AMD's 15cm R9 Nano graphics card also suffers from "electrical whistling"

AMD recently officially launched the Radeon R9 Nano, a magical small card that is only 15 cm long but equipped with a complete Fiji XT core and 4GB HBM video memory. Although it is air-cooled, it is said to be very quiet, with noise not exceeding 42 decibels.

As a result, its fan noise is indeed not loud, but there is another annoying noise - Coil Whine.

In fact, the flagship R9 Fury X encountered the high-frequency current sound caused by the electromagnetic coil when it was first released . It was solved after hardware upgrades . Unexpectedly, R9 Nano also encountered it, and it is not an isolated case. Many foreign review media have noticed this problem:

PCPer said that he heard this sound when he first started up the R9 Nano, but it was different from the one on the Fury X. It was caused by the inductor and would change with the fluctuation of the game frame rate. If the game frame rate is very high, the sound will be very sharp, and when the frequency is low, it will be slower, more like a bee.

Eurogamer thought it was a perfect graphics card, except for the terrifying electrical whistling sound, which was even louder than the Fury X and continued.

Bit-Tech pointed out that this sound has overwhelmed any fan noise. For such a high-end graphics card, the materials and workmanship should be top-notch, which is really not right. I hope the retail version can solve this problem.

HardwareHeaven felt similar to PCPer, with the sound being very noticeable at high frame rates and barely audible at low frame rates, but it was the worst of the bunch, so they didn't even bother giving the card an award.

LegitReviews is surprised that AMD would repeat the same mistake. It's not as bad as the Fury X, but it's not something you should expect on a $649 graphics card.

TweakTown commented that this problem is very serious, but it can only be heard on the open test platform, and it is basically gone after putting it into the chassis. The question is, do all Fiji graphics cards have this hidden danger? Fury X can be blamed on water cooling, but R9 Nano is air-cooled.

Hexus said that it was most obvious in Total War: Rome 2 and it might be an isolated case, but they were worried that it would be a common phenomenon.

Further analysis revealed that the R9 Nano is most likely to experience this problem in certain games at frequencies around 800-850MHz, which is the frequency it most often runs at. If the frequency reaches the highest 1000MHz, the noise will be more obvious.

The R9 Fury X has basically eliminated the electrical whistle after improved water cooling, but it is said that it is still common, but it is basically inaudible. The sub-flagship R9 Fury did not have this problem, probably because it is generally not a public version. The R9 Nano is now also a public version, which is enough to show that the materials used in the power supply circuit of the public version card are defective.

AMD has not yet commented on this matter. I hope that improvements can be made as soon as possible so that the retail version does not suffer the same fate.

The good news is that there will be a non-official version of R9 Nano, especially Sapphire will design its own PCB . If there is no problem, AMD can completely blame itself.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.