The AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review: The Power of Size
by Ryan Smith on September 10, 2015 8:00 AM ESTTotal War: Attila
The second strategy game in our benchmark suite, Total War: Attila is the latest game in the Total War franchise. Total War games have traditionally been a mix of CPU and GPU bottlenecks, so it takes a good system on both ends of the equation to do well here. In this case the game comes with a built-in benchmark that plays out over a large area with a fortress in the middle, making it a good GPU stress test.
Yet again the R9 Nano has a solid lock on 4th place here, trailing the other two Fiji cards and then the GTX 980 Ti. The card does slightly better than average against the R9 Fury, coming within 96% of the performance of its sibling even at 3840x2160 at Quality settings.
Size-wise and power-wise, the R9 Nano is also consistently in the lead. Against the GTX 970 Mini this is anywhere between 11% and 22%, while against the GTX 980 it’s a much smaller 2-10% lead.
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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*