The AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review: The Power of Size
by Ryan Smith on September 10, 2015 8:00 AM ESTDragon Age: Inquisition
Our RPG of choice for 2015 is Dragon Age: Inquisition, the latest game in the Dragon Age series of ARPGs. Offering an expansive world that can easily challenge even the best of our video cards, Dragon Age also offers us an alternative take on EA/DICE’s Frostbite 3 engine, which powers this game along with Battlefield 4.
Compared to the R9 Fury series, the R9 Nano delivers around 87-95% of the performance of AMD’s other flagship cards, once again similar to what we’ve seen in prior games and showing just how close the R9 Nano is to the R9 Fury is in performance so much of the time. Meanwhile in a size-wise comparison the R9 Nano always holds the lead as well, though the lead gets rather thin – around 7% - at 1920x1080.
The big hurdle for the R9 Nano is the power comparison, which once again sees the power-similar GTX 980 eeking out AMD’s latest Fiji card, especially at lower resolutions. Nothing here is all that surprising given what we saw with R9 Fury back in July, but it’s a reminder of how close things can be in some of these games.
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zodiacfml - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
Yawnn.. It's not bad till you get to the price. Fury X now has better value as you get watercooling.paravorheim - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
"Meanwhile Fury X’s massive power headroom has been significantly curtailed, from a TBP of 275W (and in practice a cap much higher than that) to a much harder TBP limit of 175W for the R9 Nano."You say TBP here, is that supposed to be "TDP"? I saw it in a few other places as well.
SunnyNW - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
TBP (Thermal Board Power) vs TDP (Thermal Design Power)The0ne - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Bin parts for power and cooling efficiency instead of a good design isn't something to rave about. It should be something to write off of because, lets faced it, nothing is different from the previous designs.medi03 - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Yeah, "previous designs". Like 290x that beat that day Titan at a fraction of price.Gnomer87 - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
While an improvement in the efficiency segment, this card still loses out to Nvidias alternatives, most notably the older 980. The 980 performs only marginally worse, while having a smaller price tag.It's still a walkover, if I were to replace my hd 7950b today, it'd still be nvidia. This is a problem, if AMD doesn't get their shit together, they're going bankrupt.
And that means monopoly.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Is there a 980 in this form factor? If not, then it doesn't lose because there is an AMD card that outperforms the 980 for less money as far as I know.IlllI - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
love the nano, can't justify the price. up until now i thought it was going to be $499. the Fury X i can justify the price b/c you can look at it as having a $100 liquid cooler included. but for the nano to be the same price as the Fury X.. I just can't.gw74 - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
AMD_Roy twitter account has been deleted!JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Wow, lots of crap in the comment's section. I'll post my own. Smaller is better. The trend of hotter, louder, heavier, and more energy guzzling cards was terrible. Not only did it KILL some of my PCI-E slots after awhile from the sheer weight of the card, but most of the old hot running cards are now dead and don't work. It's nice to see a nano card that can fit in an ITX case comfortably. Here's to LAN parties of the future, and more room on/under desks!