The AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review: The Power of Size
by Ryan Smith on September 10, 2015 8:00 AM ESTCrysis 3
Still one of our most punishing benchmarks, Crysis 3 needs no introduction. With Crysis 3, Crytek has gone back to trying to kill computers and still holds the “most punishing shooter” title in our benchmark suite. Only in a handful of setups can we even run Crysis 3 at its highest (Very High) settings, and that’s still without AA. Crysis 1 was an excellent template for the kind of performance required to drive games for the next few years, and Crysis 3 looks to be much the same for 2015.
As with Battlefield 4, the R9 Nano solidly secures its place relative to the Fury lineup, delivering 90-95% of the performance of the R9 Fury X and R9 Fury respectively. This pushes the card’s performance below 60fps even at 3840x2160 low quality, but it’s more than enough for 2560x1440.
However once we do reach 2560, we find that the R9 Nano is now tied with the GTX 980 at just over 65fps. As we mentioned on the last page the GTX 980 is the biggest threat to the R9 Nano from an efficiency standpoint, and this is why. Limiting our scope to just mini cards however finds the R9 Nano comfortably ahead of the GTX 970 Mini.
Meanwhile Crysis 3 is a great example of why AMD is poking at themselves by comparing the R9 Nano to the GTX 290X. The card is little more than half the length of AMD’s former flagship and yet delivers 22% better performance while drawing much less power (more on that later). In doing so AMD is clearly picking a low point to make their gains look better, but at the same time it shows that yes, AMD can in fact improve over R9 290X on performance, power, and noise all at the same time.
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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*