AMD Radeon R9 Nano Might Feature The Full Fiji GPU – 4096 Stream Processors, Lower Clock Speeds Due To Thermal Limit

Hassan Mujtaba

The AMD Radeon R9 Nano was one of the interesting look cards at the AMD PCGaming Show back at E3 2015. The card, which is based on a Fiji GPU is supposed to hit retail market this summer but AMD didn't share a lot of information about the card itself aside from showing the card itself and saying that it will be faster than the Hawaii based graphics cards and deliver up to 2 times the performance per watt compared to the R9 290X.

AMD Radeon R9 Nano Features Full Fiji GPU With Lower Clock Speeds

The AMD Radeon R9 Nano is a really small card but the report coming in from Anandtech indicates that the card would be based on the full Fiji GPU. Now we did say that we didn't receive any confirmed indication from AMD on the specifications but given the size and thermal limit of this card, it was based on our estimates that this card could feature a disabled Fiji GPU like the one which will be fused on the Radeon R9 Fury (Non-X) that launches on 14th July 2015. Back when we reported regarding this card, we said that it could be significantly skimmed down and believe me it is. There's no way AMD is getting that 175W out of Fiji by pouring in the full fat XT core. Furthermore, the card is cooled off by a single fan cooler which is not comparable to the high-end AIO water cooler featured on the Radeon R9 Fury X.

This card is actually based on the same 8.9 Billion transistor boasting Fiji GPU which is featured on the Radeon R9 Fury X and has 4 GB HBM VRAM dedicated for gaming that runs along a 1024-bit wide bus interface clocked at 500 MHz (1 Gbps effective) that pumps out 512 GB/s bandwidth. AMD confirmed to us that the Radeon R9 Nano is about 85-90% of Radeon R9 Fury X (in terms of performance). The single fan air cooler confirms that the card is actually clocked lower to make room for smaller PCB and a compact cooler design. Display outputs include three Display Ports and a single HDMI display connector. The card is powered by a single 8-Pin power connector on the side of the PCB.

Going from 275W to 175W is a major cut in TDP and if AMD manages to obtain these figures on the Radeon R9 Nano, then it could confirm that this card might not feature the same performance of the Radeon R9 Fury X as it was never meant to be that fast but the small form factor design could be used to power HTPCs and gaming boxes such as Steam Machines which could make use of all the power in a small package. The Radeon R9 Nano will have extremely low clock speeds compared to the 1050 MHz on the Radeon R9 Fury X but that is expected. The small PCB will do away with some of the high-end components featured on the R9 Fury X which will mean that overclocking will be limited to non-existent. We can see a price of around $449-$499 US for this small card.

There’s reason to believe so, the AMD Radeon R9 390X which features the Hawaii XT (Grenada XT) core is said to be slower than the Radeon R9 Nano. The Radeon R9 390X is priced at $429 US at the moment so it will be a bad decision to release the card at a lower price than 390X. The $449 Us and $499 US spots actually sound a lot better since it offers better performance than R9 390X and even comes close to the Radeon R9 Fury X, then it will be an interesting offering in the consumer market. Do note that this is just speculation and the card may even end up priced lower than my guesses here.

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AMD Radeon Fiji GPU Cards Specifications:

WCCFTechAMD Radeon R9 Fury X2AMD Radeon R9 Fury XAMD Radeon R9 NanoAMD Radeon R9 FuryAMD Radeon R9 290X
GPU Fiji XT x 2 Fiji XT Fiji XT Fiji ProHawaii XT
Stream Processors8192 4096 409635842816
GCN Compute Units128 64 64 5644
Render Output Units12864646464
Texture Mapping Units512256256224176
GPU FrequencyTBAUp to 1050MhzUp to 1000 MHzUp to 1000 MHz1000Mhz
Memory8GB HBM (4 GB Per Chip) 4GB HBM 4GB HBM 4GB HBM4GB GDDR5
Memory Interface 4096-bit x 2 4096bit 4096bit 4096bit512bit
Memory Frequency500Mhz500Mhz500 MHz500Mhz1250Mhz
Effective Memory Speed 1Gbps 1Gbps1Gbps 1Gbps5Gbps
Memory Bandwidth1024 GB/s512GB/s512GB/s512GB/s320GB/s
CoolingLiquidLiquid, 120mm RadiatorAir, Single Fan. Custom AIB Solutions LaterAir, Custom AIB SolutionsAir, Single Blower Fan
Performance (SPFP)17.2 TFLOPS8.6 TFLOPS8.19 TFLOPS 7.2 TFLOPS 5.6 TFLOPS
TDPTBA275W175W275W250W
Power ConnectorsDual 8-PinDual 8-Pin8-PinDual 8-Pin6+8 Pin
GFLOPS/WattTBA31.347.126.219.3
New PricesTBA$649$499$549$299 (Retail)
Launch DateEarly 201624th June 20157th September 201510th July 201524th October 2013
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