AMD Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB Review

[childofthekorn]

same here, disappointment... guru3d has calculated tdp around 300w for this card. not good at all.. 4096-bit and this is it? once nvidia goes HBM i don't know how AMD will be able to compete with it.

TDP is far lower than that. Actual power consumption is exactly what AMD said it would be, at full utilization (only in stress test) its 300w.

 

[Elvis_Marmaduke]

Why are you doing such high res? 90+% of people are still at 1080p and the Fury is at a clear disadvantage with only 4GB of RAM.

 

[ohim]

Why are you doing such high res? 90+% of people are still at 1080p and the Fury is at a clear disadvantage with only 4GB of RAM.

Because you don`t need Fury for 1080p or 980 ti .

Also guys keep in mind that they`ve done this with regular drivers, nothing special for this GPU (though i have no idea about how these work)

And also Nvidia clearly knew the performance of this GPU since they slashed prices not so long ago when the 980Ti came out.

Not taking sides but imagine those guys buying 980 at the price of the Ti and then having the prices slashed.

And to the guy who said this card is noisier ... what ? 33.7 db is loud ? The 980ti/Titan-x have 44 db and 85°C

Anyway, if it was up to me i would have called this card 390x ! This is the true successor of the 290x.

 

[TechyInAZ]

That's one awesome card!! If my rig was mini itx, and I needed a high end GPU, I'd defiantly consider this guy. (I've never ever used an AMD GPU in my life, making me wonder if I should try. 😀)

that 4096bit bus really makes up for the lack of vram, I'm amazed it did so well. AMD did a good job on the cards esthetics too.

You can defiantly tell most of the newer R9 3xx and Fury cards are designed for 4k specifically, I think AMD will have to wait a little while to get very good sales on the fury X until 4k monitors go mainstream.

 

[Elvis_Marmaduke]

No. 15.15

Would it be possible to get updated benchmarks with the latest drivers?
Would it make a big difference?

 

[Pei-chen]

One more thing. The reviewed Fury X is a match to stock 980Ti (1000Mhz base/1075Mhz boost). Aftermarket 980Ti from ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte will have better power limit, cooler and quieter fans and much higher clock. MSI's 980Ti Gaming 6G have 200Mhz overclock at base and boost speed (1178Mhz base/1279Mhz boost). Overclocking GTX further to 1500Mhz at default voltage is also common and at those speed even a Fury X overclocked from 1000Mhz to 1125Mhz (Guru3D's overclock) will not stand a chance.

 

[Vlad Rose]

That's one awesome card!! If my rig was mini itx, and I needed a high end GPU, I'd defiantly consider this guy. (I've never ever used an AMD GPU in my life, making me wonder if I should try. 😀)

that 4096bit bus really makes up for the lack of vram, I'm amazed it did so well. AMD did a good job on the cards esthetics too.

You can defiantly tell most of the newer R9 3xx and Fury cards are designed for 4k specifically, I think AMD will have to wait a little while to get very good sales on the fury X until 4k monitors go mainstream.

Wait for their Fury Nano for building with mini-itx.

 

[duckandchicken]

AMD say it's NV killer......now they lag behind like AMD used too. Everything is on paper aka slide.
Let's wait and see game with DX12 (not soon)
And if Zen is also on paper AMD is finished

 

[3ogdy]

Can a more complex GPU, groundbreaking memory technology and closed-loop liquid cooler generate enough performance to usurp Nvidia’s decidedly efficient Maxwell architecture in the GeForce GTX 980 Ti? NO.
8.9B transistors to barely match nVidia's 8B? The rest of the specs are OUTRIGHT impressive - what for? NOTHING.
4GB of HBM vs 6GB of GDDR5...OK, maybe the capacity trade-off is worth it if the card is much faster in terms of memory - ooops...the card is just as powerful as the 980Ti? Bad news for AMD.
512GB/s of bandwidth - what for? High-res...yeah alright..paired with the same amount of VRAM a 290 has? What's that ? It also requires more power? I'll be damned.

However, given a choice, this enthusiast would prefer a self-contained package.
Yes, sir. That's perfectly right. That's just one of the reasons Fury X is a no-go.

Then, they wrote Radeon the wrong way on the back panel - once installed, you can't read that so what's the point of writing it like that instead of putting it upside down? What a lack of attention to details despite what the hoses look like.

Then you might have issues fitting the card because it's too thick?

Battlefield at 4K - 980Ti is faster while FRV is somewhat higher.
Far Cry 4 - 6FPS more on AVG, again at 4K.
Where did you say HBM's benefit was?
GTA V - 980Ti is better.,
Metro LL, Fury X is 8FPS better AND ONLY 5 FPS better in its territory (4K) than the 980Ti with nearly identical FRV.
SoM - nearly 2FPS improvement at 4K.
That's an achievement considering it's got 4GB of VRAM.

What's the point of presenting power consumption figures if there's no 980Ti to properly see the differences between the cards?
64ºC under stress testing...oh well, better than 95ºC on the 290X I guess. Great job, AMD. Oh wait...they're using a liquid cooler they couldn't integrate in their own card - big fail, AMD.

"It would've been nice to see some reserves for overclocking" -
AMD: " Fury X is specified for 275W TDP, but AMD says it wanted to leave room for overclocking, so it over-engineered the card's power and cooling". Right.

Overmarketed it just like they did with the FX-8150.

Liquid cooling that can't keep clocks up on a GPU? Are you nuts?
"Under load the setup isn't exactly silent but it's still quieter than almost all air-cooled graphics cards".

Well, I must say I'm surprised AMD managed to compete with air-cooled cards while WATER cooling theirs! WOWza!

Performance is a wash, price is comparable (both are still in nVidia's advantage though)...the only plus for AMD is its size....oh wait....it needs liquid cooling - THAT ALSO NEEDS TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT AND ADDED UP TO THE CARD'S LENGTH.

Why go get "good-enough" from AMD at $650 with all the complications when I can get Titan X performance at the same price in a single package?
Mind you I'm using a crossfire set-up right now and Eyefinity. AMD has screwed (us and themselves) up once again.

 

[Elvis_Marmaduke]

I don't understand why they would just put 4GB of RAM on this thing and say it's VR ready, those are going to have dual 1080+ easy, next gen will probably be much higher, didn't really future proof it much IMO

 

[MonsterCookie]

As someone who is not a fanboy of either side of this isle, and someone who has held off starting a new build to replace this 8 year old dinosaur I'm typing on for news of these new releases, I have to say, I'm disappointed.

I guess in my heart I have been rooting for the underdog, hoping AMD would come out with some pizzazz. Instead it doesn't really. I really had hoped.

There is the point!
For the same reason I am still rocking a GTX 285, which I bought back in 2009 for 320 Euros, and it was a top-of the line card for half the price of these new stuff!!!
I have just simply not seen a decent technology change, or will to go back to the 300Euro price range for the good cards. The new cards are just as loud and power hungry as that old trash GTX 285 of mine, and the old card still runs my favorite titles (original FC, Wolfenstein etc. at 1200p).

AMD needs to understand, that in the market his name is not as shiny as that of Nvidia, just as in the CPU market an Intel CPU will always sound more fancy than an AMD. Thus, for the same price they should deliver at least 5% more bang for the buck to justify why someone should buy their product compared to the competition. What is the point of matching the GTX 980 Ti performance for the same price with this crazy water cooled loop, which is hard to fit in many cases?
It should be either at least 5% better, or 10% cheaper to appeal anybody to choose this custom solution over Nvidia's standard air cooled 980 Ti.

 

[Elvis_Marmaduke]

One more thing. The reviewed Fury X is a match to stock 980Ti (1000Mhz base/1075Mhz boost). Aftermarket 980Ti from ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte will have better power limit, cooler and quieter fans and much higher clock. MSI's 980Ti Gaming 6G have 200Mhz overclock at base and boost speed (1178Mhz base/1279Mhz boost). Overclocking GTX further to 1500Mhz at default voltage is also common and at those speed even a Fury X overclocked from 1000Mhz to 1125Mhz (Guru3D's overclock) will not stand a chance.

Why would you think the Fury would have less OC ability? I would think once Aftermarket GPUs are out it would be much more easily overclocked and get more benefit from it, with that fancy panse memory.

 

[TechyInAZ]

That's one awesome card!! If my rig was mini itx, and I needed a high end GPU, I'd defiantly consider this guy. (I've never ever used an AMD GPU in my life, making me wonder if I should try. 😀)

that 4096bit bus really makes up for the lack of vram, I'm amazed it did so well. AMD did a good job on the cards esthetics too.

You can defiantly tell most of the newer R9 3xx and Fury cards are designed for 4k specifically, I think AMD will have to wait a little while to get very good sales on the fury X until 4k monitors go mainstream.

Wait for their Fury Nano for building with mini-itx.

True, but my rig is standard ATX anyways. I was just sayin if I had mini itx.

Plus, lots of the mini itx cases are pretty big, so a fury will pop right in. Nano seems more designed for ultra thin mini itx.

 

[sailorjeff]

At this price point I really think this card is going to be a fail for AMD and I really hate it. People are going to have a hard time doing a crossfire setup in smaller cases. The memory will be insufficient for a lot of 4K titles with eye candy turned on and that is what they are marketing this card for. It really needs more memory. I would have loved to see what the OC potential of this card vs the 980 Ti is in this article. I wonder what the aftermarket card makers can do with it and what more mature drivers can do.

 

[chicofehr]

Hows tomb raider with tressfx enabled at 4k? Does it reduce framerate that much?

 

[TechyInAZ]

I don't understand why they would just put 4GB of RAM on this thing and say it's VR ready, those are going to have dual 1080+ easy, next gen will probably be much higher, didn't really future proof it much IMO

Uh...didn't you read the benchmarks?

4k is 4x 1080P, and the 4096 bit bus with 4GB of vram wasn't even close to bottlenecking the GPU.

 

[Mathos]

Not surprised by the results at the moment. 980ti/Titan X both have mature drivers with full support. Fury on all sites has been tested on beta drivers that don't even currently have proper support for the new cards. Though technically that's bad on AMD for not having a full fledged driver out for the launch, since these early reviews will hurt their sales. None the less, they did a good job of dethroning Nvidia on certain titles. While still lagging behind on others that have been known to favor nvidia, especially on the higher resolutions.

In the long run I'd much rather wait and see these reviews updated, once AMD puts out a mature driver or two with full support for the new cards. As they generally increase performance on most games with each driver update.

 

[implantedcaries]

Finally some excellent news for all of us. The way this article read - none of the cards are a clear winner ( 980ti vs Fury), though I suspect future driver updates will better the Fury's position against Nvidia. Now waiting for Fury goodness to trickle down to mid range and lower end cards- give Nvidia a serious run for money. That competition should ensure Nvidia doesnt get complacent and runs its R&D horse harder.. Also hoping Red Team to force Nvidia into Lowering Prices....


Wishful thinking this,.... but would be really great if AMD does the same to Intel Cpus

 

[thezooloomaster]

If this card can indeed be found for the same price as the 980Ti, then it does have an advantage in the shape of its liquid cooling, which allows for superior overclocking.

 

[Pei-chen]

One more thing. The reviewed Fury X is a match to stock 980Ti (1000Mhz base/1075Mhz boost). Aftermarket 980Ti from ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte will have better power limit, cooler and quieter fans and much higher clock. MSI's 980Ti Gaming 6G have 200Mhz overclock at base and boost speed (1178Mhz base/1279Mhz boost). Overclocking GTX further to 1500Mhz at default voltage is also common and at those speed even a Fury X overclocked from 1000Mhz to 1125Mhz (Guru3D's overclock) will not stand a chance.

Why would you think the Fury would have less OC ability? I would think once Aftermarket GPUs are out it would be much more easily overclocked and get more benefit from it, with that fancy panse memory.

3 reasons:
1, GCN 1.2 don't overclock as well as Maxwell and Fury is a tweaked GCN 1.2.
2, Guru3D only managed a 12.5% overclock to 1125Mhz. They think they can get it up to 25% at 1250Mhz if the overclock app is more mature and they can give it more voltage.
3, If the reference card is water-cooled at $650, how much can board partner sell their air-cooled Fury X? $550? $600? You cannot replace a $100 AIO water-cooler with a $40 heatsink and sell it at the same price.

Then looking at 980Ti which overclock 30-40% at stock voltage on air and 50% on water, you'd see how overclocked Fury X is not a match for overclocked 980Ti.

 

[Ninjawithagun]

Thanks to Tom's Hardware for confirming my suspicions. AMD lied to us all...again. The Fury X, which is liquid cooled keeps up neck and neck with a stock aircooled GTX980Ti for most of the benchmarks with slight FPS gain and loss one versus the other, but most of which is neglible to benchmark error margin. That means for $30 more, you can buy an 3rd party factory overclocked GTX980Ti card that will easily beat the Fury X (and stock Titan X) by 10-30% FPS. That makes the decision simple. Buy a factory overclocked GTX980Ti and you will get a lot more performance for the buck and not have to deal with that ugly radiator that you have to mount somewhere onto your case. Let's not even bring up using liquid cooling on a GTX980Ti, as that will put it chest and head in performance versus the poor Fury X. That also makes running two Fury X cards in Crossfire just plain ugly and a pain in the butt for some who own smaller cases that don't have the room or holes to mount multiple radiators. Nvidia wins again and didn't have to lift a finger.

 

[aibenq]

Wonder why AMD launched a new card without updated drivers, where all the 15.xx ready for Fiji? Disappointing i must say, except at 4k.

I can say, maybe thanks to Nvidia who release GTX 980 Ti with lower price and faster, which makes AMD release this card with not optimum driver... again...

but I think, like R9 290X, AMD is already makes a new driver for this issue. like Toms Hardware say, we can see the performance is very good on 4K with mature titles that already improved with lastest driver, but like Witcher and few games which still need improvement, makes this card fall short. Let's hope Toms Hardware makes update review of it with updated driver from AMD, and I hope AMD works fast for this one.

 

[MonsterCookie]

For this price the card should be called !! Furry !! instead of Fury.

This card will be available here in Germany for 699Euros, wheres even the GTX 980Ti costs "only" a measly 670Euros.

Both AMD and Nvidia, get out of here, you have completely lost from reality!
What are these companies smoking? (most probably they wrap it in 100$ bills before they smoke it)


Both AMD and Nvidia fans, you can hate me as much as you want, but I will be sticking to my good old GTX 285 until the next year for sure, if it does not die on me after 6 years, or the price of the GTX 970 does not drop below 200Euros.

 

[jimmysmitty]

No. 15.15

Would it be possible to get updated benchmarks with the latest drivers?
Would it make a big difference?

All the sites already used the 15.15 drivers. They are the official drivers for the R9 300 series and Fury X. The 15.15 currently do not support anything lower unless you download the hacked version which actually will work for the R9 200 series.

One more thing. The reviewed Fury X is a match to stock 980Ti (1000Mhz base/1075Mhz boost). Aftermarket 980Ti from ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte will have better power limit, cooler and quieter fans and much higher clock. MSI's 980Ti Gaming 6G have 200Mhz overclock at base and boost speed (1178Mhz base/1279Mhz boost). Overclocking GTX further to 1500Mhz at default voltage is also common and at those speed even a Fury X overclocked from 1000Mhz to 1125Mhz (Guru3D's overclock) will not stand a chance.

Why would you think the Fury would have less OC ability? I would think once Aftermarket GPUs are out it would be much more easily overclocked and get more benefit from it, with that fancy panse memory.

3 reasons:
1, GCN 1.2 don't overclock as well as Maxwell and Fury is a tweaked GCN 1.2.
2, Guru3D only managed a 12.5% overclock to 1125Mhz. They think they can get it up to 25% at 1250Mhz if the overclock app is more mature and they can give it more voltage.
3, If the reference card is water-cooled at $650, how much can board partner sell their air-cooled Fury X? $550? $600? You cannot replace a $100 AIO water-cooler with a $40 heatsink and sell it at the same price.

Then looking at 980Ti which overclock 30-40% at stock voltage on air and 50% on water, you'd see how overclocked Fury X is not a match for overclocked 980Ti.

The Fury X is stock clocked at 1050MHz so 1125MHz would only be only about 7% not 12.5%.

There is not going to be an air cooled Fury X but there will be an air cooled Fury which is probably going to be a cut down Fiji XT known as Fiji Pro that is slated for $550 in July.

Overall it is an OK card. It is nothing like the hype train was hoping for but it is not as bad as the negative people said it was. I personally think it is not priced right. If it was overall equal to and beat the 980Ti by say 5-10% then yes it is price right. But every review is showing it either losing or matching, with a few slight wins over the 980Ti, at most resolutions which to me says it should be a bit cheaper.

It is what it is though. I wasn't expecting much since it is still 28nm process after all.

 

[Pei-chen]

Not surprised by the results at the moment. 980ti/Titan X both have mature drivers with full support. Fury on all sites has been tested on beta drivers that don't even currently have proper support for the new cards. Though technically that's bad on AMD for not having a full fledged driver out for the launch, since these early reviews will hurt their sales. None the less, they did a good job of dethroning Nvidia on certain titles. While still lagging behind on others that have been known to favor nvidia, especially on the higher resolutions.

In the long run I'd much rather wait and see these reviews updated, once AMD puts out a mature driver or two with full support for the new cards. As they generally increase performance on most games with each driver update.

It is a trade off. You can get good performance day 1 from Nvidia or you can get better performance 2 months later with AMD. If you don't care about playing AAA titles on day 1, AMD/ATI driver problem don't matter as much.

I personally don't play AAA title until a year or 2 later so I can buy the game + DLCs at a huge discount and play it with everything at ultra.