AMD R9 Nano 4GB (HBMv1) CrossFire Review

Final Thoughts

Price

Since the initial launch of the R9 Fury X, HBMv1 stock levels and prices have plateaued. This has resulted in the R9 Nano being available for as little as £469.99 from OverclockersUK. In the US, the R9 Nano range has slightly dropped in price and can now be purchased for just $619.99 from Newegg.com.

Overview

I can honestly say I’m impressed with what I’ve seen today, but more with how much power these small units pack at such a low power requirement rather than the overall performance compared to the competition. You have to remember that the R9 Nano has an incredibly low TDP of 175W, which is delivered by a single 8-Pin PCI-e power connector.

If we take a look at the 3DMark 1080p Graphics score and compare the R9 Nano to the GTX 980Ti dual card scores, the Nano uses just 70% of the rated power, but delivered over 85% of the power. When you consider that the R9 Nano is around £100 cheaper and half of the size than the average GTX 980Ti and the R9 Nano combo makes a lot of sense. But that being said, this amount of power would be much better on a single card, which is believed to be in production as the R9 Fury X2; rather than two separate cards which defeats the point of size of the card.

The cooling on these cards is actually quite good when used as a single card, but when together, there isn’t enough airflow to the top card in slot one and the fan ramps up to a very audible level. The temperatures levelled off around the 70°c mark, but the temperature difference between each card was as large as 15°c in some cases, but this was due to the optimisation of each card in different games.

The 4GB of HBM is hard to determine its usefulness. Personally I see very little restriction in the testing that we carry out, even at 4K due to how fast the HBM processes the information and sends it back out. The limitation is apparent at higher resolutions when over 4GB is required at once during heavily textured scenes, but otherwise it is very hard to notice that you only have 4GB. Sadly, with the increasing VRAM demand in games and the progression to higher resolution displays with faster refresh rates, 4GB is not enough especially in CrossFire.

Pros

• Great performance
• Quiet operation at low loads
• HBM is innovative
• Extremely low power consumption for performance
• Compact size is ideal for small form factor

Cons

•  Crossfire R9 Nano’s defeats the ideal of small form factor suitability

Neutral

• 4GB HBM is good for now, but very little future-proofing

“The R9 Nano in Crossfire is an amazing achievement for AMD and a great step in the right direction for the future of powerful, compact computer gaming.”

Thank you to our partners for providing us with the review samples.