The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is slower than the equally priced GeForce GTX 980 Ti overall, save for one game. The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X moves backwards by offering less VRAM compared to the GTX 980 Ti and TITAN X. VRAM capacity matters at 4K, the more, the better, it is just a fact.
Let's be honest, the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is getting its butt kicked at 4K. We don't think these are the results AMD wanted, especially marketing this video card as a video card developed for 4K gaming. However, these are the real-world results we have found between the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti and NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X.
It all comes back around to pricing. If the GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB and AMD Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB are priced equally, our results lean heavily toward the fact that the GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB is the better value. The 980 Ti provides faster performance than the Fury X, and the 980 Ti has more VRAM to accommodate gaming at 4K than the Fury X. If price is not a concern, there is no question that the best performance for single-GPU gaming at 4K is the GeForce GTX TITAN X.
When we initially evaluated the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X and focused on a 1440p gameplay experience, we got some criticism that this video card was meant for 4K gaming and that is where it should prove to be worth the money. We did not focus on 4K because we do not feel any of these single GPU cards truly serve up good 4K gaming. We have now evaluated the Fury X video card specifically at 4K and found it is in fact not the best 4K gaming video card.
Our initial evaluation conclusion that the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X fits into the category of a 1440p gaming video card stands. The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is better for providing an enjoyable 1440p gameplay experience than it is a 4K gameplay experience. Given the poor performance of the Radeon R9 Fury X at 4K we also see no need to evaluate the lesser Radeon R9 Fury at 4K. If the Fury X is better suited for 1440p, it follows that the R9 Fury is as well.
The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is slower than the equally priced GeForce GTX 980 Ti overall, save for one game. The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X moves backwards by offering less VRAM compared to the GTX 980 Ti and TITAN X. VRAM capacity matters at 4K, the more, the better, it is just a fact.
Let's be honest, the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is getting its butt kicked at 4K. We don't think these are the results AMD wanted, especially marketing this video card as a video card developed for 4K gaming. However, these are the real-world results we have found between the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti and NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X.
It all comes back around to pricing. If the GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB and AMD Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB are priced equally, our results lean heavily toward the fact that the GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB is the better value. The 980 Ti provides faster performance than the Fury X, and the 980 Ti has more VRAM to accommodate gaming at 4K than the Fury X. If price is not a concern, there is no question that the best performance for single-GPU gaming at 4K is the GeForce GTX TITAN X.
When we initially evaluated the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X and focused on a 1440p gameplay experience, we got some criticism that this video card was meant for 4K gaming and that is where it should prove to be worth the money. We did not focus on 4K because we do not feel any of these single GPU cards truly serve up good 4K gaming. We have now evaluated the Fury X video card specifically at 4K and found it is in fact not the best 4K gaming video card.
Our initial evaluation conclusion that the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X fits into the category of a 1440p gaming video card stands. The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is better for providing an enjoyable 1440p gameplay experience than it is a 4K gameplay experience. Given the poor performance of the Radeon R9 Fury X at 4K we also see no need to evaluate the lesser Radeon R9 Fury at 4K. If the Fury X is better suited for 1440p, it follows that the R9 Fury is as well.
"Unfortunately, HBM is not the saving grace of the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X that propels it forward in 4K gaming currently. It is held back by capacity and performance."
Where's your evidence of this "capacity" limitations thus far?
It appears you enter with the preconceived notion that 4GB is holding back the Fury, but never demonstrate so. BF4 shows your preconceptions.
"Lowering settings by disabling MSAA, trying to give the Fury X the best chance it can get"
Why would disabling MSAA give the Fury X the best chance? If anything, more MSAA would help the Fury X as it tends to do better at higher resolutions due to AMD drivers and its memory bandwidth advantage. And, sure enough, the gap between the Fury X and 980 Ti is smaller with MSAA than without. Yet you felt no MSAA gave it the best chance...? I'm guessing this is because you think it is running out of memory.
One other power optimization in the Fury X really isn't a GCN improvement, but it helps explain why Fiji is able to run at ~1GHz with less board power than the 290X. It has to do with that liquid cooler. AMD has cited operating temperatures around 52C for the GPU on this card, and operating at such low temperatures tamps down on leakage power in pretty dramatic fashion. The transistors on a warmer chip will leak more and thus require more power. By cooling Fiji aggressively, the Fury X likely saves a non-trivial amount of wattage that would otherwise be wasted. This fact is noteworthy in this context because it suggests the power-oriented improvements in Fury X aren't all related to more efficient GPU architecture per se.