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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jay401 - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link
The only thing wrong with the Nano and the rest of the Fury lineup is the price. They should all have debuted $50 cheaper than they did.theNiZer - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
My thoughts exactly :)HisDivineOrder - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Nice to see that Anandtech didn't mind getting their card with whatever promises they had to make to get it. I'm reminded of the AMD Red section that this site once had and I begin to wonder if that payment scheme ever really ended or just went "underground?"garbagedisposal - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Jesus Christ, you are one especially rabid and unpleasant person. Please don't comment on this website.Oxford Guy - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
If you think this site is pro-AMD you clearly don't read the reviews, like the review of Broadwell that included like 8 slow APUs and not a single FX chip at a reasonable clockspeed (like 4.5 GHz), even though FX, not APUs, offers the best desktop performance from AMD.Creig - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Looks like we have a new generation of Wounded [H] Children on our hands.Will Robinson - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Seeing that Tech Report's Graphics forum used to be sponsored by Nvidia....I guess it went to the same place hmm?eanazag - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I want one, but not at that price. They need a version of the nano at $300-50 that smacks the 970 mini from cheek to cheek. Though with the whole Fiji series I am disappointed it maxes out at 4 GB of VRAM.Anyhow, I would be interested in the best performance a vendor could offer in a single slot cooler. Not the usual duds that come with a single slot cooler. Ooorrrrr okay performance with a water cooler, when I say okay performance I'm thinking what usually comes in at the $180+-$225 price range.
colonelclaw - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
As someone who is currently heavily invested in Nvidia tech, I would just like to say well done to AMD, this a great (little) product!980 nano please :)
nathanddrews - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Probably not a 980 Nano, but a 1080 Nano is more likely. This is the future of GPUs. Next year we get FinFET and HBM2 from NVIDIA and ATI. It's only a matter of time before both AMD and NVIDIA have full lineups of SFF GPUs. Why pay more for all that PCB space if you don't need it?