That's because the Nano and Fury X are essentially the same chip and the cooling and frequencies are the only differentiating factor. A custom Nano could be clocked up to compete with or beat the Fury X.
Not quite the same, and not likely a custom Nano could tie or beat the Fury X. Here's why:
I think it's safe to assume the highest ASIC quality Fiji chips are picked by AMD, and destined for the Nano. Given the throttling/temperature concerns the limited air-cooling can provide to that form factor, AMD would want to reach those target clocks on the Nano with the least amount of voltage possible.
Whereas with an included AIO loop, and a stated goal of being a great overclocker (even if it's actually not), AMD would be dropping lower ASIC quality chips into the Fury X to give it more headroom.
was it actually stated they dont intend the nano to OC well? im not doubting you i just havent seen it. I might actually look into getting a pair of these for a custom loop because the OC results are insane when watercooled. still pascal is such a tease, so close yet so far.
Not terribly surprising considering that, while maybe the most interesting card, it was also the one maybe reaching for a niche. It was better than the competition and priced that way, but the question was whether the market would justify the price, and it looks like it didn't.
This is a much more interesting card at this price, I'd guess.
Good. They should have priced it at no more than $599 at the very beginning, it was kind of insulting for them to price it at $650, the same as the Fury X. Now it's good to see that both this card and the Fury X are priced more appropriately, along with the Fury.
i thought they were going to be at $499 all along before it came out they were binned chips..this is a good spot for the card, but i feel it would of made a real big splash if it came in at this price point right of the bat.
Price cut was sooner than I expected. But, I did not expected them to price the Nano at such levels as consumers pay usually for the performance level and the Fury X includes a pricey cooling solution which is a no-brainer if I had that money.
Yeah, the only real difference was that you needed to fit a radiator in your case for a fury x, but the bank doesn't have that requirement.
However, I think most cases can fit a 120mm radiator so I've never really understood the need for the nano except in the tiniest of cases (where it just dominates).
It isn't uncommon for SFF cases to have clearance issues with the radiators. They have the spot to put the fan, but not a fan and radiator. Usually a drive bay, CPU cooler, or RAM gets in the way.
But for any normal mid tower and up there shouldn't be an issue finding a 120mm slot with the clearance for a radiator.
Right. It's already a small niche for powerful GPU in a small case and AMD made it a lot smaller by thoughtless pricing of the Nano. Though, it might be possible it was their true intention to control demand for the Nano.
It's clear that the recent senior management changes with the AMD GPU division are showing their fruit. A re-commitment to restoring the Radeon Brand which many enthusiasts are hopeful for. Today my wallet prefers an Intel/Nvidia build but I think most of us long for the days of having an AMD based rig as the "smarter" choice.
Even at $499 this card is hardly worth it. This card is only a tiny bit faster than a $280 GTX 970, yet nearly twice the price....and it's certainly not twice as fast. Overclock the 970 and the gap closes even more. As always, one would simply be better off buying a 980ti, not just for the performance, but for the longevity that performance offers, which eventually destroys AMD in price to performance ratio after a few years of ownership.
"And the Nano is more power efficient than either - since we all know how important power efficiency is to nVidia users." You just made me chuckle. :-)
AMD/ATI has always been VERY forward thinking, always looking to push the boundaries in an attempt to create extra product value. The end result has been that owners of their cards can usually enjoy continual performance improvements when/IF the software catches up to the hardware.
DirectX 12 revealing an extra 25~30%+ more performance out of many-years old AMD cards is just one example, but probably one of the most compelling in the modern era (formerly the video decoding blocks were of more interest to me, personally).
Nvidia usually releases a product with very mature drivers, where the GPU is being utilized 90-95% right out of the gate.
AMD releases very early "beta like" drivers where engineers have not figured out how to tap the full potential of the card. You might have to wait 1-2 years to see it's full potential.
If you upgrade your GPU every year or two, then you might want something that's pretty polished from the get go.
If your price conscious and don't upgrade your GPU very often, then AMD is definitely a solid option for future proofing.
This whole dynamic will most likely change with the 16nm Fin Fet GPU's because of DirectX12. Both companies will get the full potential of their gpu much quicker on DX12 titles. June will be a exciting time to be a pc gamer.
Infact.. it's probably ever so slightly better than the 980 (non ti..) Not sure where you'd consider it in the 970 realm.. the 390 (non x) competes quite well with the 970.. Bigger power draw sure.. but 8 Gigs of memory for a little more future proofing. If crossfire/sli was perfect it would make much more sense going with 2 390s over 2 970s.
Yeah you are very wrong if you think the 970 comes CLOSE to the Nano. As stated it's more a contender with the 980 and most of the times wins verse's it.
Videocard pricing is not linear at the high end. A $1000 card is very very very rarely faster than a $500 card in regular workloads. You're paying to be on the bleeding edge, this is not really a cost/performance realm.
True but when you get more performance % than cost % its a must buy. 980 ti vs 980 was a 40% jump for me 35% price but 40% performance advantage. The non reference 980 ti $50 premium got you another 20% performance gain.
At a $600 launch price here in Canada (now $750 with our low dollar..) I'd have been a little choked pulling the trigger on a 980 early with the ti variant being so much better. Today? Not so much as most 980Ti's here come in at 930-$1200 which I simply couldn't justify spending anyway.
You're probably right. With new GPUs on a new process node looming, clearing inventory by cutting prices now will clear the retail channel for newer cards. It's better for AMD to cut prices to a level the company can tolerate than take a much larger loss later by failing to manage the market.
I was actually thinking that it might be an indication that they are getting better than expected yields, such that they can bin more nano-capable chips that can support a higher demand.
Which then brings back the same discussion every time I see two Fiji chips on a single board being discussed.
What does the horsepower do for you that the 4gb VRM limit won't bottleneck? Any I can think of there are better options. I know they will do it, but I think it is silly to put this GPU into an x2 card.
I used to worry that 4GB wasnt enough either, but I havent seen a benchmark yet in which the far superior HBM bandwidth didnt balance out the dearth of frame buffer/texture space. Even at 4k.
And in the ones that did take a significant hit at that res, it was often just AMD's shoddy early drivers for a particular game, and was cleared up in newer drivers.
Erm, even at 4k, there is little to no benefit to the 4GB vs 8GB AMD cards (390X being faster than 290X overall), and neither of them have the HBM advantage.
In the case of SoM, I believe that was fixed after one of the very early patches. I know because I had an old Sapphire 290x (one of the wind tunnel launch models) 4GB and the game was unplayable with the HD textures at max settings. It would stutter/pause every few seconds, a problem which did not exist on my Titan Blacks (6GB VRAM), and also did not exist when I turned down the texture setting from "ultra". But it appears like that issue has been addressed in one of the patches since launch:
If it was still doing that unplayable swapping, the min framerates would be much lower than what they ended up getting.
Dont have Tomb Raider, so I cant speak to that. But that tweaktown article shows at 4k, the Fury X still has a lead over the 390X (which only comes in 8GB). If it were forced into texture swapping there would be a significant dropoff.
I no longer have that 4GB card anyways---i sold it, and have 2 8GB 290x---the Sapphire Toxic models. But not for the memory limitation----that launch 290x was ridiculously loud due to the poor OEM cooler being unable to keep the card cool. That was an AMD boner if there ever was one.
VR in a single slot such that you get 1 dedicated GPU per eye for things like the Oculus? Kudos tho if you are one of the few that can afford a $599 Oculus + a $1k Fury X2!
The problem is, the crossfire support from AMD has been considerably behind Nvidia, especially lately since AMD's overtaxed driver team has to spend more time fighting Gameworks for SINGLE gpus first.
Its a shame because it seems to be that AMD has the superior hardware, but their driver model and updates/optimizations are so glacial that we only see that hardware take its lead over the Nvidia equivalent very late in their lifespan, when most "cutting edge" adopters have already moved on to the new generation.
I'm telling you firsthand that AMD's CFX driver support is far behind Nvidia in terms of release schedule. I have both AMD and Nvidia dual card setups and I am pretty much always waiting for AMD CFX updates for AAA titles for a month after release.
Maybe AMDs hardware is pretty much always superior to the direct Nvidia competition, but the glacial release of optimal drivers really hurt.
Heck, even the latest 16.1 betas dont have a CFX profile for Fallout 4 yet. I have had good success with forcing AFR friendly with the 16.1(s), but thats not an official solution---some people's results may vary.
AMD might set the price to $499 on this card but retail still has them listed well over the $600 mark (found one deal with a mail in rebate that drops the price to $595). I guess we will see over the next few months how much that price drops, but I seriously doubt they will drop much below $600 before the next series of cards is released.
It's not hard to list prices from popular retailers. MSRP is very misleading on review sites, and Anandtech is one of the few sites who don't list retail pricing alongside MSRP.
Jet.com has been reportedly buying cards from other retailers and then selling them at a loss. That hasn't caused other retailers to drop their prices has it?
It's pretty rare for the retail price to be higher than MSRP. Usually the price is 10% or more LESS than MSRP. How would a retailer justify selling a card higher than the MSRP? Unless its a crazy high demand item, that normally doesn't fly. Especially because some manufacturers even print the MSRP on the box/bag itself...
I do see higher-than-MSRP prices for high-end GPUs somewhat often, but I think that has more to do with the OEMs setting higher prices for non-reference cards. I've been seeing Fury (/nano/X) and 980Ti prices 50$ higher than MSRP lately. But yeah, usually it's lower. I've been buying all my parts from Microcenter for awhile and their prices are often alarmingly lower than MSRP. No idea how they can stay in business selling so low at brick and mortar retail but I'll take it!
Price at time of post is $499. There are a few at 530. It really depends how you want to pick your price, go to amazon for 629, same as at release since they are glacial when it comes to adjusting for msrp.
And just like that, the Nano is worth buying. At 499$ MSRP, Microcenter will have them at around 450$ in a couple months- right around tax return time! Guess I might not wait for Pascal/Greenland to upgrade after all...
The small form factor cooling and pcb would be lower cost than higher end cooling solutions since it's either 4-6 phase power, 1 fan, some heatpipes and a kinda small aluminium heatsink which is likely cheaper than a 6 phase power+120mm custom Aio or an 12 phase power, 3fan behemoth.
I guess this means yields have improved. I read in english.etnews.com that yields were low for nano and AMD wasn't happy with TSMC about it and was looking at other foundries for their next gen products.
can someone point me to where i can find a reference design GTX 980 for $479? i wish.. those are $560 (unless you like rebates) all those ACX or open blower design spill hot air into my case.
Nvidia made a amazing stock cooler fro the 980 and 970 but nobody wants to use it.
Uhhhhh, somebody had better tell Amazon and Newegg about this price cut. They seem oblivious to this supposed price cut by AMD. The R9 Nano is still selling for $600+ on both their websites...just saying!
In my view the Nano is the only Fury which really matches HBM, because it delivers on the space and power saving potential. And after the price cut it sits well in the competitive landscape.
I see it as an ideal upgrader's card, because I didn't have to upgrade the power supply, reroute cables or worry about water in the system, so I grabbed one pretty quick after the cut.
It's just as nice as you reported it to be: Delivers 4k supersampled game performance without ever becoming noisy or really hot. I haven't been able to get it to throttle below 900MHz or hotter than 75°C.
Sure, with Polaris it will be irrellevant very soon, so perhaps this time around they just want to clean out the inventory before the next generation hits the shelves.
Just ran Luxmark 3.1 on the Nano and got a 3902 score, which is somewhat higher than I expected after the Nano review here (was 3166 for the Nano and 3420 for the Fury X)....
Turns out I was running it on a Kaveri 7850K which contributed its OpenCL power to the pool ;-)
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74 Comments
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baobrain - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
How would this affect retail prices? Would they go down or is this just the MSRP?nathanddrews - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Retail price drops usually follow MSRP drops. Custom models/bundles will still be priced higher than $499.ToTTenTranz - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
AFAIK, AMD doesn't allow for custom models of the Nano or the Fury X, since the "package" includes their own cooling and power regulation units.The only Fiji that allows customization is the Fury.
Flunk - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
That's because the Nano and Fury X are essentially the same chip and the cooling and frequencies are the only differentiating factor. A custom Nano could be clocked up to compete with or beat the Fury X.fnZx - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Not quite the same, and not likely a custom Nano could tie or beat the Fury X. Here's why:I think it's safe to assume the highest ASIC quality Fiji chips are picked by AMD, and destined for the Nano. Given the throttling/temperature concerns the limited air-cooling can provide to that form factor, AMD would want to reach those target clocks on the Nano with the least amount of voltage possible.
Whereas with an included AIO loop, and a stated goal of being a great overclocker (even if it's actually not), AMD would be dropping lower ASIC quality chips into the Fury X to give it more headroom.
Jm09 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
was it actually stated they dont intend the nano to OC well? im not doubting you i just havent seen it. I might actually look into getting a pair of these for a custom loop because the OC results are insane when watercooled. still pascal is such a tease, so close yet so far.nathanddrews - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Well then, I guess that answers that question.Large Marge - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
Wrong! Asus White Nano uses a custom board & power supply !Colin1497 - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Not terribly surprising considering that, while maybe the most interesting card, it was also the one maybe reaching for a niche. It was better than the competition and priced that way, but the question was whether the market would justify the price, and it looks like it didn't.This is a much more interesting card at this price, I'd guess.
medi03 - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link
Beats 980 in most games.AS118 - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Good. They should have priced it at no more than $599 at the very beginning, it was kind of insulting for them to price it at $650, the same as the Fury X. Now it's good to see that both this card and the Fury X are priced more appropriately, along with the Fury.Jm09 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
i thought they were going to be at $499 all along before it came out they were binned chips..this is a good spot for the card, but i feel it would of made a real big splash if it came in at this price point right of the bat.zodiacfml - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Price cut was sooner than I expected. But, I did not expected them to price the Nano at such levels as consumers pay usually for the performance level and the Fury X includes a pricey cooling solution which is a no-brainer if I had that money.ImSpartacus - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Yeah, the only real difference was that you needed to fit a radiator in your case for a fury x, but the bank doesn't have that requirement.However, I think most cases can fit a 120mm radiator so I've never really understood the need for the nano except in the tiniest of cases (where it just dominates).
Refuge - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
It isn't uncommon for SFF cases to have clearance issues with the radiators. They have the spot to put the fan, but not a fan and radiator. Usually a drive bay, CPU cooler, or RAM gets in the way.But for any normal mid tower and up there shouldn't be an issue finding a 120mm slot with the clearance for a radiator.
zodiacfml - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Right. It's already a small niche for powerful GPU in a small case and AMD made it a lot smaller by thoughtless pricing of the Nano. Though, it might be possible it was their true intention to control demand for the Nano.eldakka - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
That's a good point. Maybe this is more an indication of improved yields such that they can support a higher demand than they originally envisioned.Chaser - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
It's clear that the recent senior management changes with the AMD GPU division are showing their fruit. A re-commitment to restoring the Radeon Brand which many enthusiasts are hopeful for. Today my wallet prefers an Intel/Nvidia build but I think most of us long for the days of having an AMD based rig as the "smarter" choice.Refuge - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Right? Hopefully this is the first of many more smart moves to come from the big red GPU maker. Lord knows it could use it these last few years....cknobman - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
At <$500 the R9 Nano is a easy pick.About time, I always felt the Nano was an amazing card priced too high.
techguyz - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Even at $499 this card is hardly worth it. This card is only a tiny bit faster than a $280 GTX 970, yet nearly twice the price....and it's certainly not twice as fast. Overclock the 970 and the gap closes even more. As always, one would simply be better off buying a 980ti, not just for the performance, but for the longevity that performance offers, which eventually destroys AMD in price to performance ratio after a few years of ownership.just4U - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
The nano is more comparable to the 980, not the 970 which cant compete with it..DominionSeraph - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
The 970 is comparable to the 980, which is why everyone buys it.looncraz - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
The 970 can trail the Nano by 30% or more, though is often fairly close.http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1556?vs=159...
The 980, however, is usually losing by much less... but still, generally, losing:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1556?vs=144...
And the Nano is more power efficient than either - since we all know how important power efficiency is to nVidia users.
AndrewJacksonZA - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
"And the Nano is more power efficient than either - since we all know how important power efficiency is to nVidia users."You just made me chuckle. :-)
jasonelmore - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
thats Big die vs Small die comparison tho. The Nano was priced to compete with the 980ti which destroys the nano.Now with the price drop, it's a good deal
Adul - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Nvidia cards do not age well compared to the ones released by AMD.looncraz - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
There's no doubt about that!AMD/ATI has always been VERY forward thinking, always looking to push the boundaries in an attempt to create extra product value. The end result has been that owners of their cards can usually enjoy continual performance improvements when/IF the software catches up to the hardware.
DirectX 12 revealing an extra 25~30%+ more performance out of many-years old AMD cards is just one example, but probably one of the most compelling in the modern era (formerly the video decoding blocks were of more interest to me, personally).
jasonelmore - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
you can look at it two ways.Nvidia usually releases a product with very mature drivers, where the GPU is being utilized 90-95% right out of the gate.
AMD releases very early "beta like" drivers where engineers have not figured out how to tap the full potential of the card. You might have to wait 1-2 years to see it's full potential.
If you upgrade your GPU every year or two, then you might want something that's pretty polished from the get go.
If your price conscious and don't upgrade your GPU very often, then AMD is definitely a solid option for future proofing.
This whole dynamic will most likely change with the 16nm Fin Fet GPU's because of DirectX12. Both companies will get the full potential of their gpu much quicker on DX12 titles. June will be a exciting time to be a pc gamer.
just4U - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Infact.. it's probably ever so slightly better than the 980 (non ti..) Not sure where you'd consider it in the 970 realm.. the 390 (non x) competes quite well with the 970.. Bigger power draw sure.. but 8 Gigs of memory for a little more future proofing. If crossfire/sli was perfect it would make much more sense going with 2 390s over 2 970s.jragonsoul - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Yeah you are very wrong if you think the 970 comes CLOSE to the Nano. As stated it's more a contender with the 980 and most of the times wins verse's it.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
The 970 is a super card that can do anything!Cygni - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Videocard pricing is not linear at the high end. A $1000 card is very very very rarely faster than a $500 card in regular workloads. You're paying to be on the bleeding edge, this is not really a cost/performance realm.Cygni - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Meant 2x as fast.godrilla - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
True but when you get more performance % than cost % its a must buy. 980 ti vs 980 was a 40% jump for me 35% price but 40% performance advantage. The non reference 980 ti $50 premium got you another 20% performance gain.just4U - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
At a $600 launch price here in Canada (now $750 with our low dollar..) I'd have been a little choked pulling the trigger on a 980 early with the ti variant being so much better. Today? Not so much as most 980Ti's here come in at 930-$1200 which I simply couldn't justify spending anyway.Ch4os - Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - link
"but for the longevity that performance offers, which eventually destroys AMD in price to performance ratio after a few years of ownership."Funny you should say that. Where's Kepler when compared to GCN cards? Oh yeah. Below all of their GCN rivals.
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_380X_Strix/imag...
beginner99 - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Probably means sales are lower than expected and they probably want to sell most of the inventory before Polaris comes out in Summer.BrokenCrayons - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
You're probably right. With new GPUs on a new process node looming, clearing inventory by cutting prices now will clear the retail channel for newer cards. It's better for AMD to cut prices to a level the company can tolerate than take a much larger loss later by failing to manage the market.eldakka - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
I was actually thinking that it might be an indication that they are getting better than expected yields, such that they can bin more nano-capable chips that can support a higher demand.just4U - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
Considering availability.. you may be right.ppi - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
14/16 nm cards won't be substantially faster than 600mm2 28nm cards for some time. At least till 14/16nm cards reach over 300mm2.godrilla - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
They should have put 2 nanos on one pcb and sell it for $1k in 2015. A price cut could mean they are probably close to a successor soon.extide - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Yeah that is basically what the Fury X2 will be.Refuge - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Which then brings back the same discussion every time I see two Fiji chips on a single board being discussed.What does the horsepower do for you that the 4gb VRM limit won't bottleneck? Any I can think of there are better options. I know they will do it, but I think it is silly to put this GPU into an x2 card.
blppt - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
I used to worry that 4GB wasnt enough either, but I havent seen a benchmark yet in which the far superior HBM bandwidth didnt balance out the dearth of frame buffer/texture space. Even at 4k.And in the ones that did take a significant hit at that res, it was often just AMD's shoddy early drivers for a particular game, and was cleared up in newer drivers.
OrphanageExplosion - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
Assassin's Creed Unity says "Hello".blppt - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/2195-assassi...Erm, even at 4k, there is little to no benefit to the 4GB vs 8GB AMD cards (390X being faster than 290X overall), and neither of them have the HBM advantage.
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
Tomb Raider and Mordor both showed an improvement with 8GB 290X cards versus 4GB models, at the same clock.blppt - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link
In the case of SoM, I believe that was fixed after one of the very early patches. I know because I had an old Sapphire 290x (one of the wind tunnel launch models) 4GB and the game was unplayable with the HD textures at max settings. It would stutter/pause every few seconds, a problem which did not exist on my Titan Blacks (6GB VRAM), and also did not exist when I turned down the texture setting from "ultra". But it appears like that issue has been addressed in one of the patches since launch:http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/100/3440x1440...
If it was still doing that unplayable swapping, the min framerates would be much lower than what they ended up getting.
Dont have Tomb Raider, so I cant speak to that. But that tweaktown article shows at 4k, the Fury X still has a lead over the 390X (which only comes in 8GB). If it were forced into texture swapping there would be a significant dropoff.
I no longer have that 4GB card anyways---i sold it, and have 2 8GB 290x---the Sapphire Toxic models. But not for the memory limitation----that launch 290x was ridiculously loud due to the poor OEM cooler being unable to keep the card cool. That was an AMD boner if there ever was one.
blppt - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link
Whoops, just realized thats not true 4k---3440x1440. Still, no discernable memory problems.eldakka - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
VR in a single slot such that you get 1 dedicated GPU per eye for things like the Oculus? Kudos tho if you are one of the few that can afford a $599 Oculus + a $1k Fury X2!blppt - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
The problem is, the crossfire support from AMD has been considerably behind Nvidia, especially lately since AMD's overtaxed driver team has to spend more time fighting Gameworks for SINGLE gpus first.Its a shame because it seems to be that AMD has the superior hardware, but their driver model and updates/optimizations are so glacial that we only see that hardware take its lead over the Nvidia equivalent very late in their lifespan, when most "cutting edge" adopters have already moved on to the new generation.
medi03 - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link
Check AMD's crossfire scaling vs SLI. AMD wins hands down.blppt - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
I'm telling you firsthand that AMD's CFX driver support is far behind Nvidia in terms of release schedule. I have both AMD and Nvidia dual card setups and I am pretty much always waiting for AMD CFX updates for AAA titles for a month after release.Maybe AMDs hardware is pretty much always superior to the direct Nvidia competition, but the glacial release of optimal drivers really hurt.
Heck, even the latest 16.1 betas dont have a CFX profile for Fallout 4 yet. I have had good success with forcing AFR friendly with the 16.1(s), but thats not an official solution---some people's results may vary.
wolfemane - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
AMD might set the price to $499 on this card but retail still has them listed well over the $600 mark (found one deal with a mail in rebate that drops the price to $595). I guess we will see over the next few months how much that price drops, but I seriously doubt they will drop much below $600 before the next series of cards is released.It's not hard to list prices from popular retailers. MSRP is very misleading on review sites, and Anandtech is one of the few sites who don't list retail pricing alongside MSRP.
extide - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
I am sure the retail prices will drop soon enough. All it takes is one major retailer dropping the price and then everyone has to follow..Oxford Guy - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
Jet.com has been reportedly buying cards from other retailers and then selling them at a loss. That hasn't caused other retailers to drop their prices has it?webdoctors - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
It's pretty rare for the retail price to be higher than MSRP. Usually the price is 10% or more LESS than MSRP. How would a retailer justify selling a card higher than the MSRP? Unless its a crazy high demand item, that normally doesn't fly. Especially because some manufacturers even print the MSRP on the box/bag itself...KateH - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
I do see higher-than-MSRP prices for high-end GPUs somewhat often, but I think that has more to do with the OEMs setting higher prices for non-reference cards. I've been seeing Fury (/nano/X) and 980Ti prices 50$ higher than MSRP lately. But yeah, usually it's lower. I've been buying all my parts from Microcenter for awhile and their prices are often alarmingly lower than MSRP. No idea how they can stay in business selling so low at brick and mortar retail but I'll take it!thesmokingman - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
Easy, they just don't give a damn. Put this into Amazons site for ex. B015121DMA.thesmokingman - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...Price at time of post is $499. There are a few at 530. It really depends how you want to pick your price, go to amazon for 629, same as at release since they are glacial when it comes to adjusting for msrp.
KateH - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
And just like that, the Nano is worth buying. At 499$ MSRP, Microcenter will have them at around 450$ in a couple months- right around tax return time! Guess I might not wait for Pascal/Greenland to upgrade after all...webdoctors - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Looks like its dropped at newegg:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
How low is the margin going to be on this now with HBM and small form factor cooling?
I imagine this is to clear out the ~12 units they made...I doubt this is to create or ship serious volumes...
Asomething - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
The small form factor cooling and pcb would be lower cost than higher end cooling solutions since it's either 4-6 phase power, 1 fan, some heatpipes and a kinda small aluminium heatsink which is likely cheaper than a 6 phase power+120mm custom Aio or an 12 phase power, 3fan behemoth.prtskg - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
I guess this means yields have improved. I read in english.etnews.com that yields were low for nano and AMD wasn't happy with TSMC about it and was looking at other foundries for their next gen products.jasonelmore - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
can someone point me to where i can find a reference design GTX 980 for $479? i wish.. those are $560 (unless you like rebates) all those ACX or open blower design spill hot air into my case.Nvidia made a amazing stock cooler fro the 980 and 970 but nobody wants to use it.
Ninjawithagun - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
Uhhhhh, somebody had better tell Amazon and Newegg about this price cut. They seem oblivious to this supposed price cut by AMD. The R9 Nano is still selling for $600+ on both their websites...just saying!Ninjawithagun - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
...okay, Newegg updated their prices...but Amazon has still not adjusted their prices...groundhogdaze - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
No HDMI 2.0 kills the deal.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
Isn't there a DisplayPort adapter?7amood - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
In the pricing comparison table, please stop using the 299 and 379 number. Round it to full numbers 300 and 380. This makes it easier to glance at.abufrejoval - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
In my view the Nano is the only Fury which really matches HBM, because it delivers on the space and power saving potential. And after the price cut it sits well in the competitive landscape.I see it as an ideal upgrader's card, because I didn't have to upgrade the power supply, reroute cables or worry about water in the system, so I grabbed one pretty quick after the cut.
It's just as nice as you reported it to be: Delivers 4k supersampled game performance without ever becoming noisy or really hot. I haven't been able to get it to throttle below 900MHz or hotter than 75°C.
Sure, with Polaris it will be irrellevant very soon, so perhaps this time around they just want to clean out the inventory before the next generation hits the shelves.
abufrejoval - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
Just ran Luxmark 3.1 on the Nano and got a 3902 score, which is somewhat higher than I expected after the Nano review here (was 3166 for the Nano and 3420 for the Fury X)....Turns out I was running it on a Kaveri 7850K which contributed its OpenCL power to the pool ;-)