For a quick overview of AMD’s newest graphics card be sure to check out my video!

Introduction

Hey guys RED Ninja here, and it’s time to make it nano!

I’d like to thank AMD for sending me a review sample of the R9 Nano, I’ll be taking a look at building an extreme performance System within a small form factor case, So Let’s get started!

Size

The main importance of the R9 Nano is in the name, its small form factor build coming in at 6 inches this is the most compact and powerful GPU available, allowing it to be a perfect fit in 4K Mini ITX builds.

As you can see it’s half the size of Sapphire’s R9 390 Nitro and the R9 295×2 allowing this to be the perfect graphics card for mini itx systems, for this purpose size does matter.. “ladies”.

The Build

Here we have the Phanteks Evolv ITX, I choose this case to allow enough space for watercooling and plenty of upgrade potential in the future, I was able to fit a corsair H80i watercooler with ease as well as an addition two fans at the top of the case.

Comparing this build to my full sized ATX system you can see just how much performance we’re able to achieve in such a small form factor.

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Design

The nano has a similar design to the Fury X as you can see it’s not watercooled but that doesn’t come at a disadvantage since it has the same specs as the Fury X, it is clocked a little slower with a range of up to 1000mhz, this is to keep the Nano within AMD’s requirements, to significantly reduce the power draw by 100w compared to the Fury X and still remain quiet compared to the 290x allowing it to be 20 degrees cooler at 75c (with a max limit of 85c) verses the 290x seriously hot 95c!

Yes those are bananas #Banano

On the back we have one HDMI 1.4 port and three Displayports, there’s also a vent to allow hot air to blow out the back of the card.

Specs

Power Draw & Cooling

The power draw of the R9 Nano is 175w this gives you a little bit of overclocking potential, in AMD’s catalyst control you can move the power limit up to +25% and change the core clock speed, there is also a maximum temperature of 85c and a maximum fan speed which was set by default to 60% to provide quiet operation.

Taking a look at the R9 290x we can see just how much of an improvement the Nano is with Fiji architecture, i’d call this an achievement!

HBM

Next up is the High bandwidth memory, this has a lower power consumption and much higher bandwidth speed since the DRAM is stacked vertically on the GPU, this provides HBM to perform much faster than standard GDDR5 with less capacity.

HBM also uses 19x less surface area than GDDR5 requires, Enabling form factors through HBM to deliver incredible performance and efficiency at a small size.

Benchmarking

All testing was performed with the following specs for the best results.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/b/RqM8TW

I did the same tests with the Mini ITX system, featuring AMD’s Athlon 860k CPU and I was surprised how well it handled compared to the i7 with little bottleneck.

Check out that system here!

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/b/3sQV3C

Gaming

At 4K gaming Expect to see similar performance as the Fury X, I was able to hit almost all the games I tested at 45-60fps at ultra settings.

Mad Max

The Nano was able to achieve 45-60fps with everything manually maxed out with the custom profile, or as I like to call it MAX MAXED! I was actually amazed by this performance considering it’s a newly released title and how stunning the visuals looked! 1440p played flawlessly and still looked amazing especially on a freesync display!

BF4

BF4 provided +50fps with MSAA disabled averaging at a steady +60fps which is amazing to see in such a small form factor, dropping down to 1440p using freesync and I was able to achieve 90+fps at the same settings, providing an excellent smooth gaming experience!

Shadow of mordor

Shadow of mordor provided 45fps during battles at High settings topping out at 60fps in most areas, Ultra settings dropped the frame rate down to a minimum of 30fps, It was completely possible to play this game on medium settings and receive a constant 60fps.

GTA-V

In GTA-V I saw lows of 40fps and highs of 60fps with the graphic settings set to very high, with all settings set to high I saw a more constant 60fps, playing at 1440p I saw the fps come in at above 60-70fps

Metro Last light

For my last game I choose metro last light, at very high settings I saw lows of 30fps in the benchmark tool, lowering down to high/medium provided a much smoother gaming experience at around 50fps, in the story mode I was averaging 60fps at high settings, dipping down to 45fps in battles.

Conclusion

The R9 Nano is very capable of high end 4K gaming if you don’t mind dropping a few details down (Anti-aliasing) to allow a more consistent frame rate. Overall I would recommend playing at 1440p resolution with the details set to ultra for the best performance and graphical quality.

Gaming at 4K is now possible in a small form factor case. Hopefully we’ll start seeing cases being made for small form factor GPUs only, for the most compact builds, which wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for AMD’s R9 Nano.

For anyone looking to build a high performance PC for the livingroom the nano has you covered! If your running of a 1080p TV/monitor you can simply enable VSR (Virtual Super Resolution) to reach up to 4K,