The AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review: The Power of Size
by Ryan Smith on September 10, 2015 8:00 AM ESTOverclocking
Finally, no review of a high-end video card would be complete without a look at overclocking performance.
Of all of the Fiji cards overclocking the R9 Nano is perhaps the easiest and certainly the most unusual. Due to the fact that the card is essentially a 1000MHz Fiji card with a heavy power throttle, the card is already validated for clockspeeds that under load it doesn’t have the available power to reach. As a result while one can crank up the clockspeeds, the card isn’t going to move until you increase the power limit. And even then you are more likely to hit the power cap again than you are to break 1000MHz sustained. So overclocking the GPU is something of an academic affair.
| Radeon R9 Fury/Nano Series Overclocking | |||||
| Ref. R9 Fury X | ASUS R9 Fury | Ref. R9 Nano | |||
| Boost Clock | 1125MHz | 1075MHz | 1075MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 1Gbps (500MHz DDR) | 1.1Gbps (550MHz DDR) | 1.1Gbps (550MHz DDR) | ||
| Power Limit | 100% | 115% | 135% | ||
| Max Voltage | 1.212v | 1.169v | 1.2v | ||
Overall we were able to overclock our sample to 1075MHz on the GPU and 550MHz (1.1Gbps) on the memory. However load clockspeeds were almost always under 1000MHz even with a generous 35% increase in the power target. Overdrive does allow for a larger increase – up to 50% – but with the R9 Nano featuring a less robust power delivery system designed to push less power than R9 Fury or R9 Fury X, we’re hesitant to increase the limit further without a better idea of what the card can safely sustain for extended periods of time.
The overall performance gains from overclocking aren’t huge, but at 7-10% they also aren’t too shabby. However since higher clockspeeds quickly ramp up the power requirements due to the higher voltages required, the performance gains won’t be anywhere near the 35% increase in the power limit, despite that we are in fact still power limited.
Meanwhile the 35% increase in the power limit has a definite knock-on effect on the cooling system. The R9 Nano’s cooler is able to keep up with the additional load, holding temperatures to 74C, but noise levels are now over 51dB(A). Power consumption at the wall is similarly affected, with the R9 Nano essentially giving up all of its energy efficiency gains in the process.
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D. Lister - Sunday, September 13, 2015 - link
The Fermi architecture did indeed have those flaws, not to mention the thermal issues of the 4xx family and the strict power budget of the 5xx series that Nvidia stupidly enforced on its partners. The latter resulting in CTD in the factory overclocked models in some poor PC ports like Crysis 2, where the only solution was to downclock the GPU to its reference state. But despite such rare lapses, Nvidia has evolved steadily, and every generation has rectified the flaws of its predecessor, and improved in terms of features, power usage and temps.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Don't forget the driver that bricked Fermi cards.D. Lister - Sunday, September 13, 2015 - link
@medi03Sorry, but that nonsense just doesn't cut it anymore. Not after so many years of the same fraudulent babble going on over and over.
If someone "uneducated" was told that product A and product B both performed the same, yet product A could be bought for less money, than most people would go for product A.
If that is not happening than obviously there is more to this than purely performance/dollar(*), and the market is a lot more educated in the year 2015 than your fanboy delusions would've led you to believe.
Honestly, you AMD fanatics are like the Westboro Baptist Church of technology. I wouldn't be surprised if you lot started picketing outside the Intel and Nvidia HQs with "God hates Intel/Nvidia" placards.
*-Sadly, thanks to that HBM gimmick, AMD doesn't even have the performance/dollar feature anymore. The Nano's MSRP equals the 20-30% stronger 980Ti's retail value, and because of its rarity, actually is more expensive than the 980Ti.
medi03 - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
I don't recall talking about "performance dollar", why do you have to lie like that? Is that your imagination?There were CLEAR, HANDS DOWN cases of inferiour products, be it nVidia's Fermi chips, or Intel's Prescott P4 fiasco outselling the competitor. That shows how much clue our "uneducated" public has. End of story.
Now take a deep breath and think if you really have some argument.
D. Lister - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
"I don't recall talking about "performance dollar", why do you have to lie like that? Is that your imagination?"Tsk, tsk, "reading" is obviously not your strong suite.
"There were CLEAR, HANDS DOWN cases of inferiour products, be it nVidia's Fermi chips, or Intel's Prescott P4 fiasco outselling the competitor. That shows how much clue our "uneducated" public has. End of story."
That's your argument? Really? Where can anyone actually even buy Prescotts or Fermis these days? Who is buying them? In those times AMD's market share was significantly higher than it is now and quite rightfully so, rendering your abysmal argument completely moot. And the story didn't end there you silly little man - after Fermi there was Kepler, and then Maxwell. After Prescott there were over a dozen processor families, each and every single one an improvement, not just in raw performance but also in performance/watt and performance/dollar.
Granted that AMD has had improvements as well, but thanks to the terrible decisions of the businessmen at the top (e.g. selling their foundries and getting ATI for a lot more than it was worth, not focusing on their primary markets and losing loyal fans to other companies, etc.), not to mention the terrible software support for often very decent hardware and regularly over-promising and under-delivering, they are where they are now. The facts are ultimately in the ledgers, and mindless corporate drones like yourself can make up absurd stories and conspiracy theories as much as you like - fact is that AMD is dying and as their funds keep shrinking, so does the overall quality of their products, especially compared to the competition.
"Now take a deep breath and think if you really have some argument."
All I can do is shake my head and smile sadly at how completely you miss the irony in your statement. It's okay, once AMD is inevitably ripped apart and its pieces consumed by the corporate sharks and the AMD and Radeon brands are reduced to forgotten footnotes in tech history, cretins like you will find something else to fill the void in your pathetic, pointless existence. Have a nice life, if you can, I'm done with you.
D. Lister - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Just to make it very clear (again) to any AMD fans that may feel my sentiments to be overtly harsh towards their favored company, I personally believe that whatever has happened to AMD in the last decade or so, is nothing short of a heart-breaking tragedy, where the business fat cats at the top repeatedly made poor short-term decisions and exploited the hard work of brilliant engineers and technicians, giving themselves and their marketing lackeys bigger paychecks while the R&D starved, resulting in AMD as a company never truly reaching its full potential. And we all, as consumers and enthusiasts are worse off for it.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Too bad for that summary that it ignores the well-made products that AMD's customers have enjoyed and the industry has benefited from.D. Lister - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
@Oxford GuyThat is a given, no? A company that is a complete failure from the start, with everybody under the sun hating their products, can't ever hope to eventually go public, let alone go toe-to-toe, even if for a little while, with an industry giant like Intel.
Unfortunately what AMD did right was rather consistently far outweighed by what they did wrong. For every satisfied customer, they had several that felt screwed over.
AMD is like a race car that has had very good parts, but a lazy pit crew and blind men at the wheel (I resisted the urge of saying "bad drivers", but I'm being too serious here to indulge with lazy puns). So you're reminding me that they pulled a few laps in good time, while I'm lamenting the race that they have nearly lost.
Oxford Guy - Saturday, September 19, 2015 - link
Nice fiction.D. Lister - Sunday, September 20, 2015 - link
lol, thanks. All facts can be reduced to mere fiction when faced with absolute, fanatical denial. But to be fair, yours is hardly the worse, there are still many people who doggedly believe that geocentricism is the truth and all else is lies and fiction.