AMD Radeon R9 Nano Video Card PAPER Launch @ [H]

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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AMD Radeon R9 Nano Video Card PAPER Launch - AMD has released information on the new Radeon R9 Nano. This may be a 6" video card, but you'll be surprised what lies in wait under the hood. Today is just a paper launch as is AMD's new habit. We are able to share specifications, photographs, pricing and availability only.

UPDATE (9/3/15): AMD has refused our request for a Nano to review.
 
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Wait, this is going to cost $650?!?!?!? What's the point? I could get the Gigabyte GTX970-ITX for $309.99, lightly overclock it to the same performance as this will provide, and save $340. What is wrong with AMD and their pricing? The Fury-X w/liquid cooling should have been a specialty limited release for $650, with an Air-Cooled Fury-X for $550, the Vanilla Fury at $450. I'm in the market to upgrade my GPU, and I feel the performance offered by AMD's high-end does not match the prices they are asking for.

I can get the Asus Strix Fury for $570 or pick up the MSI GTX 980-Ti for $610. That's a massive performance hit for saving just $40.

It just seems like AMD is living in their own little vacuum completely unaware of competition.
 
That ..... makes no sense whatsoever. I guess if you really really need a SFF card that's somewhat powerful it'll sell. But that's a really niche customer base.
 
No comment on this one. Back to playing with my toys. I knew something was fishy when Elmy posted a picture of a sheet of carbon fiber instead of a completed case. :)
 
I actually hung up on the call when they told us the price. Apparently AMD puts a lot of value in underclocking a GPU, putting it on a smaller PCB, deleting the water cooler, and calling it Nano.
 
Im so sick of AMD making dumb ass moves. Lord knows we need competition but i hope they get bought out by someone, anyone. Whoever buys them couldnt do any worst. I bet Nvidia is just having party after party when AMD product announcements come out.
 
I don't know who is going to buy this card, someone tell me?

You can put a Fury X in an ITX system and it runs cool thanks to the closed system cooling and you get the full performance of Fury X.

Articles and videos across the web and youtube demonstrating iTX and micro-ATX builds with Fury X, all you need is room for the rad and fan, and that there is usually at least one fan space in these cases where you can put that. You can even make an iTX build with a 980 Ti or TITAN X depending on the case., seen those as well. Point is, Fury X ITX build, not impossible, quite doable depending on the case.
 
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That ..... makes no sense whatsoever. I guess if you really really need a SFF card that's somewhat powerful it'll sell. But that's a really niche customer base.

I agree, but if you have followed the main concern with AMD cards over the past couple of years it has been TDP and heat. They finally conquered it with this product. Thus the halo product pricing.

Above GTX 980 performance, SFF, 175w. Imagine walking into a Microcenter or Best Buy and the employee lets you hold each card in your hands. He tells you that the smaller card is slightly faster.

Why would you buy a big, green monster looking dinosaur when you can have the slick and svelte AMD Nano?


That's what AMD is probably banking on. I still think it should be cheaper at this time.
 
That's what AMD is probably banking on. I still think it should be cheaper at this time.

I have issue with it being the same price as a video card that is faster out of the box and has the full 275W TDP and overclocking potential. Logically, my brain tells me this doesn't make sense.

I guess you really have to pay a premium for lower power, cool running, quiet video cards these days.
 
yes.. not much sense made... if it was around 980 price, I was actually going to pick one up to replace my GTX 970, gotta make use of that FreeSync Monitor :p

I guess I'll be holding off
 
I have an issue with it being the same price as a video card that is faster out of the box and has the full 275W TDP and overclocking potential. Logically, my brain tells me this doesn't make sense.

I agree completely with you 100%. But you have to think about all the people who are scared of the water cooling kit associated with the Fury X. This card should appeal to them. Really AMD should drop the prices of the new cards by $100 each to create killer value across the board. This card should take the place of the 390X in my opinion.

The main problem is that the Fury series is sold out most of the time. Thus there seems to be a demand at this price point.
 
I agree completely with you 100%. But you have to think about all the people who are scared of the water cooling kit associated with the Fury X. This card should appeal to them. Really AMD should drop the prices of the new cards by $100 each to create killer value across the board. This card should take the place of the 390X in my opinion.

I can think about them all day long, I still think this card should be $50-$100 cheaper than a Fury X, relatively speaking.
 
so the nano is actually FASTER than the FuryX? I mean, the furyX can't hit 60 fps@4k

Naturally AMD's internal testing is done on different machines and at different game settings than ours. According to the footnotes from the PDF: "GTA V, 3840x2160, High, 0XAA, 4XAF"

If I had turned Grass to High, along with some other settings, performance would increase naturally. Of course, we find the actual playable settings, so we want to enable game features, not turn them off to win benchmarks.
 
Oh...this is...embarrassing.

They are essentially selling magic beans for a cow.

There better be a magic golden harp attached to those beans.

(In other words, the likelihood of them selling ANY of these is a fairy-tale for idiots)
 
It seems AMD didn't learn from the 290x. The "up to" 1gz clockspeed clearly sounds like clock throttle. While say 850mhz clock and 1ghz boost sound like auto overclocking.
 
It seems AMD didn't learn from the 290x. The "up to" 1gz clockspeed clearly sounds like clock throttle. While say 850mhz clock and 1ghz boost sound like auto overclocking.

Eggzactly, I made this point ages ago somewhere in some review. It is all in how you label your clock speed. All AMD has to do is provide a minimum or quarenteed clock rate, like NVIDIA, make it low like 800MHz, then say everything else above it is a boost clock ;)
 
Let me just say, the Nano does have potential for greatness. It could be a game changing video card, if priced right.

I do look forward to testing it, we need to see how it performs in regular gameplay at common resolutions, not at 4K settings with all the game features turned off as AMD internal testing was done.
 
Wait, this is going to cost $650?!?!?!? What's the point? I could get the Gigabyte GTX970-ITX for $309.99, lightly overclock it to the same performance as this will provide, and save $340. What is wrong with AMD and their pricing?.......
It just seems like AMD is living in their own little vacuum completely unaware of competition.

I have to agree with this, I am shocked at the premium they are charging over the 970 mitx offerings. This card at most should be $350-$400.
 
Its lighter+smaller than a Fury X and the lighter+smaller power supply would make a difference. Would be great for LAN parties or systems built into custom cases.

$550-600 would be a better price. We'll see what they actually go for on launch, it might be a soft MSRP. On the other hand its long been suspected that AMD is taking a bath on these HBM kits so the highest binned parts may be too expensive to produce as it is (especially for a company already bleeding cash)

Finally I wouldn't be surprised if the AIBs put downclocked/undervolted Fury (non-x) parts onto this PCB or a similar one down the road and really undercut the price.
 
As for the card itself I gotta say I'm impressed. I expected a downclocked Fury (non-X) or below. Even though AMD promised full Fiji, which it delivered.

I expect it to trade blows with the standard Fury depending on games.

As the rest of the Fiji family, the Nano is overpriced. This one even more so than the FuryX
 
That's pretty rude...did you also hang up on nVidia when they told you the price of Titan X, Titan Z, Titan Black...

Well, you know we are in the business of being polite and towing the company PR language. And you might find it interesting is that AMD never mentioned price in its presentation. It was only after the presentation was over and it was questioned did AMD mention price. To answer your question, no I did not hang up, but I was not actually on those calls IIRC as we already had all the specifications, but I did get two and SLI those (both Titan and Titan X) in my personal system. Will I be getting two Nano cards are using CrossFire in my personal system? Don't think so.

AMD's full court press on this was how systems are getting smaller and they are addressing this. I get its talking points and marketing speak. I just do not agree with it.
 
I can't believe they still plaster "4K" all over their marketing for this, when they got completely owned for that with the Fury X, a faster card. "Brings 4K to the living room!" Maybe they mean your media PC will cost $4,000 if you include this card in the build.
 
I would, some of us oldtimers that does not care som much abaut price, but then it all comes down to the design of the case it is put in, how noisy it is. This is mostly abaut design, its not abaut beeing the fastest, strongest and so on, so well my surch has begun for an low pc case with an external psu, if just one, if crossfire then its easier. But no this is definetly not a card for [H], and its regular users, becouse this will be abaut design and beeing powerfull enogh, so its a niche.
 
This is laughable, it was AMD's last chance to get a competitive midrange card out for this generation of GPUs and they blew it.

I really wish someone would absorb AMD's GPU division so that they can get the capital to devote to doing what they do best: making CPUs.
 
If it's 10% slower and 100W less power usage, then the price is justified. That would be quite impressive, but I doubt that is the case. I bet it is 10% slower in TF2 at 1080p, but in 4K GTA V, I bet it is 30% slower or worse.
 
This is laughable, it was AMD's last chance to get a competitive midrange card out for this generation of GPUs and they blew it.

I really wish someone would absorb AMD's GPU division so that they can get the capital to devote to doing what they do best: making CPUs.

It's NOT a midrange card. It is almost a full Fury X.
 
I agree, but if you have followed the main concern with AMD cards over the past couple of years it has been TDP and heat. They finally conquered it with this product. Thus the halo product pricing.

Above GTX 980 performance, SFF, 175w. Imagine walking into a Microcenter or Best Buy and the employee lets you hold each card in your hands. He tells you that the smaller card is slightly faster.

Why would you buy a big, green monster looking dinosaur when you can have the slick and svelte AMD Nano?

That's what AMD is probably banking on. I still think it should be cheaper at this time.
[Citation needed]

I would, some of us oldtimers that does not care som much abaut price, but then it all comes down to the design of the case it is put in, how noisy it is. This is mostly abaut design, its not abaut beeing the fastest, strongest and so on, so well my surch has begun for an low pc case with an external psu, if just one, if crossfire then its easier. But no this is definetly not a card for [H], and its regular users, becouse this will be abaut design and beeing powerfull enogh, so its a niche.
Except when it comes to the purchasing decision for a video card, the most popular opinion of an informal poll on this forum of enthusiasts was price-to-performance ratio. Most people couldn't care less about power usage or noise. The Nano is not targeted at enthusiasts, even though it has enthusiast-level pricing.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1865377
 
The rumor is that it's performance is on the level of a GTX970.

What rumor and where?

You mean the rumor you're trying to start by pulling it out of thin air, or the one started by NVidia fanboys trying to suppress anything remotely good coming from AMD camp nowadays?

And as for the main topic, I'm actually interested in a couple of these if it is in fact 10% slower than Fury X while remaining much cooler and more power efficient. While the AIO solution of Fury X is great, heat is heat and power draw is power draw. Some enthusiasts out there are looking for a quiet and efficient solution that gets the job done at the same time.
 
Armenius, this is not a card for thoose who just care abaut performence for sure, i recon the price is telling enough, so we sure agree that its not target for the typhical enthusiasts, would i choose it over an fury x, the answer is quite easy, if the design that i want does not fit a furyx , then i go for nano. MY main problem is to find a powerful external psu for just one nano, as soon as we have 2 in crossfire and would need an internal psu, then there are lot of stylish htpc cases that would fit nano, but would not fit 2 fury x, due to its radiators. Its a niche, and that niche has to do with design.

Edit:
I do see that the hdmi 2.0 lack could have been a problem, for yes, i want this on my tv, in the living room, but well i do know there will come a solution. And it has to deliver when it comes to sound, in a living room perspectiv, it meens "you shell not HEAR it" when u sit in sofa and look at the tv, period.
 
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What rumor and where?

You mean the rumor you're trying to start by pulling it out of thin air, or the one started by NVidia fanboys trying to suppress anything remotely good coming from AMD camp nowadays?

 
Eggzactly, I made this point ages ago somewhere in some review. It is all in how you label your clock speed. All AMD has to do is provide a minimum or quarenteed clock rate, like NVIDIA, make it low like 800MHz, then say everything else above it is a boost clock ;)

From Anand

The R9 Nano will ship with a boost clock of 1000MHz versus R9 Fury X’s 1050MHz boost clock, and the TDP is 175W versus 275W.

AFAIK amd doesn't quote boost clocks, but it does sound better.
 
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