AMD's new R9 Nano - the ultimate GPU for small form-factor PCs?
Nano technology.
AMD has revealed full details on its upcoming ultra-small form-factor graphics card - the Radeon R9 Nano. It's a unique offering: a compact six-inch GPU with the horsepower to run the latest games at 4K resolution. Featuring the full complement of hardware features found in the top-end Fury X, the card consumes a typical 175W, with operating volume rated at just 42dB.
It's a far cry from the air-cooled R9 Fury and the water-cooled Fury X - both relatively power-hungry by comparison (and both rated at 275W). AMD's methodology in producing the cooler, more efficient Nano is simple enough - core frequencies drop from the 1050MHz found in the Fury X to around 850-900MHz depending on thermal and power budget. In producing the current Fury line, AMD pushed the Fiji chip close to its limits, and the more you push, the higher the power draw, and the amount of heat generated. It's not a linear relationship, so in dropping core frequency, AMD retains the bulk of the performance but saves a lot of power and temperatures reduce accordingly. Operating temperature at load is 75 degrees Celsius, but Nano only starts to throttle performance when it hits 85 degrees.
We asked AMD to clarify the expected performance level of the R9 Nano, and were told that the card should fall roughly into line with the air-cooled Radeon R9 Fury. This card retains most of the Fury X's clock-speed, but sees shader count drop from 4096 to 3584 - despite this, in our review, we noted that the air-cooled Fury offered over 90 per cent of the Fury X's performance at 4K.
Providing this kind of performance on a 175W budget might seem too good to be true, but AMD's contention is that by decking out the R9 Nano with the full complement of 4096 shaders, this off-sets the drop in clock-speeds, providing a similar level of performance. On top of that, AMD mentioned that despite the small form-factor, there is overclockability in the design - In our tests on prior Fury products, Fiji maxes out at around 1130MHz before it becomes unstable, but in the case of the Nano, it seems that how far it can be pushed is mostly down to how well the onboard cooler can keep temperatures beneath the 85 degree throttling level.
In an overclocking scenario, the firm believes that Nano can actually achieve frame-rates mid-way between Fury and Fury performance levels - though it's unclear right now if that would require an enhanced cooling solution. But even non-X Fury frame-rates at Nano's stock clocks would be a significant achievement - it's a bold claim we can't wait to put to the test. To put that into perspective, here's a re-run of our 4K benchmarks from the air-cooled Fury review (click through for 1080p and 1440p metrics). It's pretty impressive stuff at the higher resolutions, though Fury's effectiveness at 1080p is questionable - this is a card designed for 1440p or higher, and should also be impressive on 3440x1440 21:9 displays, not to mention VR applications.
| 3840x2160 (4K) | R9 390X | GTX 980 | Titan X | GTX 980 Ti | R9 Fury X | R9 Fury |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Witcher 3, High, HairWorks Off, Custom AA | 29.1 | 27.7 | 37.5 | 36.9 | 36.2 | 33.1 |
| Battlefield 4, High, Post-AA | 44.5 | 46.8 | 61.3 | 61.0 | 51.0 | 47.7 |
| Crysis 3, High, SMAA | 40.2 | 39.0 | 52.4 | 52.5 | 49.2 | 45.6 |
| Assassin's Creed Unity, Very High, FXAA | 22.7 | 21.8 | 27.4 | 26.5 | 25.3 | 23.0 |
| Far Cry 4, Very High, SMAA | 44.4 | 36.1 | 46.7 | 47.1 | 50.5 | 47.3 |
| Ryse: Son of Rome, Normal, SMAA | 37.8 | 31.5 | 42.2 | 41.7 | 44.0 | 40.9 |
| Shadow of Mordor, High, High Textures, FXAA | 50.1 | 42.4 | 54.8 | 54.8 | 55.5 | 51.6 |
| Tomb Raider, Ultra, FXAA | 51.4 | 47.1 | 64.6 | 61.3 | 63.9 | 55.5 |
AMD is targeting a $650 price-point for the R9 Nano - identical to the full-fat Fury X. Now, it may seem strange to charge exactly the same price for a lower-performing product, but the firm is keen to point out that the R9 Nano is an entirely unique offering. It's designed for small form-factor mini-ITX builds, where space is limited. According to AMD, in this scenario, the only competition that's anything like the R9 Nano is Nvidia's GTX 970 mini - a great card for a small form-factor build, but very definitely a tier or two down from the mooted performance offered by this new product.
However, it would be remiss of us not to mention that there are a number of slightly larger mini-ITX chassis designs out there that can accommodate full length cards, through extended depth or via simple modifications. Silverstone's Sugo SG05 shoebox is a good case in point - it fits a bunch of cards longer than the Nano and is easily modded to fit a top-tier Nvidia card. However, Nano is a good 40 per cent shorter, opening the door to even smaller, more discrete, but still highly potent gaming builds.
The upcoming release of the R9 Nano is a canny move from AMD - it leverages the strengths of its currently exclusive HBM memory technology to provide a product that Nvidia currently has no answer for at this time. The only tangible negative we can see here is the fact that this is the exact same Fiji silicon found in the existing Fury X - so that means no HDMI 2.0 support. Many PC gamers are looking to larger UHD resolution HDTVs in order to make the most of the extreme 4K pixel-count and in this scenario, the lack of support is unfortunate - R9 Nano would work extremely well in a small form-factor living room PC.
Overall though, we're highly intrigued by AMD's next high-end product - and we're fascinated to see whether it really can hit the performance level the firm claims for it. The Nano's release is expected some time in September and we'll bring you a review as soon as we can.