Sometimes in the graphics card business we get so caught up in benchmarks, APIs, drivers and the like, we sometimes miss the chance to appreciate cool hardware. Yes, the “speeds and feeds” are important and we all pay attention to that, but sometimes the pure, unadulterated joy of appreciating something different and innovative in design can’t be understated. [And yes, I know that “pure” and “unadulterated” mean the same thing – I used both for emphasis.]
Today we want to share some cool hardware with you – introducing the AMD Radeon™ R9 Nano Graphics Card: the world's fastest Mini ITX gaming card.1 We first revealed this card back in June during our livestream announcing the AMD Radeon™ R9 Fury and 300 Series graphics cards, but outside of showing the card we didn’t reveal too much. So let’s get to it, shall we?
Simply put, this card is a marvel of engineering. Made possible and powered by a “full” Fiji chip – meaning a full 4096 stream processors and 4096-bit memory interface with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), this card brings never-before-seen performance to a graphics card form factor only 6” in length! At up to 30% faster than the competition’s best Mini ITX graphics card2, if you’re interested in building a Mini ITX PC, this card is truly in a class of its own.
See footnote #3
But as I said at the beginning this is more than just performance – this is about appreciating the overall design. Part of the AMD Radeon™ R9 Fury Series, our engineers spent a lot of time focusing on the things that are important for a card of this nature: power, thermals, and acoustics. Let me be more specific, and to help put things in perspective, let’s compare the AMD Radeon™ R9 Nano graphics card against our previous generation fastest single GPU (and 11” in length) graphics card, the AMD Radeon™ R9 290X graphics:
- At 175W typical board power it’s up to 30% lower power than the Radeon R9 290X card.4
- At a 75ᴼC target operating temperature, it’s up to 20ᴼC cooler than the Radeon R9 290X card.5
- At 42dBA, it’s up to 16dBA quieter than the Radeon R9 290X card.6
And of course, premium hardware needs a premium design. The industrial design of the Radeon R9 Nano follows the same high-standard industrial design principles we used with the AMD Radeon™ R9 Fury X graphics card with a brushed aluminum finish, full metal shroud and matte black PCB. This is one of those unique graphics cards that you want to hold in your hand for a little while to admire before you put it in your PC.
If you want to build a Mini ITX system the Radeon R9 Nano card can get you to unequalled 4K gaming (just take a look at the game chart earlier in the blog), the kind of ideal small PC to take to a LAN and play at high resolutions and framerates. If you are a MODer, the Radeon R9 Nano card lets you create something that is the ideal blend of small form factor and high performance. And at the end of the day if you just love cool hardware, this is the card for you.
We have a lot more to talk about on the AMD Radeon™ R9 Nano graphics card – next up be sure to join us on September 3, 2015 at 2PM CT (3PM ET) on our Twitch channel where we’ll talk more about the card, play some games, and show some more cool hardware inspired by the Radeon R9 Nano!
Darren McPhee is the Director of Product Marketing and Content Strategy for AMD. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
- Testing conducted by AMD Engineering on optimized AMD reference systems. PC manufacturers may vary configurations yielding different results. 3DMark FireStrike at 3840x2180, Ultra preset, 0xMSAA, 0XAF is used to simulate GPU performance; the Radeon™ R9 Nano on the system using the Intel® Core™ i7-5960X 3.0GHz processor, 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 2666 MHz memory, Windows 10 64-bit, and AMD Catalyst Driver 15.201 scored 3411 while the Sapphire Radeon™ R9 380 Mini ITX on the same system and AMD Catalyst Driver 15.20 scored 1551, the GTX 970 Mini ITX on the same system and GeForce Driver 355.60 WHQL scored 2593, the GTX 960 Mini ITX on the same system and GeForce Driver scored 1297 GRDT-73
- Testing conducted by AMD Engineering on optimized AMD reference systems. PC manufacturers may vary configurations yielding different results. Far Cry 4 at 3840x2180, Ultra High preset, SMAA, 0XAF is used to simulate GPU performance; the Radeon™ R9 Nano on the system using the Intel® Core™ i7-5960X 3.0GHz processor, 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 2666 MHz memory, Windows 10 64-bit, and AMD Catalyst Driver 15.201 scored 37.966 fps while the GTX 970 Mini ITX on the same system and GeForce Driver 355.60 WHQL scored 27.345 fps GRDT-70
- Testing conducted by AMD as of 17 August, 2015 in AMD Performance Labs on the AMD Radeon™ R9 Nano vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 Mini ITX at 4K resolution. The games were tested using the following settings: Battlefield 4, 3840x2160, High, FXAA, 0XAF; Crysis 3, 3840x2160, High, 0XAA, 0XAF; Far Cry 4, 3840x2160, High, SMAA, 0XAF; GTA V, 3840x2160, High, 0XAA, 4XAF; Shadow of Mordor, 3840x2160, High, 0XAA, 0XAF; Witcher 3, 3840x2160, High, 0XAA, 0XAF; . System Configuration: test system comprised an Intel® Core™ i7-5960X 3.0GHz processor, 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 2666 MHz memory, Windows 10 64-bit. AMD Catalyst Driver 15.201 and NVIDIA 355.60 WHQL Driver. GRDT-78
- Based on the product design, the Radeon™ R9 Nano is defined with a typical board power of 175W while the Radeon™ R9 290X is defined with a typical board power of 250W GRDT-76
- Based on the product design, the Radeon™ R9 Nano is defined with an operating temperature target of 75°C while the Radeon™ R9 290X is defined with an operating temperature target of 95°C GRDT-75
- Based on the product design, the Radeon™ R9 Nano is defined with a fan acoustic target of 42dBA while the Radeon™ R9 290X is defined with a fan acoustic target of 58dBA GRDT-77
