AMD Radeon R9 Nano 4GB Video Card Review

[Apoptosis]

AMD today released the tiny six inch long Radeon R9 Nano into the market. The AMD Radeon R9 Nano is a very interesting graphics card since it features a fully enabled AMD Fiji XT GPU that has a core clock of up to 1000 MHz and a TDP of just 175 Watts. Today we'll be taking a look at the AMD Radeon R9 Nano and will be comparing it to the ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Mini-ITX to see who has the fastest graphics card for those looking for something really tiny!



Article Title: AMD Radeon R9 Nano 4GB Video Card Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon- ... iew_171995

[sbohdan]

Again the price. If they would realy want some momentum and take some big chunk of the market, they would charge no more, than what the 970 mini costs. For $650 (the price for a GTX980Ti, that is much more powerful) they can go bankrupt as far as I'm concerned. You pay for the size? That is a real bull...t. Is 15-20% faster than the NVidia contender but you supposed to pay double and they expect to win over some customers from NVidia with that? Eh

[pwcmed]

Really surprised you guys gave this a Recommended Award. With them not sending samples out I think I will just start buying Nvidia. They're losing GPU market share but continue to overprice them. Sorry AMD your PR, price and performance has driven me to Nvidia.

[Apoptosis]

Really surprised you guys gave this a Recommended Award. With them not sending samples out I think I will just start buying Nvidia. They're losing GPU market share but continue to overprice them. Sorry AMD your PR, price and performance has driven me to Nvidia.

AMD did send the normal number of samples out. They just didn't send them to a handful of sites that they knew weren't going to recommend it and give it a bad review. It happens fairly often, but some reason this time around a ton of sites made stories out of it.

My good buddy Kyle over at [H] was one of the guys that didn't get a card and he made a point to let the world know. This isn't his first rodeo as I remember years ago when Dan Synder at Intel cut him off and no longer sent him Intel Extreme Edition processors as Kyle ripped on those. Kyle is one of the more outspoken guys in the industry as that is Kyle. He learned long ago that controversy is beneficial to traffic and has become very good at it.

As for the price point... I totally agree that it should be lower and $649 is one hell of a premium for getting a 6-inch card. We've had sub 8-inch cards for years and they didn't need to be priced this high. The thing that irked me about the price is for $649 you expect the damn thing to be perfect, but our sample had choke whine and it appears that a number of reviewers also mentioned it. That isn't a good thing. I've been using and reviewing Mini-ITX boards for years. When enthusiast companies started making Mini-ITX boards they found the market to be smaller than the first thought and sales were going slower and the numbers were lower than they expected. I believe that AMD will soon realize this. The vast majority of 'Mini-ITX' cases also support larger cards as Mini-ITX cases for the most part continue to get larger and larger. AMD needs some momentum in the mITX case market for this card to take off. They need to release a lower cost card to help that market grow if they want this product to be successful. They need a $150, $300 and $600 card at a minimum I would think to get the SFF short card market covered.

Give it a month or two and lets see what the price is. AMD needs to get sales and if the volume builds up I would hope that the top brass cuts prices to make something rather than nothing.

[KnightRid]

I think AMD is still patting itself on its back for getting the console deal and figure they can charge premium prices for lower products because they still have a huge console contract they can hold and dance around with.

I have not been a fan of AMD since they started to charge higher prices for lower performing products and I have switched to Intel and Nvidia until they wake up and see the light. Make a product that blows the newest gen stuff out of the water and price it LOW to make every single person in the industry go "HOLY $#!&" and then i will come back.

[Apoptosis]

I think AMD is still patting itself on its back for getting the console deal and figure they can charge premium prices for lower products because they still have a huge console contract they can hold and dance around with.

I have not been a fan of AMD since they started to charge higher prices for lower performing products and I have switched to Intel and Nvidia until they wake up and see the light. Make a product that blows the newest gen stuff out of the water and price it LOW to make every single person in the industry go "HOLY $#!&" and then i will come back.

From my understanding that console deal was actually isn't that profitable... Remember this - http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/15089 ... e-terrible

AMD is making money off the deal, but not nearly enough to cover their $238 million per quarter R&D budget for example. By the way that is AMD's lowest R&D budget in over 10 years.

Over the past 20 years how many time has AMD blown Intel out of the water? You are asking for a once in a decade or more event to happen!

[KnightRid]

From my understanding that console deal was actually isn't that profitable... Remember this - http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/15089 ... e-terrible

AMD is making money off the deal, but not nearly enough to cover their $238 million per quarter R&D budget for example. By the way that is AMD's lowest R&D budget in over 10 years.

Over the past 20 years how many time has AMD blown Intel out of the water? You are asking for a once in a decade or more event to happen!

It is still money though! More than they would have just making the normal fair of products. I dunno, I just want AMD to go back to making great products at great price points rather than trying to compete with Intel/Nvidia and lose customers. Price is key for AMD (in my eyes) and they just are not low enough to create that spark they need. Once they could get that spark then they could raise prices as long as they keep up with or beat the competitor.

"You are asking for a once in a decade or more event to happen!" - Yes, yes I am

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate AMD but just can't see the benefit of buying their products right now compared to what the competitors have. Heck, I used to use AMD for everything I built for people because of the price point back in the day.

[Apoptosis]

yeah, I just don't see them being in a financial position to do low prices any longer... Keep in mind that AMD has a net profit margin of -19.21% and that is significantly below that of the industry average.

You can't be losing millions ever quarter and then fire sale your products hoping to become profitable some day. PC owners aren't really brand loyal when it comes to one company having big technological gains over another. Most in recent years are going for technology/performance over price.

The buyout rumors this week by Microsoft appear to be losing steam as well - http://www.thestreet.com/story/13287510 ... steam.html

[KnightRid]

The buyout rumors this week by Microsoft appear to be losing steam as well - http://www.thestreet.com/story/13287510 ... steam.html

That's a shame. That would have helped so much I think.

[JBarton]

Not worth it...