R9 Nano Review thread

[mmj_uk]

All this confusion over cases, power supplies and Nanos.

Here you go this case

YOUR BASKET
1 x cubitek mini center mini-itx case - black £27.95
total : £27.95 (includes shipping : ex.vat).



- maximum graphics card length: 180 mm

so that rules out the furyx and 980ti

fury x - dimensions: 195(l) x 110(w) x 40(h)mm

ref 980ti - dimensions: l=282mm, w=110mm, h=43mm

nano - dimensions: 154*112*40mm

case power supplies requirements - power supply: standard atx 1x (optional), max. 150 mm length

here's power supply that will fit.

your basket
1 x superflower golden green hx 650w "80 plus gold" power supply - black £71.99
total : £71.99 (includes shipping : ex.vat).




psu - dimension: 145mm(l) x 150mm(w) x 86mm(h)

that took all of five minutes to look up, so you guys saying you cannot find a case/psu combo that will only fit the nano couldn't of looked that hard. ( i mean mini itx cases sort by price and it s the first one)

i'd love to see noise/temperature/performance testing done in that case, you're going to get a lot of heat build up.

reviewers have already mentioned that the fan gets noisy so the question is if you were in the market for a sff pc would you want a noisy fan? you'd be better off getting a slightly bigger case with better airflow and a better cooled/quieter card.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-radeon-r9-nano,review-33301-11.html

From a distance of 50cm, we measured just under 46 dB(A) with our calibrated microphone. This is certainly well above what AMD would like you to believe according to its marketing materials, but it’s also a lot lower than some of the company's previous efforts. Remember uber mode?

Overall, this is certainly a respectable result. The way that the Radeon R9 Nano squeezes into our tiny case, 180W of waste heat can’t really be dealt with any better using air cooling. The Gigabyte GTX 970 Mini might operate at a somewhat lower noise level, 39.9 dB(A) and 42.3 dB(A) under full load, but the comparison isn't even close to fair given the performance discrepancy between them.

Being quieter than a 290X in Uber mode really isn't anything to cheer about.

The GTX970 mini might not be all that much better but it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

 

[Kelt]

Will anyone be buying the Nano at it's current price ?

Nono.

 

[ALXAndy]

Will anyone be buying the Nano at it's current price ?

Absolutely not.

I know that in the big scheme of things I am a mere drop in the ocean but, I am a lost sale.

As of next Friday I get paid, and once I do I have around £450 that's pretty much disposable for the month (with rent, living, bills, food etc taken out).

Had the Nano launched at £450 or under I would have definitely been ordering one next Friday.

I know I could basically save the £450 and pay the price AMD want next month but I won't. Put simply? I feel Nano is only worth £450 and as much as I would love a nice FPS boost @ 4k I just won't pay a price that I don't think it's worth.

I bought my Fury X from Greg for £460 (some of it was a donation to his colleagues at work) and I felt that for a card put together as it is (with the rubbery finish stuff that Bitfenix and others use) with a water cooler and so on it was actually worth what I paid.

All they have done is take that die and put it onto a considerably cheaper set up. No AIO, just one small fan.

It's not worth it AMD. Honestly and sincerely I hope you listen to people like me because it's a lack of us that have put you where you are today.

I'm not just saying your card is not worth £515-£600 because put simply I can't afford it right now I am just saying that as a potential customer I do not feel this product is worth the money.

And you can style it out with the "Oh well, some one else will buy the card you would have bought at this price any way !" the bottom line is I am a lost sale and a part of the reason why you're in the poo you're in.

 

[Orangey]

Is this the most pointless waterblock ever ?

For the same money as the Nano you can buy a Fury X and put a block on that. The advantage being you get a lot more performance with the Fury X.

http://www.techpowerup.com/215928/aquacomputer-announces-kryograpics-radeon-r9-nano-water-block.html

A lot of SFFers probably get excited at the build ideas for a single-slot non-throttling full Fiji with a PCB the size of the Nano's.

 

[ALXAndy]

A lot of SFFers probably drool at the idea of a single-slot non-throttling full Fiji with a PCB the size of the Nano's.

This product is getting a lot of hate from people who aren't the target market. I don't see that stopping as people always hate what they don't understand.

I don't hate it I think it's a serious feat of technical engineering. I just think the price is completely wrong.

If the wind was blowing in the perfect direction and I was about to build a tiny rig and wanted to game at 4k? then I could possibly be convinced that this card is worth the quite frankly outrageous price AMD are charging for it.

But sadly back on planet earth it's the same old story. AMD going for a target audience that are quite frankly tiny and will not get them out of the trouble they are in.

Next thing they will be 'doing a 3DFX' and making GPUs with four or more cores on that are not supported by anything or any one.

 

[Sencha]

Absolutely not.

I know that in the big scheme of things I am a mere drop in the ocean but, I am a lost sale.

As of next Friday I get paid, and once I do I have around £450 that's pretty much disposable for the month (with rent, living, bills, food etc taken out).

Had the Nano launched at £450 or under I would have definitely been ordering one next Friday.

I know I could basically save the £450 and pay the price AMD want next month but I won't. Put simply? I feel Nano is only worth £450 and as much as I would love a nice FPS boost @ 4k I just won't pay a price that I don't think it's worth.

I bought my Fury X from Greg for £460 (some of it was a donation to his colleagues at work) and I felt that for a card put together as it is (with the rubbery finish stuff that Bitfenix and others use) with a water cooler and so on it was actually worth what I paid.

All they have done is take that die and put it onto a considerably cheaper set up. No AIO, just one small fan.

It's not worth it AMD. Honestly and sincerely I hope you listen to people like me because it's a lack of us that have put you where you are today.

I'm not just saying your card is not worth £515-£600 because put simply I can't afford it right now I am just saying that as a potential customer I do not feel this product is worth the money.

And you can style it out with the "Oh well, some one else will buy the card you would have bought at this price any way !" the bottom line is I am a lost sale and a part of the reason why you're in the poo you're in.

Totally agree. Had same amount of cash put aside for one. Really want to throw money at AMD but they're not interested .

 

[Kaapstad]

A lot of SFFers probably get excited at the build ideas for a single-slot non-throttling full Fiji with a PCB the size of the Nano's.

The thing is you can waterblock a fullspeed Fury X for the same price that will go in any case a watercooled Nano will go in.

The Fury X with water blocks is tiny and single slot.

Here are some I did earlier as they say on Blue Peter.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'd love to see noise/temperature/performance testing done in that case, you're going to get a lot of heat build up.

Reviewers have already mentioned that the fan gets noisy so the question is if you were in the market for a SFF PC would you want a noisy fan? you'd be better off getting a slightly bigger case with better airflow and a better cooled/quieter card.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-radeon-r9-nano,review-33301-11.html


Being quieter than a 290X in Uber mode really isn't anything to cheer about.

The GTX970 mini might not be all that much better but it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

I use acoustic foam in my aluminium Cubitek Minicube. Seems to work well and aluminium cases tend to deaden sound less too.

 

[nashathedog]

When I used to run two GTX 670s in SLI Metro Last Light was one of the games that would make the top card over heat. Not so much the benchmark itself but the game.

I can think of other games that really get my GPUs hot but tbh? MLL is a decent enough example.

As for the card? hurrah, Awesome stuff AMD

As for the price? lmao. I would sack the brain dead monkey that does Nvidia's prices if I were you.

Although what you're saying supports the point I'm making it is a totally different situation, I'm only running a single card which is what anyone with a Nano ITX build will be running so it will be less likely to get as hot which is a good thing and like I said I ran the bench three times consecutively and it still didn't get my Fury up to the expected operating temperature so them running the bench and then posting the results from it showing little to no effect between it being enclosed and not is not necessarily indicative to what someone will experience when there actually spending time in-game. Dying Light would do the trick, It got up to 77 before the cooler reigned it in the other day, That's the first time I've seen it go over 75 and I only spent 15 or 20 minutes in game. I'd be interested in seeing how the Nano behaves in an ITX case during a gaming session with that, 30 or 40 minutes would do the trick and give us an idea of how it would behave unlike a 10 minute bench that is not even long enough to get it time to properly heat itself and it's surrounding up.

I don't think we are seeing an accurate portrayal of how it will behave in the reviews we've been given, It may throttle loads it may not, I don't know it may avoid it by ramping the fan up which could make it pretty loud. Overall I think it's a great card apart from the price I'd just like to see real world results not those that we will never experience,

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Anyway, I'm still a bit puzzled over the hate for this card.
What am I missing?

Cuz its AMD, innit. If it had a green label it'd be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Will anyone be buying the Nano at it's current price ?

Absolutely not, but then I'm not in the market for an SFF case/components. Too many compromises. I'd like one, though. Without the compromises.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Although what you're saying supports the point I'm making it is a totally different situation, I'm only running a single card which is what anyone with a Nano ITX build will be running so it will be less likely to get as hot which is a good thing and like I said I ran the bench three times consecutively and it still didn't get my Fury up to the expected operating temperature so them running the bench and then posting the results from it showing little to no effect between it being enclosed and not is not necessarily indicative to what someone will experience when there actually spending time in-game. Dying Light would do the trick, It got up to 77 before the cooler reigned it in the other day, That's the first time I've seen it go over 75 and I only spent 15 or 20 minutes in game. I'd be interested in seeing how the Nano behaves in an ITX case during a gaming session with that, 30 or 40 minutes would do the trick and give us an idea of how it would behave unlike a 10 minute bench that is not even long enough to get it time to properly heat itself and it's surrounding up.

I don't think we are seeing an accurate portrayal of how it will behave in the reviews we've been given, It may throttle loads it may not, I don't know it may avoid it by ramping the fan up which could make it pretty loud. Overall I think it's a great card apart from the price I'd just like to see real world results not those that we will never experience,

You do realise all cards are pre-heated now before benchmarks??

Boost was introduced with Kepler V1. However,most sites did not understand it well so benched from cold. However,they realised it lead to variable results,so started pre-heating cards before benchmarks. The first sites to notice the issues were a few German and French ones,and even Hardware Canucks saw it with certain GTX660TI cards. Then the whole issue with the R9 290X and R9 290 reference cooler too.

So its been the case for a while now.

Edit!!

OK,I asked on Hexus if the reviewer would be willing to run an extended test in an SG05.

 

[jamie1414]

Price is fair if you realize that this is for a very very niche audience. If you want a powerful but really small box then this is your only option. The only problem is that market is very very niche. And it's probably true that the market would be larger if the price was more reasonable compared to the performance. If I were to make a small box I'd just get a box that supports a card a couple inches bigger and save myself money or get a better performing card.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

reviewstudio review :-

http://www.reviewstudio.net/2327-amd-radeon-r9-nano-review-mini-itx-goes-4k

 

[Harlequin]

so people laud over £1000 for a titan x but whinge over the fastest itx solution? really?

but no fanboys exist here do they....

 

[nitram100]

Jesus Christ the price LOL just get a 970 mini.

 

[mmj_uk]

so people laud over £1000 for a titan x but whinge over the fastest itx solution? really?

but no fanboys exist here do they....

Titan is still the fastest GPU available and it has 3 times more memory than AMD's latest and greatest, not many people bought Titan but it has a small market. R9 Nano isn't even very attractive as a SFF part which is its intended purpose.

If I had that kind of money to invest in SFF I'd be looking at a case to fit a Fury X on the AMD side, it'll be far quieter under heavy loads, faster as it won't throttle and it won't be dumping heat onto your CPU and into PSU.

 

[nashathedog]

OK,I asked on Hexus if the reviewer would be willing to run an extended test in an SG05.

That'd be good so we can a variety of results, The reason is some games don't push a card as hard as you might expect, It's hard to see it with my Fury as it's got such a good cooler but with my 290x before I had big title games that I could play for a hour or two and then afterwards Real Temp would give a highest recorder gpu temp in the 70's yet another big title game would hit the mid 90's. Pushing the Twin frozer fan to 90% to drop it back down. It'll be good to know how the Nano behaves with extended use and games that will push the temps up. Will it throttle badly? Will it speed the fan up to avoid the throttling? If it does how loud is it? etc.

When I saw that my Fury never even reached the Tri-x's 75 degree target temp after 3 consecutive runs of the Last Light benchmark it gave me the impression it wasn't a great one to use for max temp level tests.

 

[Ash0787]

Watching jayz review I notice a few things you lose vs fury x

- no backplate
- rubber surface is fake
- no LED logo
- no load indicator lights

also as he said having the 8 pin power connector attach to the end not the side effectively makes the length the same as the fury x ( which has its power sockets on the side )

Not having the radiator should have also allowed the Nano to be cheaper than it is.

 

[Scougar]

Watching jayz review I notice a few things you lose vs fury x

- no backplate
- rubber surface is fake
- no LED logo
- no load indicator lights

also as he said having the 8 pin power connector attach to the end not the side effectively makes the length the same as the fury x ( which has its power sockets on the side )

Not having the radiator should have also allowed the Nano to be cheaper than it is.

On a card this size, a back plate is irrelevant.

I'm off to watch that review however.

 

[jamie1414]

so people laud over £1000 for a titan x but whinge over the fastest itx solution? really?

but no fanboys exist here do they....

Titan X at launch was in a class of it's own. It's also the best performing card on the market currently.The nano's only benefit is it's small form factor which 99% of PC owners don't really care about, let alone at that kind of steep price.