our benchmark suite we have Codemasters’ GRID Autosport. Codemasters continues to set the bar for graphical fidelity in racing games, delivering realistic looking environments layered with additional graphical effects. Based on their in-house EGO engine, GRID Autosport includes a DirectCompute based advanced lighting system in its highest quality settings, which incurs a significant performance penalty on lower-end cards but does a good job of emulating more realistic lighting within the game world.
At 3840x2160 we see the R9 Nano only barely fall behind the R9 Fury, trailing it by less than a percent. Unfortunately R9 Nano can’t quite make 60fps here, which for AMD is limited to the R9 Fury X.
The problem for AMD here is that in lieu of hitting 60fps at 4K, the next best option is to drop down to 2560x1440, at which point AMD’s CPU limitations come into full force, allowing the GTX 980 to leapfrog the entire Fiji family. Ultimately this isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but it’s a greater problem for a luxury card like the R9 Nano.
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HOOfan 1 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Plenty of SFF cases fit full size cards now, unless you just have money burning holes in your pocket, why not buy one of those and get a regular non-X Fury or a 390X?przemo_li - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
ROTFL390X & 980 are TWICE as long.
That is SFF. Yeah, right. I will write SFF on my ITX tower. It will be so cool :P
trentchau - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
My Obsidian 250D is considered SFF (close to not being one) and it has a 980Ti in it. Why the laughter?HOOfan 1 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Fractal Node 202 will fit a GTX 980...are you going to tell me that is not small form factor?ingwe - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
For me there is a difference between a truly small form factor design and one that is "small form factor" but built to house a card twice as large as this. I am not saying this is an important distinction to everyone, but it is one that I would make. There is just a lot of size variability in mini-ITX cases.Your question though does really illustrate how much of a niche product this is though. You literally need to be going for the smallest package possible while retaining most of the performance--and not care about cost. It is an interesting product, but it is a mixed bag like the interview says.
tviceman - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Clearly the Nano is a more interesting card to review but the obvious elephant in the room here is that Anandtech have completely dropped the ball on the last two major Nvidia releases (gtx 960 and gtx 950). Not only that, but you were also late with the Fury X review (being bed ridden can be a valid excuse but when deadlines are continually missed excuses run dry).Ryan you have great analysis, fair reviews, and strong writing. You've also had days, weeks (and months) to get reviews out (and on time) with the above mentioned cards and have failed to do so. You obviously need more help with reviews.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
The 960 wasn't reviewed, most likely, because it was turkey.Gigaplex - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
How am I supposed to know it was turkey without either reading the review that doesn't exist, or buying one myself and being seriously disappointed? You don't just skip reviewing products that aren't very good, otherwise that defeats the point in reviews.K_Space - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link
@GigaplexI think Of is insinuating that Anandtech would not review a product that defaces nVidia (though I disagree). Getting the Nano review as a priority plus being chief editor (who probably proof reads other reviews), add in various administritive duties and it all takes its toll. The annual call up for reviewers has gone out recently; I think Anandtech made it clear enough they would love a helping hand in getting timely reviews... On time.
K_Space - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link
OG*