The AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review: The Power of Size
by Ryan Smith on September 10, 2015 8:00 AM ESTMiddle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Our next benchmark is Monolith’s popular open-world action game, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. One of our current-gen console multiplatform titles, Shadow of Mordor is plenty punishing on its own, and at Ultra settings it absolutely devours VRAM, showcasing the knock-on effect that current-gen consoles have on VRAM requirements.
Both of AMD’s Fury cards have handled Shadow of Mordor well in the past, and R9 Nano is no exception. The R9 Nano ends up trailing the R9 Fury X and R9 Fury by around 13% and 7% respectively, not too far off from their respective overall averages. Otherwise compared to NVIDIA’s offerings the R9 Nano clearly trails the similarly priced GTX 980 Ti, but enjoys a very comfortable margin over the likes of the GTX 980 and GTX 970 Mini.
Minimum framerates on the other hand also inherit the other Fiji cards’ weaknesses. AMD actually doesn’t fare too poorly here, however the toll of being slower than the R9 Fury doesn’t do the R9 Nano any favors. Below 3840x2160 the R9 Nano feels the pinch of the GTX 980 and GTX 970 Mini, falling behind these cards.
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extide - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Top gear ran every car they tested around the same track didn't they? Also you will find tins for the ring on plenty of stuff that isn't as fast as a 911 GT3 RS. Plus the 4k numbers ARE useful to see how the performance scales.extide - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
tins = times *Ryan Smith - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
I don't believe the quality compromises are worth it, nor is playing at 30fps on a $650 card. However I know other people disagree with me, which is why I include the data.Daniel Egger - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link
The data is exactly what I'd like to see but your comment as the reason why you provided the data in at all is quite off-putting, non-sensical and does not belong there:The graphs about that sentence show that it is only 3 FPS slower than the Fury and even faster than the GTX 980, so either the comment should be that neither card is recommended for Battlefield in Ultra Quality 4k (although I do not necessarily why, the shown figures are way above "30fps" ...) and/or save that remark for your final conclusions.
extide - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
In a few months, when AMD finally has enough supply of these things, and they can drop the prices, the while Fury line will be amazing!! They are NOT bad products, they just have bad prices, right now, and they will until the supply issues are resolved. If they can't keep em in stock at these prices, then why lower them? No way.But yeah, in 3-4 months or so, I bet we see some pretty big price drops on all of these babies. Good times a comin!
Refuge - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
I agree that the price is what makes these gems look like crap.But I also don't believe a price drop big enough to make them look like the gems they are will be in our future.
wintermute000 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
That, and confirmed performance on real AAA DX12 titlesD. Lister - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
Really? What else can you see in the magic crystal ball? Would we ever colonize Mars? Is a cure for cancer coming anytime soon? Speak man!itproflorida - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
These benchmarks are bogus, my single 970 can do BF campaign @ 4k Ultra no AA, 45 -64 fps avg 57fps. SLI 62 -90fps campaign.nikaldro - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Multi-player, duh.