The AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review: The Power of Size
by Ryan Smith on September 10, 2015 8:00 AM ESTThe Competition
One of the issues in testing an unusual card like the R9 Nano is figuring out what to test it against. By and large most of the video cards we receive are, well, large, which is suitable for evaluating high performance cards, but presents a bit more of a problem when looking for something to compare the R9 Nano to.
Anticipating this problem, AMD offered to send us a competitive NVIDIA card as well, ASUS’s GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini. As a matter of policy we typically don’t accept rival cards from a vendor in this fashion in order to avoid testing pre-arranged (and contrived) scenarios. However in this case we had already been looking into NVIDIA Mini-ITX cards for this review and had previously settled on trying to get one of the GTX 970 minis, so we opted to break from standard policy and accept the card. As a result we want to be transparent about accepting an NVIDIA card from AMD.
Left: AMD Radeon R9 Nano. Right: ASUS GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini
The Test
Meanwhile after some early experimentation on how to best evaluate the R9 Nano, we have opted to break from tradition a little bit here as well and test the card in two rigs. For our published numbers and for the purposes of apples-to-apples comparisons we are using our standard AnandTech GPU Testbed, a full-tower ATX system.
However in order to also test the R9 Nano in cozier conditions more fitting of its small size, we have also run a limited selection of cards within a second testbed as a control. Unfortunately we don’t have any true Mini-ITX systems around that are suitable for testing the R9 Nano, but for the next best thing we have turned to our frame capture workstation. Based on a Silverstone Sugo SG09 microATX case, this rig is built around a Core i7-3770 and typically houses our frame capture hardware for frame time analysis. For our testing we have pulled this out and set it up with some of our video cards in order to ensure that these cards operate similarly in cramped conditions.
The AnandTech microATX Video Capture Workstation w/R9 Nano
By and large the microATX case simply confirmed our results on our regular testbed after accounting for CPU differences, satisfying that testing in our larger regular testbed wasn’t unfairly impacting any of our major cards. However we’ll revisit the microATX case for our look at power, temperature, and noise.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-4960X @ 4.2GHz |
| Motherboard: | ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional |
| Power Supply: | Corsair AX1200i |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung SSD 840 EVO (750GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill RipjawZ DDR3-1866 4 x 8GB (9-10-9-26) |
| Case: | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition |
| Monitor: | Asus PQ321 |
| Video Cards: | AMD Radeon R9 Fury X ASUS STRIX R9 Fury AMD Radeon R9 Nano Club3D R9 390X 8GB royalQueen OC (Underclocked to 1050MHz) AMD Radeon R9 290X AMD Radeon R9 285 AMD Radeon HD 7970 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 ASUS GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Release 355.82 AMD Catalyst Cat 15.201.1102 |
| OS: | Windows 8.1 Pro |
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HOOfan 1 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Plenty of SFF cases fit full size cards now, unless you just have money burning holes in your pocket, why not buy one of those and get a regular non-X Fury or a 390X?przemo_li - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
ROTFL390X & 980 are TWICE as long.
That is SFF. Yeah, right. I will write SFF on my ITX tower. It will be so cool :P
trentchau - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
My Obsidian 250D is considered SFF (close to not being one) and it has a 980Ti in it. Why the laughter?HOOfan 1 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Fractal Node 202 will fit a GTX 980...are you going to tell me that is not small form factor?ingwe - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
For me there is a difference between a truly small form factor design and one that is "small form factor" but built to house a card twice as large as this. I am not saying this is an important distinction to everyone, but it is one that I would make. There is just a lot of size variability in mini-ITX cases.Your question though does really illustrate how much of a niche product this is though. You literally need to be going for the smallest package possible while retaining most of the performance--and not care about cost. It is an interesting product, but it is a mixed bag like the interview says.
tviceman - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Clearly the Nano is a more interesting card to review but the obvious elephant in the room here is that Anandtech have completely dropped the ball on the last two major Nvidia releases (gtx 960 and gtx 950). Not only that, but you were also late with the Fury X review (being bed ridden can be a valid excuse but when deadlines are continually missed excuses run dry).Ryan you have great analysis, fair reviews, and strong writing. You've also had days, weeks (and months) to get reviews out (and on time) with the above mentioned cards and have failed to do so. You obviously need more help with reviews.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
The 960 wasn't reviewed, most likely, because it was turkey.Gigaplex - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
How am I supposed to know it was turkey without either reading the review that doesn't exist, or buying one myself and being seriously disappointed? You don't just skip reviewing products that aren't very good, otherwise that defeats the point in reviews.K_Space - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link
@GigaplexI think Of is insinuating that Anandtech would not review a product that defaces nVidia (though I disagree). Getting the Nano review as a priority plus being chief editor (who probably proof reads other reviews), add in various administritive duties and it all takes its toll. The annual call up for reviewers has gone out recently; I think Anandtech made it clear enough they would love a helping hand in getting timely reviews... On time.
K_Space - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link
OG*