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With the R9 Nano you get full 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units, 64 ROPs, and 4GB of 4096-bit high-bandwidth memory operating at 1000MHz. AMD claims performance is around 8.2 TFLOPS, which is only five percent below that of the Fury X. Even better, the Nano needs just a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, with a typical power consumption of 175W, which is miles below the 275W of the Fury X.

Of course, such dramatic power savings have to come from somewhere, and for the Nano that means a reduction in clock speed. The Nano's GPU is rated for "up to 1000MHz," with AMD saying that under typical usage in most games it runs between 850MHz and 900MHz. That's around a 14 percent decrease over the 1050MHz of the Fury X, but it's still impressive given the Nano's size. AMD puts performance somewhere between the Fury and Fury X, with the full shader count helping to mitigate the drop in clock speed versus the Fury.

Keeping the Nano cool is a combination vapour chamber and heat-pipe solution with a single fan, which largely vents hot air outside of the case, making it a great fit for smaller mini-ITX systems. AMD claims that because the Nano is targeted at the sweet spot of the Fiji power/performance curve, its target temperature under load (albeit with decent case cooling) is 75 degrees Celsius. Even better, the card won't start throttling until it hits 85 degrees, which is the typical load temperature for most high-end graphics cards.

Specs at a glance R9 Nano R9 Fury X R9 Fury R9 390X R9 290X Stream Processors 4096 4096 3584 2816 2816 Texture Units 256 256 224 176 176 ROPs 64 64 64 64 64 Boost Clock "Up to" 1000MHz 1050MHz 1000MHz 1050MHz 1000MHz Memory Bus Width 4096-bit 4096-bit 4096-bit 512-bit 512-bit Memory Clock 1GHz 1GHz 1GHz 6GHz 5GHz Memory Bandwidth 512GB/s 512GB/s 512GB/s 384GB/s 320GB/s Memory Size 4GB HBM 4GB HBM 4GB HBM 8GB GDDR5 4GB GDDR5 Typical Board Power 175W 275W 275W 250W 250W

The Nano sports a similar design theme to the Fury X, with a brushed aluminium finish, full metal shroud, and matte black PCB. It'll initially only be available in the reference design, but partner cards with different designs will arrive later in the year. That said, users who are brave enough to install third-party cooling solution, or water-cool the card, will be able to overclock the card to Fury X levels simply by changing the power target in AMD's Catalyst Control Center software. Further overclocking will be possible with third-party tools like MSI's Afterburner software.

The Nano is an extremely interesting product, then, and as AMD points out, there's not really much else like it on the market. Both the R9 380 Compact and GTX 970 Mini have similar form factors, but both are in a completely different performance bracket to the Nano. For those building a mini-ITX gaming PC that can't take a full-length graphics card, or even those wanting to build a low-power CrossFire system (there's support for up to four-way CrossFire), the Nano is potentially going to be the best option.

At $649/£530, you will have to pay for the privilege when the Nano is released on September 10. But on paper at least, performance should be outstanding compared to the competition. AMD is also at pains to point out that the Nano and Fury X are a "dual flagship stack," with one "all about performance," and the other "about form factor." Whether users will see it that way remains to be seen, but consider our interest piqued.

If the Nano does indeed perform as well as, if not better than, the Fury thanks to its full shader count, then it'll be an outstanding card for smaller system builds. That's not to mention the potential for overclocking, which could push performance even further. Hopefully we'll get to put the card through its paces; we'd love to see how the R9 Nano does under DirectX 12.