Sapphire Radeon R9 Nano 4GB HBM HDMI/TRIPLE DP PCI-Express Graphics Card 21249-00-40G Electronics

5.0 out of 5 stars

Beautiful piece of advanced and powerful technology in a tiny little package.. It’s a no brainer..

I just got my Sapphire R9 Nano last night, and wow.. what a great little card with a huge punch. AMD and Sapphire have released some beautiful leading edge technology piece in time for Christmas. Nicest small powerful card I have seen in more than a decade from AMD or NVIDIA..4 Total 4096x2160p video outputs: (1 – 2160p HDMI and 3 – 2160 Display Ports).. sweet..!!It’s performance is so close to the larger footprint AMD Fury X and to the larger older technology from NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti, that it is a no brainer since the Sapphire R9 Nano has the latest HBM technology and its performance is improving even further with the new AMD drivers. Only one fan instead of 3 or 2 fans since there is so much less to cool, which is great since now there is plenty of ventilation area and room inside my desktop when I add more Sapphire R9 Nano’s or any other type of cards.My goal is to get two of these small cards to get the maximum effective performance price/performance wise, since 4 cards is overkill for the price and the performance gained.Kudos AMD, you finally have provided a beautiful piece of advanced/powerful small-footprint technology well before NVIDIA and before Christmas..Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody…

4 people found this helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars

Just what I need.

This little beasty boy has all the power that anyone could want, at least playing on a 1080p single monitor setup. There are other reviews about this product in the most strenuous environment you could give it, but in a more standard setup, this thing will blow almost any game out of the water. Keep in mind I think 60 FPS in any game is great.I got this guy for the following reasons:1: Energy constraints. I was looking for a GPU that could fit within my current PSU energy limit. Being only 500 Watts, I was reluctant to get any GPU over 250 W. Sure, there are more efficient GPUs from NVIDIA, but this leads me to my next point.2: Size. I have ham hands. And I have a midtower ATX case. And I have a DVD/CD drive, SSD, SD Card Reader drive, and a PCI USB 3.0 expansion card. Those factors add up. If I was to get a full sized GPU, there would be literally no room in my case for maneuvering my hands.3. VR BABY. Once my time frees up, I will be getting a VR headset (to be determined) and spend my time exploring the cutting edge of gaming. But this is more of an afterthought really. I only realized I could this recently, not when I was choosing a GPU.So far, I have only heard the renown coil whine of this card once, and it was not popped up again. Maybe I hit the lottery. Or maybe AMD/Sapphire fixed this. Or maybe I always have my headphones on when it is under stress. In any case, I am happy with my purchase, enabling my horrible cable management for years to come.

6 people found this helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars

best GPU for tiny computers

PRO:-dimensions: this is the smallest high-performance GPU I’ve ever seen. Smaller than other cards designed specifically for ITX systems.-power efficiency: 175W card, using the same GPU as the 275W Fury X, possible due to improved power delivery.-PSU connection: single 8-pin PCI-E power connector.-outputs: 3x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI, all able to be used concurrently.-cable included: 1x HDMICON:-expensive. Priced competitively with competing options, but by no means cheap.-VRM noise: when under heavy load, the Voltage Regulation components in the power delivery system will emit a hum or a buzz. it is audible and may be distracting.-VRAM: This is a hard one to explain. 4GB of HBM is largely sufficient for gaming at 4K resolutions, or for games that use very high resolution textures (GTA5, Witcher 3) at 1080p, but it may not be enough to handle both concurrently at playable framerates or without stutters. (The only 8-12GB are still using GDDR5, which is much slower and consumes more power.)I upgraded from an R9 285 2GB ITX card (also from Sapphire), and the difference is staggering. 100-400% gains across the board.

6 people found this helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars

Initially I encountered a terrible noise from the fan on this

Initially I encountered a terrible noise from the fan on this, but then I replaced my power supply (already planned for my build) and the noise went away. So don’t skimp with a cheap power supply!!

3 people found this helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars

Good

Fast shipping, Good Product

5.0 out of 5 stars

Ahead of its time

This card is great. powers through 1080p gaming without a hitch. I use the AMD software to lock the frame rate at 60 this saves power and reduces temperature. Also my card is nearly silent, you have to put your ear up to the case to hear it. No coil whine either, unlike many professional reviews point out. Temps never go above 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

4.0 out of 5 stars

Does not have 32-bit Windows drivers

Edited 9/28/2016:After playing many consecutive hours of, “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” on the Radeon Nano, I began to see pitch black textures on the skins of white characters at certain distances with the Radeon Nano card. The textures would return to their normal color if I moved up close to the character. The problem might be the same as the, “striped shadows,” that other people have reported seeing in Skyrim on their computer systems. This problem is similar to the purple / pink textures on characters that I saw on a previous Radeon R7870 graphics card, which was caused by overheating. The solution to the pitch black textures was to lower the target GPU temperature to 40 degrees C and increase the maximum fan speed to 100%. I have an additional 120mm fan blowing air onto the other side of the Radeon Nano. The Radeon Nano card is still quiet and plays Skyrim at 3840×2160 pixel resolution very smoothly. Skyrim is playing perfectly now on the Radeon Nano.Edited 10/4/2015:I purchased a refurbished HP Z600 Workstation with 24GB of unbuffered ECC DDR3 memory operating at 1066MHz, dual quad core E5520 processors (8 processors total) running at 2.27 GHz, 1TB hard drive, DVD drive, mouse, keyboard, and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, for less than the price of the tiny Radeon R9 Nano graphics card. I learned after purchasing this computer that there are apparently even better deals on eBay for the larger and more expandable HP Z800 Workstation with 48GB of RAM with faster processors for the same price of less than $600. At the time that I purchased the HP Z600 Workstation, I did not realize how proprietary the power supply is.The HP Z600 Workstation has a propriety 650W power supply which provides a single 6-pin PCI Express power cable, 2 SATA power connectors, 1 Molex 4-pin connector, and 1 floppy disk drive power connector. The Radeon R9 Nano requires a single 8-pin PCI Express power cable. None of the HP Z600 Workstation power connectors by themselves or in combination can provide full power to the Radeon R9 Nano graphics card. However, it is possible to provide enough power to the Radeon R9 Nano to get it running in 3D mode with a 30% GPU underclock by combining power from different power cables. One possibility is to plug the male 6-pin PCI Express cable from the power supply into the female 6-pins of the Radeon R9 Nano which are the furthest away from the PCI Express slot, with the plastic release tab of the 6-pin PCI Express cable pointing towards the fan side of the card. The remaining 2 female ground pins of the Radeon R9 Nano can be filled with the 2 loose male pins of a (6+2) pin male to 6-pin female PCI Express power adapter cable. The 6-pin female end of this adapter cable can then be plugged into a 6-pin male PCI Express to 4-pin Molex connector. Another possibility is to get a dual 6-pin female to 8-pin male PCI Express cable. One of the 6-pin female ends plugs into the 6-pin male PCI Express cable provided by the power supply. The other 6-pin female end plugs into a 6-pin male PCI Express to 4-pin Molex adapter cable. I got my cables from eBay, where sellers sometimes use the opposite convention of what I am using to specify male and female ends, so you have to look at the pictures. Something else to be aware of is that most 6-pin PCI Express cable adapters have a pin missing, which may be undesirable for providing as much power as possible to the graphics card. While there are SATA to 6-pin PCI Express power adapter cables available, one person on the web reported getting melted SATA power connectors by attaching his SATA power adapter cable to a different graphics card. The conductor traces on the SATA power connectors are thin and cannot carry as much current as the thicker 4-pin Molex connectors. The HP Z600 Maintenance and Service Guide (504631_001) indicates that the 6-pin PCI Express cable and the disk drive power cables share the same 12V 18A power rail. I had to use the ATI Catalyst software to set the, “GPU clock settings,” to -30% in the Performance / AMD OverDrive / Enable Graphics Overdrive section. If I forgot to do this, then the computer would crash and reboot when I attempted to run 3D graphics software. The Power Limit axis does not seem to affect the ability to use the Radeon R9 Nano in the HP Z600 Workstation as much as the GPU clock axis.I ran the Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 with the following settings:Platform: Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1) 64-bitCPU Model: Intel Xeon CPU E5520 8 2.27 GHz (2261 MHz) x8GPU Model: AMD Radeon R9 Fury Series 15.201.1102.0 (4095MB) x1Render: Direct3D11Quality: HighTesselation: DisabledNo antialiasingVsync disabled30% GPU underclockand got these results:3840×2160 pixel resolution: fps 23.1, score 583, min fps 11.1, max fps 56.62560×1440 pixel resolution: fps 54.9, score 1382, min fps 16.6, max fps 119.41920×1080 pixel resolution: fps 92.6, score 2333, min fps 16.9, max fps 168.5I ran the Unigine Valley Benchmark v1.0 with the equivalent settings and got these results:3840×2160 pixel resolution: fps 30.0, score 1257, min fps 15.7, max fps 59.02560×1440 pixel resolution: fps 54.7, score 2288, min fps 18.1, max fps 87.91920×1080 pixel resolution: fps 58.4, score 2445, min fps 20.3, max fps 99.6I then purchased a small add2psu circuit board, which lets you plug a second power supply into a computer. A spare 500W power supply that I had was insufficient to power the Radeon R9 Nano, which surprised me. I then purchased a quiet Solid Gear Neutron 750W single rail power supply for less than $60 which was able to power the Radeon R9 Nano. The second power supply rests on top of the computer, and its cables are routed through the top front drive bay. I moved the DVD drive to the lower drive bay to avoid getting cables in the way of the DVD drive door. The 750W power supply came with some bubble wrap which I taped around the power supply’s 6+2 pin PCI Express power cable to make arcing less likely. I reran the Unigine Heaven Benchmark and got the following results:3840×2160 pixel resolution: fps 30.2, score 761, min fps 13.3, max fps 74.23840×2160 pixel resolution: fps 28.6, score 721, min fps 13.4, max fps 68.7, +5% GPU overclock3840x2160 pixel resolution: fps 33.5, score 844, min fps 13.8, max fps 82.3, +5% GPU overclock, +50% power limit2560x1440 pixel resolution: fps 71.1, score 1791, min fps 18, max fps 134.41920×1080 pixel resolution: fps 105.2, score 2650, min fps 17.6, max fps 178.9I reran the Unigine Valley Benchmark and got the following results:3840×2160 pixel resolution: fps 35.9, score 1502, min fps 18.4, max fps 68.02560×1440 pixel resolution: fps 58.9, score 2465, min fps 18.3, max fps 99.71920×1080 pixel resolution: fps 58.6, score 2451, min fps 19.0, max fps 94.5The Unigine graphics benchmark programs misreport the temperature of the Radeon R9 Nano. I am absolutely certain that the temperature of the graphics card never exceeded 1 million degrees Celsius as reported by the Unigine benchmark programs.Something which helps to keep the noise of the Radeon R9 Nano fan down is to have a second fan blowing on the opposite side of the graphics card, so that the Radeon R9 Nano’s fan does not have to spin as fast by itself to keep the card cool. While playing through the entire Battlefield 4 single player campaign this way with the default power and GPU clock settings, I could not hear the Radeon R9 Nano’s fan noise. The resolution of 2560×1440 pixels seems to be best for running benchmarks or playing Battlefield 4 on my computer, with a good combination of high resolution, high frame rates, low fan noise, and low heat dissipation. I have Vsync enabled in Battlefield 4, and the frame rates were generally 30-60 frames per second on the Ultra graphics setting with or without a 30% GPU underclock. You can see the frame rates by typing, “perfoverlay.drawfps 1”, in the console, which you can access by pressing the ~ key, which is usually to the left of the number 1 on the keyboard. The gameplay subjectively felt about the same with or without a 30% GPU underclock. Requiring a web browser to launch Battlefield 4 and keeping the web browser open as the game runs is a bad design decision. The web browser sucks up memory space and processor cycles and potentially slows down the game, so I closed the web browser as soon as the game began to launch and then clicked on the Battlefield 4 icon when it appeared on the bottom of the screen on the Windows 7 task bar.With my previous Radeon 7870 and Radeon R9 390 graphics cards, I had the problem of the skin textures of Draugr characters in the Skyrim game turning purple / pink / magenta when the memory chips overheated. The solution was to underclock the memory chips to about 1050MHz. I do not anticipate that I will have the same problem with the Radeon R9 Nano. I like the Radeon R9 Nano for its combination of high performance, quiet operation, low heat dissipation, and small size, which makes it easier to route cables inside the computer case. I do not hear any coil whine as reported by some other people.(Some people seem to have a misconception that a 64-bit operating system is somehow faster than a 32-bit operating system. Bigger is better, right? That is not significantly true in this situation, because Intel and AMD microprocessor architects are not idiots. They do things like cache writes to maximize bus utilization regardless of whether or not the operating system is 32-bit or 64-bit. 32-bit code will also occupy less memory, so it potentially makes more efficient use of cache memory, which is critical for fast performance.)Original review:The advertising for the Radeon R9 Nano does not indicate that it currently only has drivers for 64-bit Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10. I have a 32-bit Windows 7 system, so I can’t use the Radeon R9 Nano except as a plain VGA card.

5 people found this helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars

Great card, even better with a Free Sync monitor

Great little card. I upgraded my video card an monitor, I went with an LG ultra wide with free sync and it amazing what this little card can do.I have a normal size tower under my desk and I have not heard any noise from the card while playing games.I run all games at max 2560×1080 resolution now and they look and play great.

5.0 out of 5 stars

Played Fallout 4 and have been playing CS GO at …

Played Fallout 4 and have been playing CS GO at highest settings without any problems.The card is much smaller than a normal GPU, thus it’s easier to install and it takes a lot less space.Did not attempt to OC.CS GO on 1440X2560 Monitor at 144hz, I get 299FPS (limit set by CS GO).

One person found this helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars

Great but a little noisy…

Pretty good coil whine, if you want a quiet video card, get some headphones, it does whine. Needless to say, I kept it though. Performance is really good, especially for the small size.

One person found this helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars

This is an excellent card.

Fast shipping. This is an excellent card.

One person found this helpful