Review: AMD Radeon R9 Nano

by Tarinder Sandhu on 10 September 2015, 13:01

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

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Overclocking

What we do know is the Nano is purposely power limited in order to achieve a certain TDP. Overclocking the card by increasing the available power and core frequency - the memory cannot be overclocked - has an interesting effect.

We'd normally expect to see the performance rise by around 3-4 per cent when the core is overclocked from 1,000MHz to 1,055MHz, per the screenshot above. The reality is somewhat different; the Nano's performance increases by 15 per cent. Why? Because the extra power fed to the card enables it to hit its maximum frequency far more often, rather than stay 100-200MHz lower.

Yup, Fury X-like performance with a bit of overclocking. There are obvious caveats for anyone thinking of pushing up the power target on the Nano: power consumption rises by 60W and, more importantly, the fan spins up from the standard 1,650rpm to a noisy, noticeable 3,000rpm.