AMD Lowers Radeon R9 Nano To $499

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This past September, the AMD Radeon™ R9 Nano graphics card launched to rave reviews, claiming the title of the world’s fastest and most power efficient Mini ITX gaming card, powered by the world’s most advanced and innovative GPU with on-chip High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for incredible 4K gaming performance. There was nothing like it ever seen before, and today, it remains in a class of its own, delivering smooth, true-to-life, premium 4K and VR gaming in a small form factor PC. At a peak power of 175W and in a 6-inch form factor, it drives levels of performance that are on par with larger, more power-hungry GPUs from competitors, and blows away Mini ITX competitors with up to 30 percent better performance than the GTX 970 Mini ITX.

As of today, 11 January, this small card will have an even bigger impact on gamers around the world as AMD announces a change in the AMD Radeon™ R9 Nano graphics card’s SEP from $649 to $499. At the new price, the AMD Radeon™ R9 Nano graphics card will be more accessible than ever before, delivering incredible performance and leading technologies, with unbelievable efficiency in an astoundingly small form factor that puts it in a class all of its own.
 
So, basically the price everyone who ever saw this thing said it should be? Sounds good to me.
 
What it should have been all along, just as we suggested in the very beginning, and now look what AMD has done, drop the price.
 
I guess AMD properly solved their supply issues with the new tech. Good to see.
 
I wonder if then HardOCP will go back and do an edit to their nano review now that the price point has changed.
 
More like they had a metric crap ton of inventory that wasn't selling with the GPUs on the horizon.
supply-demand.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
I wonder if then HardOCP will go back and do an edit to their nano review now that the price point has changed.
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Our review said everything it needed to at the time. Our suggestion for lowering the price point was a good one, one AMD eventually did do. We did three very in-depth reviews of the Nano, no more needs to be tested or said about it. The price point doesn't change its performance. The price point does make it more appealing for more people, which is what we said it needed all along, so no conclusion needs to be changed, we hit the nail on the head the first time.
 
If you're creative the Fury X price point now doesn't make any sense.

Just buy a Nano, upgrade the cooling and overclock it. ;)
 
Linus did an interesting project where he took 7 Nano's and made a single PC for 7 gamers. It's actually pretty cool. Though for me I would think about getting two Nano's for a PC with 8 cores for 2 gamers.
I would of course water block the Nano's cause I can do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI
 
Waiting for the "early adopters got screwed" comments. But yeah, this new price feels just right and where it should have been since day 1.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Waiting for the "early adopters got screwed" comments. But yeah, this new price feels just right and where it should have been since day 1.
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Early adopters deserved to get screwed if they bought it at the original price.
 
Would love to see someone whack one of these on a phasechange setup...
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Waiting for the "early adopters got screwed" comments. But yeah, this new price feels just right and where it should have been since day 1.
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I don't know that early adopters got screwed, it launched a while ago. If they dropped the price after a month I'd say early adopters got screwed.

Anyways, the new price is better, but with 14/16 nm parts coming out this year it would have to drop a lot more to entice me.
 
Nuby1Canuby said:
Which is faster when overclocked? A Nano, Fury or 980?
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Nano:http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015...orm_factor_overclocking_review/5#.VpPv38_SlaQ

GTX 980:http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...overclocking_video_card_review/6#.VpPwUM_SlaQ

R9 Fury:http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_Fury_Strix/26.html

There aren't a lot of apples to apples due to test games, etc; but a little searching got me this far.

I wouldn't at all be interested in the Nano GPU unless I had to have a SFF PC that was really tiny, even at 499.
My advice would be to buy a Corsair 250D and put whatever GPU you wanted with room and ventilation to spare.:p
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Waiting for the "early adopters got screwed" comments. But yeah, this new price feels just right and where it should have been since day 1.
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I know how they feel, we purchased our Nano for review. I sold it for $450 finally after having it up for sale for a few weeks.
 
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Brent_Justice said:
Our review said everything it needed to at the time. Our suggestion for lowering the price point was a good one, one AMD eventually did do. We did three very in-depth reviews of the Nano, no more needs to be tested or said about it. The price point doesn't change its performance. The price point does make it more appealing for more people, which is what we said it needed all along, so no conclusion needs to be changed, we hit the nail on the head the first time.
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I didn't mean the whole review, but I do think I've seen before where you guys will go back to some older reviews and do an edit to the article, and potentially upgrade a card to silver or gold based on the new cost to performance point.

Was curious if that might happen here - I think I remember it being Silver due to the cost, no? Or am I not remembering correctly?
 
Zion Halcyon said:
I didn't mean the whole review, but I do think I've seen before where you guys will go back to some older reviews and do an edit to the article, and potentially upgrade a card to silver or gold based on the new cost to performance point.

Was curious if that might happen here - I think I remember it being Silver due to the cost, no? Or am I not remembering correctly?
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Please show me exactly where we have done that since you remember it as I do not.
 
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Zion Halcyon said:
I didn't mean the whole review, but I do think I've seen before where you guys will go back to some older reviews and do an edit to the article, and potentially upgrade a card to silver or gold based on the new cost to performance point.

Was curious if that might happen here - I think I remember it being Silver due to the cost, no? Or am I not remembering correctly?
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It got a gold. There were 3 reviews done on the R9 Nano:

R9 vs Gigabyte 970 in it's "intended" SFF scenario - Gold award
R9 Nano vs 980 Ti vs Fury X - no rating, none intended
R9 Overclocking review - no rating, none intended

It received some of the most comprehensive coverage of any card to date.
 
Quix said:
If you're creative the Fury X price point now doesn't make any sense.

Just buy a Nano, upgrade the cooling and overclock it. ;)
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I know you're joking but, sadly that 8-pin and Nano's 4 phases will really hold it back even if you threw on a waterblock and bios modded away all limiters.

Nuby1Canuby said:
Which is faster when overclocked? A Nano, Fury or 980?
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These summary charts from TPU should help.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Waiting for the "early adopters got screwed" comments. But yeah, this new price feels just right and where it should have been since day 1.
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A hyper-extension of the 'early adopters get strewed' counter argument is that 'esclusive time with product' is a commodity. You pay more to experience that product earlier than others. An Nvidia 9800GTX sure as hell isn't worth $400 now, but it released at that price (if I recall) and people payed that price and MOST of them were happy with their purchase. They were purchasing not only the product, but exclusive rights to that product at a time when it was something special.

The Nano was pretty overpriced, but anyone who paid the full launch price for it were purchasing that exclusive period, and now that the Nano costs less, nobody can ever purchase that exclusive period again. That time of product exclusivity now no longer available, anyone who buys the Nano now will never experience that period of time, in the same way as buying a 9800GTX now has nowhere near the same impact as buying one at launch.






or some bullsh*** like that.
 
lostinseganet said:
You guys sell computers / Computer parts like alienware or something? Or were you just selling it just to ditch it?
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We bought it, so we sold it when we were done with it.

darrpara said:
Since AMD didn't provide a sample I think Hardocp bought their own.
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We DO NOT sell review samples ever.

sboucher said:
Pretty sure he remembers incorrectly, you guys have followed up with new refreshed reviews. Not revised old ones.

He brings up a good point though. Is this thing worth of a Gold award now due to the price drop?
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At $499, surely in the context of it going into a small form factor system that would accept no other.
 
I don't recommend HardOCP constantly update reviews, that would be tedious. Maybe if within a week of something as an exception for a critical change.

I paid $549 back in November at NewEgg, there was sells here and there. $499 is great, plus once again sells can make this card even more tempting. My Nano is currently in a temporary case with a FX8350 while I build a custom case looking to be around 5 liters but not finalized yet.

I've also think I won the GPU lottery with the Nano as well, more on that later.
 
n=1 said:
I know you're joking but, sadly that 8-pin and Nano's 4 phases will really hold it back even if you threw on a waterblock and bios modded away all limiters.
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I reckon on phase (probably bit too much for TEC) you might have a shot. If you could drop it to -50°c I reckon it might clock better than any fury-x, which would be a prick to get going in the same way, given nearly twice the TDP in full fat.
 
Have the drivers improved the performance much since the original review or is it pretty similar? I understand these are for SFF cases but I've always wanted one for my mid-tower just for the look but the price point at launch, much like everyone else thought, was completely insane.
 
bboynitrous said:
Have the drivers improved the performance much since the original review or is it pretty similar? I understand these are for SFF cases but I've always wanted one for my mid-tower just for the look but the price point at launch, much like everyone else thought, was completely insane.
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Depends on the game, I would say mostly bug fixes. Started playing FarCry 4 at 3440x1440, everything maxed but using SMAA vice MSAA - I am getting 60fps+ :eek:. If I use MSAA it drops down in the 40's. In this game though I like SMAA (like Crysis for me as well) over MSAA, while MSAA does not blur as much it just leaves too many things not AA while SMAA does a much better job overall. In FarCry 3 the Nano is way better than my 290x even with a weaker CPU so been finishing up that game using the Nano.

The card is very quiet and considering it uses only one fan, is rather small and performance better than a 980 to me is rather amazing.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
AMD eats crow after all is said and done.

Any word on an apology from AMD regarding the "Fair Reviews" comment?
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maybe.. but at the original price even if they ended up selling 20% less than they would of at $499, they probably already made their investment back.

in the end there still isn't any real competition against the card in that niche market so they could of just left it at that price and not cared.
 
Prices always drop. This is no different. It's not a great reveal or admittance of any failure. They are likely yielding better and costing less to make.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
I can't think of anyone who thought that launch price made sense.
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I'm sure there were some early adopters who would have happily paid $800 dollars for the nano which is why AMD priced it so high for the first couple months... the standard first-month "one born every minute" price.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
maybe.. but at the original price even if they ended up selling 20% less than they would of at $499, they probably already made their investment back.

in the end there still isn't any real competition against the card in that niche market so they could of just left it at that price and not cared.
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I would go even further , this piece of technology was unmatched there was no HBM based competitor also the size and cooling was something never done before.

If you look at TV you pay way beyond premium for Oled TV now. By that standard I would agree that AMD could have pushed this home and stayed the course.

If people feel screwed by buying it early that happens to most if not all consumer electronics but this is somewhat offset by the situation AMD is in the premium people paid did one very good thing and that is help AMD out of the hole they are in and that is worth something that you can not get from any other purchase.
 
Relayer said:
Prices always drop. This is no different. It's not a great reveal or admittance of any failure. They are likely yielding better and costing less to make.
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What other "segment leading" products have you seen get over 20% price reductions on MSPR in the last year along with press releases?
 
darrpara said:
http://hometheaterreview.com/lg-slashes-oled-prices-more-than-30-percent/
http://www.lg.com/us/PDF/press-release/LG-OLED-TV-CATEGORY-OCT-8-2015.pdf
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Well, I was really talking about inside the same product realm for DIY PCs, not really any other product in the world. Color me not surprised at your example

JustReason said:
Ask and you shall receive. Price reductions aren't always an admission of failure.
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I don't think I ever even remotely said that, or typed it, or even came close to suggesting that.
.
 
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