Friday, September 4th 2015
AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review by TPU...Not
There won't be a Radeon R9 Nano review on TechPowerUp. AMD says that it has too few review samples for the press. When AMD first held up the Radeon R9 Nano at its "Fiji" GPU unveil, to us it came across as the most promising product based on the chip, even more than the R9 Fury series, its dual-GPU variant, and the food-processor-shaped SFF gaming desktop thing. The prospect of "faster than R9 290X at 175W" is what excited us the most, as that would disrupt NVIDIA's GM204 based products. Unfortunately, the most exciting product by AMD also has the least amount of excitement by AMD itself.
The first signs of that are, AMD making it prohibitively expensive at $650, and not putting it in the hands of the press, for a launch-day review. We're not getting one, and nor do some of our friends on either sides of the Atlantic. AMD is making some of its tallest claims with this product, and it's important (for AMD) that some of those claims are put to the test. A validated product could maybe even convince some to reach for their wallets, to pull out $650.
Are we sourgraping? You tell us. We're one of the few sites that give you noise testing by some really expensive and broad-ranged noise-testing equipment, and more importantly, card-only power-draw. Our reviews also grill graphics cards through 22 real-world tests across four resolutions, each, and offer price-performance graphs. When NVIDIA didn't send us a GeForce GTX TITAN-Z sample, we didn't care. We didn't make an announcement like this. At $2,999, it was just a terrible product and we never wished it was part of our graphs. Its competing R9 295X2 could be had under $700, and so it continues to top our performance charts.
The R9 Nano, on the other hand, has the potential for greatness. Never mind the compact board design and its SFF credentials. Pull out this ASIC, put it on a normal 20-25 cm PCB, price it around $350, and dual-slot cooling that can turn its fans off in idle, and AMD could have had a GM204-killing product. Sadly, there's no way for us to test that, either. We can't emulate an R9 Nano on an R9 Fury X. The Nano appears to have a unique power/temperature based throttling algorithm that we can't copy.
"Fiji" is a good piece of technology, but apparently, very little effort is being made to put it into the hands of as many people as possible (and by that we mean consumers). This is an incoherence between what AMD CEO stated at the "Fiji" unveil, and what her company is doing. It's also great disservice to the people who probably stayed up many nights to get the interposer design right, or sailing through uncharted territory with HBM. Oh well.
The first signs of that are, AMD making it prohibitively expensive at $650, and not putting it in the hands of the press, for a launch-day review. We're not getting one, and nor do some of our friends on either sides of the Atlantic. AMD is making some of its tallest claims with this product, and it's important (for AMD) that some of those claims are put to the test. A validated product could maybe even convince some to reach for their wallets, to pull out $650.
The R9 Nano, on the other hand, has the potential for greatness. Never mind the compact board design and its SFF credentials. Pull out this ASIC, put it on a normal 20-25 cm PCB, price it around $350, and dual-slot cooling that can turn its fans off in idle, and AMD could have had a GM204-killing product. Sadly, there's no way for us to test that, either. We can't emulate an R9 Nano on an R9 Fury X. The Nano appears to have a unique power/temperature based throttling algorithm that we can't copy.
"Fiji" is a good piece of technology, but apparently, very little effort is being made to put it into the hands of as many people as possible (and by that we mean consumers). This is an incoherence between what AMD CEO stated at the "Fiji" unveil, and what her company is doing. It's also great disservice to the people who probably stayed up many nights to get the interposer design right, or sailing through uncharted territory with HBM. Oh well.
759 Comments on AMD Radeon R9 Nano Review by TPU...Not
:p
wasn't going to buy one but it does seem to be a carrot on a stick type situation
i thought the fury x samples would be an indication of who would continue to get samples.
but to not send fucking w1zzard one....
poor show amd, poor show.
Nem's going on my ignore list, Sony already is but even with that it's hilarious because the gaps in communication in my version of this thread clearly show the little insects staggeringly bewildering presence.
As far as Nano goes, it doesn't matter anymore, Hawaii is just as good at DX12 as Fiji. Just need a bigger SFF case....ummm...
Red Team Plus is a giant waste of money. Like seriously I didn't know that Red Team Plus was a thing until it was announced on their youtube. I still don't know any of the people who are actually in Red Team Plus and supposedly representing the company.
Give a damn Nano to people who are already well known. Don't try to create your own team of marketing zombies.
Most reference skus don't get sent out and sites have to improvise and test AIB OC cards to reference numbers. Never an up roar on those cards because they don't generate interest one way or the other.
Not sending review samples to review sites is less marketing for them good or bad. It also reduces potential revenue for sites and a product that generates this much attention good or bad will bring in traffic to sites.
To me it equates to getting upset your free lunch card doesn't work because the lunches ran out but you still want your free lunch meal.
This is in general not specific to TPU.
Oh, and we'll see AMD staffers on Twitch using the cards, too, and they'll give away one a couple of weeks after that "launch".
As far as I see it, the card is likely to do well, performance-wise. Price doesn't matter on halo products, and all the Fury cards, Fury, Fury-X and Fury Nano, are just that... halo products. Halo products don't really sell, so don't need wide-spread reviews... it serves companies better to offer exclusivity, like all the multi-million dollar super cars.
Get the Fuck out of here! You have to be kidding me. Either you're ignorant at such an extreme level that simply typing in English is proof you're some type of savant, or you're a troll that needs to be put down with extreme prejudice.
That's the short response I can offer. Post ellipses, I'll elucidate.
.......
So, what you're implying is that TPU doesn't kiss the ground that AMD walks on they shouldn't receive a product for the purposes of review. Let's repeat that one more time, to give you another opportunity to come to your senses. In your world the only reviews that should be allowed to exist are those controlled by the people who make the products. To say you are defending the point of a mental retard is putting it lightly. I'm talking an IQ somewhere south of the 50 line. An individual who is incapable of linking the results of an action to the action which caused those results. To understand my point, let's go over why the idea is stupid.
What is the point of a review? An objective third party tests the claims of an entity, based upon what they can factually reproduce. Underwriters Laboratory, the people who give out UL certification on electronics, are reviewers. Movie critics are reviewers. Likewise, TPU has a branch for reviews. All of the cited people take into consideration their observations, measure them against what was sold to them, and then report to consumers. Said consumers use the reviews to become informed on products, so they can make good purchasing decisions. Movie reviewers may pan a movie, but by telling you why they don't like it you may decide to go out and watch the movie anyways. Cult classic movies exist for this very reason. Reviewers can't offer a 100% unbiased opinion, but they can inform you of their results. It is still your choice to go out and buy a product, so reviews can't strip you of that ability.
Now, why not have the companies responsible for selling the products guide reviews? As you seem to forget, that sort of crap is what cleverly hid the 970 memory issue. That sort of crap is responsible for quotations on movies reading that they are unparalleled masterpieces, because of cherry-picked and quote snippets out of context. That sort of crap is basically why gamergate happened. A press, biased by greed and relationships, forced consumers to flip them the bird. If you can't make the leap of understanding here I suggest you stop writing anything.
Is the TPU team unbiased? No. They eat, breathe, and think so they must be human. Humanity, by its nature, holds biases. Despite this, the only time a TPU review reveals bias is in the conclusions page. This is after they present objective performance numbers, a reasonable comparison to other similar items, and once they've made the devices do whatever they can get them to do (overclocking). If you wanted to stretch, you could claim there is a bias based upon what is a "similar" product, but you're reaching there. If you skipped the conclusions page you'd be reasonable to say TPU reviews are as unbiased as is humanly possible.
Let's, against my better judgement, assume you're a reasonable person. You aren't a fanboy, you've got a reasonable argument, and you've done anything but fling crap in every discussion you've been in for the past several weeks. Answer me one question, or acquiesce to being an idiot. If AMD was making claims which could be objectively tested and proven, and the lack of review units was not actually due to a shortage of units, what does AMD gain by denying test cards to TPU and other sites?
Now, before I hear a stream of crap, let's answer some of that question. If TPU, as you claim, is biased and AMD is on the level they lose sales. If a biased reviewer has to say that AMD was right, it would be a PR win at AMD. If TPU claimed that they failed performance, and AMD could prove TPU was lying, it would both bouy AMD and hurt TPU. If AMD was lying, and TPU caught them with their pants down, it would be a blow for AMD. Assuming AMD is on the level, as much as you evangelize them, then there's only upside for AMD. This theoretical media blackout is crap for AMD, and for consumers. To somehow view this as a righteous AMD lumping scorn on its haters is...let's call it as it is, a paranoid delusion of someone unplugged from reality.
Allow me one closing statement. I buy AMD products when they make sense. I've got a Intel processors in my PCs, and because of when I built them I've got AMD GPUs powering them. Despite this, every time you speak about AMD it makes me regret not being an Nvidiot. Every time you post I will do my best to punch holes in all of your arguments, because it's both necessary and fun. Whenever you approach these posts with logic, I'll gladly admit you are right. For now though, consider me your own person shadow. If you could please be reasonable, it would make my life so much easier, and I wouldn't have to be the counter-weight to your growing delusion and insanity.
youtube.com/watch?t=2185&v=O0sLUWlvU18AMD Hyped the heck outta it, as well did AMD fanboyz. When it hit the fan it was pretty funny truthfully that people expected so much.Wow sad you expect review sites to kiss AMD's ass when AMD has done nothing but LIED about performance since fury was announced. As much as AMD fans would love site to kiss AMD ass, said site will lose respect and views if they were biased in that way.
1) has a GPU/manufacturing process problem that is a stone around its neck.
2) Is getting terrible yields
3) is cash poor
4) has been put on a strict diet of needs VS wants
While we all may feel this is a slight against our community, perhaps AMD is really that hard up right now. No major recent cash infusions, declining market share, poor yields on a process that in the world of tech is a antique and is holding back their hardware cycles.
Insanity is doing the same thing again and again but expecting different results. They got where they are at by being cocky and perhaps giving too much away.