R9 Nano Review thread

[Kaapstad]

I think most on here, including myself, think the Titan is hilariously priced as well.

The Titans will outlast every card from their generation.

I would say that makes them quite good value.

Remember a Multi GPU Titan (original 6gb version) setup can run modern games better @2160p than a Multi GPU Fury X setup.

Considering the price of the Fury X I would say the asking price for the original Titans was quite reasonable.

 

[Joe!]

I'm almost tempted to knock 800 of your post count

Hah you are actually being serious

You're lucky my account is so new

 

[Jono8]

The GTX970 mini-ITX threads seemed all very small

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The GTX970 mini-ITX threads seem free of people whining at Nvidia as some people were claiming

 

[Marine-RX179]

I believe the reference 670 cards and 760 cards, as well as the 970-mini, have already proved that they can become smaller in size.
Still it's nice of AMD to show us this again a few years later, in case we'd forgotten.

You should probably already know that the 970 is hardly flagship spec design wise right? One of the reason why they can keep it small wass because they are limited to 2GB of GDDR5 memory. What I was referring to HBM is much smaller than GDDR5 memory, so for future gen cards we can actually have MORE memory but taking up far less physically space, which is what allow the smaller physical size of PCB.

What I was referring to was as disappointing as Fury series that it's not meeting our expectation, it did serve the good of showcasing flagship graphic can fit in a small package, and for next gen and future gen cards, we will likely have smaller cards options comparing to old GDDR5 tech...and I wasn't refering to AMD specifically, as Nvidia will be onboard with HBM memory replacing GDDR5 memory in the next gen as well (hopefully).

But glad to see even comment like that can rub people the wrong way, and take it as an offense toward Nvidia...

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

The GTX970 mini-ITX threads seem free of people whining at Nvidia as some people were claiming

Who said there was whining? I said that nobody seemed to care much (i.e. a low post count, as you proved).

You should probably already know that the 970 is hardly flagship spec design wise right? One of the reason why they can keep it small wass because they are limited to 2GB of GDDR5 memory. What I was referring to HBM is much smaller than GDDR5 memory, so for future gen cards we can actually have MORE memory but taking up far less physically space, which is what allow the smaller physical size of PCB.

What I was referring to was as disappointing as Fury series that it's not meeting our expectation, it did serve the good of showcasing flagship graphic can fit in a small package, and for next gen and future gen cards, we will likely have smaller cards options comparing to old GDDR5 tech...and I wasn't refering to AMD specifically, as Nvidia will be onboard with HBM memory replacing GDDR5 memory in the next gen as well (hopefully).

But glad to see even comment like that can rub people the wrong way, and take it as an offense toward Nvidia...

Both
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-356-AS
and
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-153-GI
say they have 4GB GDDR5 (although being a 970 that's probably 3.5 + 0.5).
Also, not entirely sure, but the 970 had HDMI 2.0 doesn't it? Not sure if the mini does. Handy feature for people that want to connect them up to larger resolution TVs. Don't worry, I'm sure there will be a massive hype train around it once AMD put HDMI 2.0 on a card.

Is it flagship spec, no. Would it be viable to game on, don't see why not.
You could buy 2 970-minis for the price of 1 Nano though. And they come with a free game each. Of course that won't fit in an ITX motherboard, but maybe it meets the niche requirement of a small Micro-ATX case with enough room for 2 short GPUs but not a longer GPU where you also need HDMI 2.0. It seems we can define a niche to make anything worthwhile at the minute...

 

[Jono8]

Still a good few comments questioning its usefullness.

It is difficult to gauge though as all the threads are so small, not many seemed that interested.

 

[Jono8]

Who said there was whining? I said that nobody seemed to care much (i.e. a low post count, as you proved).



Both
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-356-AS
and
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-153-GI
say they have 4GB GDDR5 (although being a 970 that's probably 3.5 + 0.5).
Also, not entirely sure, but the 970 had HDMI 2.0 doesn't it? Not sure if the mini does. Handy feature for people that want to connect them up to larger resolution TVs. Don't worry, I'm sure there will be a massive hype train around it once AMD put HDMI 2.0 on a card.

Is it flagship spec, no. Would it be viable to game on, don't see why not.
You could buy 2 970-minis for the price of 1 Nano though. And they come with a free game each. Of course that won't fit in an ITX motherboard, but maybe it meets the niche requirement of a small Micro-ATX case with enough room for 2 short GPUs but not a longer GPU where you also need HDMI 2.0. It seems we can define a niche to make anything worthwhile at the minute...

The 970 mini does indeed have HDMI 2.0 ( at least the Gigabyte one does anyway)

 

[Gregster]

It's like a religious war on this sub forum.

Not even close lol

 

[Jono8]

Still one in stock! GO GO GO!

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Who said there was whining? I said that nobody seemed to care much (i.e. a low post count, as you proved).

Still a good few comments questioning its usefullness.

It is difficult to gauge though as all the threads are so small, not many seemed that interested.

Thats the point people going on about "red" team zero and "green" team zero,were not really going on a hissy fit in any of those threads,and there were far more postive comments about card which was still not as good value as full sized GTX970 and even R9 290 cards at the time.

Most of the people,including me,who actually posted in one of the threads were mini-ITX fans anyway,as it was blatantly obvious it was not pitched towards better valued full sized cards.

Yet,compare it to this one,it seems like a war and people who would never care much for AMD cards anyway for at least this gen or even care for mini-ITX systems at all,seem to be very concerned about this for some weird reason(otherwise why would they post in this thread??),and I expect if it were treated the same as the GTX970 Mini,ie,a niche product which is more expensive than similar full sized cards,it would probably be only two pages long.

For a card nobody cares about,it sure is a long thread!

 

[Jono8]

Thats the point people going on about "red" team zero and "green" team zero,were not really going on a hissy fit in any of those threads,and there were far more postive comments about card which was still not as good value as full sized GTX970 and even R9 290 cards at the time.

Yet,compare it to this one,it seems like a war and people who would never care much for AMD cards anyway for at least this gen,seem to be very concerned about this for some weird reason(otherwise why would they post in thos thread??),and I expect if it were treated the same as the GTX970 Mini,ie,a niche product which is more expensive than similar full sized cards,it would probably be only two pages long.

For a card nobody cares about,it sure is a long thread!

and yet you keep coming back to it as well. You love it.

The reason this is long is that people (including myself) were looking forward to this card, but then the price was announced and everyone went "wtf?".

 

[Kaapstad]

The 970 mini does indeed have HDMI 2.0 ( at least the Gigabyte one does anyway)

I don't follow connection standards that much but why is it so important for a card to have HDMI 2.0 when it has already got Displayport ?

 

[Jono8]

I don't follow connection standards that much but why is it so important for a card to have HDMI 2.0 when it has already got Displayport ?

Something to do with 4k tv's and 60hz i think (as i understand it, not many TV's have a display port connection)

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

and yet you keep coming back to it as well. You love it.

The reason this is long is that people (including myself) were looking forward to this card, but then the price was announced and everyone went "wtf?".

I am a mini-ITX fan,of course I think the card is great if not overpriced. I even a few years back cut up a G2 series Shuttle so I could fit an HD5850 in it - it kind of worked!

Even worked on an ammo-box system with a mate using a single slot 9800GT which ran stupidly hot.

I nearly bought the GTX970 Mini myself,but ended up buying a new tripod and gimbal head for my dSLR,so have no monies now!

But guess what,I bought Shuttles when they were like the best SFF systems and they were massively overpriced and flawed too.

Some of the most vocal people against the card,well to put,I have seen them even care one dot about SFF systems(could be wrong),and thats why the GTX970 Mini threads were short - only people who cared about SFF systems posted in them.

Yet at the same time,you never saw any of the more vocal AMD fans jumping and starting a war about them.

But more importantly,why can't we have some discussion about things like the Powertune on the card,which seems to run reasonably well,compared to what we saw in the R9 290 series?? It does seem a genuine improvement in implementation over the R9 290 series.

Even the fact that AMD managed to tame a GPU with GTX980TI levels of power consumption down to more GTX970/GTX980 levels,especially as it turns out AMD has gone the more hardware route in certain functions which adds power consumption,where as Nvidia gone more the way of better sw optimisation(and better effiency I suspect),to gain similar functionality.

Not to say Nvidia could not do the same either or the Nano should be MUCH CHEAPER,but still...

 

[andybird123]

I don't follow connection standards that much but why is it so important for a card to have HDMI 2.0 when it has already got Displayport ?

the vast majority of TV's don't have display port (select Panasonic models only), so hdmi2.0 is the only way to get a 60hz connection to most 4K TV's

 

[Jono8]

the vast majority of TV's don't have display port (select Panasonic models only), so hdmi2.0 is the only way to get a 60hz connection to most 4K TV's

It just adds to the Nano's very niche temperament

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

I am a mini-ITX fan,of course I think the card is great if not overpriced. I even a few years back cut up a G2 series Shuttle so I could fit an HD5850 in it - it kind of worked!

Even worked on an ammo-box system with a mate using a single slot 9800GT which ran stupidly hot.

I nearly bought the GTX970 Mini myself,but ended up buying a new tripod and gimbal head for my dSLR,so have no monies now!

But guess what,I bought Shuttles when they were like the best SFF systems and they were massively overpriced and flawed too.

Some of the most vocal people against the card,well to put,I have seen them even care one dot about SFF systems(could be wrong),and thats why the GTX970 Mini threads were short - only people who cared about SFF systems posted in them.

Yet at the same time,you never saw any of the more vocal AMD fans jumping and starting a war about them.

But more importantly,why can't we have some discussion about things like the Powertune on the card,which seems to run reasonably well,compared to what we saw in the R9 290 series?? It does seem a genuine improvement in implementation over the R9 290 series.

Even the fact that AMD managed to tame a GPU with GTX980TI levels of power consumption down to more GTX970/GTX980 levels,especially as it turns out AMD has gone the more hardware route in certain functions which adds power consumption,where as Nvidia gone more the way of better sw optimisation(and better effiency I suspect),to gain similar functionality.

Not to say Nvidia could not do the same either or the Nano should be MUCH CHEAPER,but still...

I will at least agree that Powertune on the 290/290X cards doesn't really work.
I've not tried a Nano, so can't really comment on how well that works.

As has been mentioned before, nobody cares about power consumption or efficiency on gaming cards, so that was a pointless exercise with the Nano.

 

[nashathedog]

Remember a Multi GPU Titan (original 6gb version) setup can run modern games better @2160p than a Multi GPU Fury X setup.

Is this true? If so then that's a massive fail considering the age gap and AMD's newest being targetted at 4k gaming.

I've been benching my Fury a bit and seeing other peoples 290/290x bench results I've gotta say the Fury is disappointing. Admittedly a lot of it is to do with the inability to overclock Fiji by very much but even so when you look at the increase in core count you'd expect more. There seems to be something other than the lack of overclocking holding Fiji back and I hope they solve it soon.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I will at least agree that Powertune on the 290/290X cards doesn't really work.
I've not tried a Nano, so can't really comment on how well that works.

As has been mentioned before, I don't about power consumption or efficiency on gaming cards, so that was a pointless exercise with the Nano.

I thought the world+dog were going on how important power consumption was when the GTX970 and GTX980 were launched. I get it now.