AMD R9 Fury X reviews!

[maniacalpha1-1]

It's going allow your computer to draw a lot more people/vehicles on the screen before choking or you can get the same amount of people at full graphics without graphics lag. PvP MMOs that have large battles use a lot of graphic tricks to allow them to even be playable. Usually they reduce the texture quality dynamically. DX12 is going to be great for all games, but it will be HUGE for MMOs and RTS. Check out the video below. These battles are not even possible with DX11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9UACXikdR0

On your first question. In BF4 Mantle gave AMD 10-15% better max FPS, but the min FPS shot up 50-80%. Frametimes are 40% lower than DX11. Gameplay feels so smooth. That's on a mid to high end computer. DX12 is actually looking like it's going to be better than Mantle.

Wow, that game does look good. So in theory, if someone upgraded to a Fury/X (or indeed, 980ti) for 1440p soon, then the fortuitous chance of DX12 coming out could extend the relevant performance lifespan of the Fury/X/980ti longer than usual?

I mean, I bought a 7970 only a few months after it came out, and now it can choke on some games on even 1080p after only 3 years. While GPUs that come out 3 years from now will obviously outperform today's new cards on a card against card basis, won't the coincidence of soon-to-release DX12 extend the relevant lifespan of today's cards on a card against game basis? Or are the developers of the first games for DX12 going to immediately start packing in graphical improvements that test even DX12, such that no, you still need to upgrade just as often?

Let me be more specific - by graphical improvements I meant literal eye candy. AKA will online gaming companies like DICE forgo the opportunity to increase player counts and just pack in more graphics?

 

[flopper]

Wow, that game does look good. So in theory, if someone upgraded to a Fury/X (or indeed, 980ti) for 1440p soon, then the fortuitous chance of DX12 coming out could extend the relevant performance lifespan of the Fury/X/980ti longer than usual?

I mean, I bought a 7970 only a few months after it came out, and now it can choke on some games on even 1080p after only 3 years. While GPUs that come out 3 years from now will obviously outperform today's new cards on a card against card basis, won't the coincidence of soon-to-release DX12 extend the relevant lifespan of today's cards on a card against game basis? Or are the developers of the first games for DX12 going to immediately start packing in graphical improvements that test even DX12, such that no, you still need to upgrade just as often?

Let me be more specific - by graphical improvements I meant literal eye candy. AKA will online gaming companies like DICE forgo the opportunity to increase player counts and just pack in more graphics?

In theory a card should hold value longer over time with Dx12.
I assume developers for a fps game will refine and add visual candy as the perfomance hit wont be big. for a diablo 3 game we see more monsters, effects etc...

Todays hardware is powerful but dx11 talked to one core on your cpu where the dx12 will talk to your 4 or 8 core cpu. so that meant games was stalling waiting for things to happen while the one core was doing things now with dx12 the overhead of the cpu is removed so you can have more and better performance.

I assume the value of a card and computer will last longer with dx12.
its why I buy a fury later on as I wait for more of them to be out there to buy.

I dont think we see 128 players in dx12 and BF5 but who knows?

 

[B-Riz]

In the HardOCP review, they use a 3770K, not a 2011 / 2011 v2.

And no mention of 980 Ti being reference or aftermarket or boost clocks of said card.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/06/24/amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_video_card_review/3#.VYw2RPmjNcY

Does this bother anyone else?

I like my reviews done on the fastest platform out; funny how other reviews were done on 2011.

Forbes review: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2015/06/24/amd-radeon-r9-fury-x-review-amd-at-their-best/

"The Fury X comes to market matching Nvidia’s 980 Ti in price at $649. It doesn’t conclusively topple its nearest competitor, but it brings some forward-thinking architecture to the table, and breathes completely new life into what was becoming a stale product cycle. The included liquid cooling system is executed well, and represents a pretty nice value compared to the air-cooled 980 Ti. It’s a dramatic improvement for AMD in power efficiency, and the attractive design of the card itself demands that you take it seriously. I want to build a mini-ITX system around it because the product itself excites me and I just love looking at it.

Is all of this enough to turn people away from Nvidia? Maybe. Enough to convince people on the fence to give AMD a fresh try? Absolutely. If you’re looking at 1440p or 4K gaming you have to consider this very carefully against Nvidia’s offerings. Look at the entire ecosystem, G-Sync, FreeSync, driver support, software suites, etc. But at this point, I can say confidently that the Fury X represents AMD at their best, and capable once again of leapfrogging the competition and remaining a force to be reckoned with in the GPU space. Note that I said capable. In order to be a complete success, I think Fury X needed to obliterate the 980 Ti in benchmarks. It fell just short.

More than anything, the Fury X, to me, shows AMD listening to its community and recognizing that raw horsepower isn’t the only consideration anymore. You need good looks, power efficiency, and distinguishing characteristics to get noticed and stay relevant. The Fury X checks all of those boxes."

 

[2is]

Except Fury X uses more power and is slower so i'm not sure what the forbes editor is smoking.

When it comes to flagship cards, raw power is what people want.

 

[Enigmoid]

In theory a card should hold value longer over time with Dx12.
I assume developers for a fps game will refine and add visual candy as the perfomance hit wont be big. for a diablo 3 game we see more monsters, effects etc...

Todays hardware is powerful but dx11 talked to one core on your cpu where the dx12 will talk to your 4 or 8 core cpu. so that meant games was stalling waiting for things to happen while the one core was doing things now with dx12 the overhead of the cpu is removed so you can have more and better performance.

I assume the value of a card and computer will last longer with dx12.
its why I buy a fury later on as I wait for more of them to be out there to buy.

I dont think we see 128 players in dx12 and BF5 but who knows?

I disagree. IMO the first thing we will see with DX12 is that the current trend of crappy ports and unoptimized games will continue for the majority of games. As soon as a lot of games get DX12 the devs will go nutso and add a TON of performance sucking features. Add 1000 particles and the GPU has to render them.

Anything drawn, which DX 12 will allow more of, WILL require GPU grunt to actually display (ie DX 12 allows 100 spheres with little CPU overhead vs. DX 11 allowing 10 but now the GPU has to draw 100 spheres). Adding more detail and effects will increase the amount of GPU power needed.

Increasing draw distance will be easier on the CPU with DX 12 than DX 11 but there will still be more GPU power needed.

DX12 shifts the burden onto the GPU. I do not expect however the GPU efficiencies of DX12 to cancel the increased number of features DX 12 games will have. DX12 will look much better (arbitrarily 3x better) but use require more GPU power (arbitrarily 2x more GPU grunt). The IQ/GPU grunt may improve (or may not depending on optimization) but the bar will greatly increase.

Same thing with DX 9 vs. DX 11 games. DX 11 games require a TON more GPU power on average.

 

[B-Riz]

Except Fury X uses more power and is slower so i'm not sure what the forbes editor is smoking.

When it comes to flagship cards, raw power is what people want.

Then go buy an effing 980 Ti and be happy with it.

Power usage is not enough to matter, slower is relative.

It is a competitive product.

 

[flopper]

I

DX12 shifts the burden onto the GPU.

Fury made for dx12 and have the power for it.
Nvidias offering dont.
simple as that for me.

 

[2is]

Fury made for dx12 and have the power for it.
Nvidias offering dont.
simple as that for me.

Matrox blows both of them out of the water in DX12.... If you really care about DX12, you'll buy a Matrox card.

That may sound ridiculous, but since we are just making up our own "facts", I might as well play along.

 

[2is]

Then go buy an effing 980 Ti and be happy with it.

Power usage is not enough to matter, slower is relative.

It is a competitive product.

You posted a Forbes article trying to make the Fury sound like a card it is not. The article suggests is trades blows with the 980Ti, which is a generous statement at the very best of times. It also suggests it's a more efficient card, which is outright BS. But somehow you've managed to delude yourself into believing it and decided to post it here in hopes that you'll get some reinforcement. Instead you got showered with the truth and now you're getting defensive. Get mad all you want, that card isn't what the forbes article or you would like to believe it is. It's slower and less efficient, so I'm not sure what aspects of the card forbes is referring to when saying they're finally listening to the community, and I'm pretty sure you haven't got a clue either. We are the community and most of us are bitching about the card, so please if I'm missing something, tell me where the silver lining is for Fury? Because it isn't performance and it sure as hell isn't efficiency, and being that it costs just as much, it's not price. It doesn't overclock anywhere near as well either, so there goes that aspect. So again, where is this silver lining that you're clinging to?

 

[B-Riz]

You posted a Forbes article trying to make the Fury sound like a card it is not. The article suggests is trades blows with the 980Ti, which is a generous statement at the very best of times. It also suggests it's a more efficient card, which is outright BS. But somehow you've managed to delude yourself into believing it and decided to post it here in hopes that you'll get some reinforcement. Instead you got showered with the truth and now you're getting defensive. Get mad all you want, that card isn't what the forbes article or you would like to believe it is. It's slower and less efficient, so I'm not sure what aspects of the card forbes is referring to when saying they're finally listening to the community, and I'm pretty sure you haven't got a clue either. We are the community and most of us are bitching about the card, so please if I'm missing something, tell me where the silver lining is for Fury? Because it isn't performance and it sure as hell isn't efficiency, and being that it costs just as much, it's not price. It doesn't overclock anywhere near as well either, so there goes that aspect. So again, where is this silver lining that you're clinging to?

Srsly, this is just trolling now.

The article did not say one card "won the race, game over, GTFO other card".

Get your effing 980 Ti to replace the sorry 680 setup and leave us alone.

 

[2is]

Srsly, this is just trolling now.

The article did not say one card "won the race, game over, GTFO other card".

Get your effing 980 Ti to replace the sorry 680 setup and leave us alone.

Remove your red tainted glasses and re-read my post... I didn't say what you think I said. But go ahead and cry some more. It won't change the price of Fury, it won't change the performance of Fury, it won't change the efficiency of Fury it won't change the overclocking potential of fury.

Meanwhile, i'm still waiting on that silver lining you're clinging to. Does it even exist? Is it a secret?

I wouldn't bother wasting your time insulting my system lol... You may think everyone emotionally attached to their video cards as you are, but I assure you that my feelings are not being hurt. Insult my motherboard too while you're at it if it makes you feel better or even my SSDs. Or you can get real personal by insulting my low voltage DIMMs

 

[B-Riz]

Remove your red tainted glasses and re-read my post... I didn't say what you think I said. But go ahead and cry some more. It won't change the price of Fury, it won't change the performance of Fury, it won't change the efficiency of Fury it won't change the overclocking potential of fury.

Meanwhile, i'm still waiting on that silver lining you're clinging to. Does it even exist? Is it a secret?

Nitpicker McGee, I never said "Buy a Fury X!" it is sooo awesome!!!!!

Again, GO GET YOUR EFFING 980 Ti !!!!

You are not going to buy a Fury X, I never told anyone to buy a Fury X and the Forbes review is pragmatic about the product, so chill the eff out.

Fury X *is" competitive to 980 Ti, so what evs, another option for the crappy $650 price bracket.

Spend or don't, not my problem.

 

[2is]

Nitpicker McGee, I never said "Buy a Fury X!" it is sooo awesome!!!!!

Again, GO GET YOUR EFFING 980 Ti !!!!

You are not going to buy a Fury X, I never told anyone to buy a Fury X and the Forbes review is pragmatic about the product, so chill the eff out.

Fury X *is" competitive to 980 Ti, so what evs, another option for the crappy $650 price bracket.

Spend or don't, not my problem.

I didn't say you said that. In fact, I didn't say YOU said anything at all. I responded to the Forbes article and you got mad at the dose of reality I injected into the delusion that was the Forbes article.

I appreciate your concern for my next purchase, but for now I'm going to sit on my crappy 680s. Not that it would matter either way. I'd have responded to you the same regardless and you'd have gotten mad regardless. Truth hurts sometimes. Not really sure at what point you thought this was about me or my cards lol. Sit back, chill, relax. It's just a GPU that under delivers. Not the end of the world.

 

[x3sphere]

In the HardOCP review, they use a 3770K, not a 2011 / 2011 v2.

And no mention of 980 Ti being reference or aftermarket or boost clocks of said card.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/06/24/amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_video_card_review/3#.VYw2RPmjNcY

Does this bother anyone else?

I like my reviews done on the fastest platform out; funny how other reviews were done on 2011.

Forbes review: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2015/06/24/amd-radeon-r9-fury-x-review-amd-at-their-best/

It's a reference 980 Ti, [H] always includes the name of the AIB if it is a non-reference card.

That Forbes review is a joke. I haven't played most of the games tested in there, but they have the 980 Ti doing 100+ FPS at 1440p in GTA V, and I know it doesn't get anywhere near that performance. Also why test with lower AF in some games?

 

[B-Riz]

I didn't say you said that. In fact, I didn't say YOU said anything at all. I responded to the Forbes article and you got mad at the dose of reality I injected into the delusion that was the Forbes article.

I appreciate your concern for my next purchase, but for now I'm going to sit on my crappy 680s. Not that it would matter either way. I'd have responded to you the same regardless and you'd have gotten mad regardless. Truth hurts sometimes. Not really sure at what point you thought this was about me or my cards lol. Sit back, chill, relax. It's just a GPU that under delivers. Not the end of the world.

The beauty of the Forbes review is that it is pragmatic; the card is not perfect, it is not a failure either.

(Pragmatic - dealing with the problems that exist in a specific situation in a reasonable and logical way instead of depending on ideas and theories; m-w.com)

The fundamental mistake you, and other people are making, is not realizing that any computer hardware is flawed at release (too new to know if truly good / bad / ugly).

P67 SATA bug?

GTX 970? Had a sweet few months before the truth came out.

I give any new tech 6 - 8 months, then see where it stands.

Also, stop nitpicking everything and dealing in absolutes; you ruin many threads by doing that.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

That Forbes review is a joke. I haven't played most of the games tested in there, but they have the 980 Ti doing 100+ FPS at 1440p in GTA V, and I know it doesn't get anywhere near that performance. Also why test with lower AF in some games?

That Forbes review is one of the most insane things I have ever read. Let's pull some quick quotes:

Of these 10 games, Fury X takes the crown on 40% of them. Crucially, it’s barely edging out the 980 Ti in those four titles. On the other hand, AMD’s competitor gets clear victories in Project Cars, GTA V, and Alien Isolation, decisively jumping out in front. Let’s see if the results shift when we upgrade to 4K.

Yep, once again AMD’s Fury X claims 4 victories. But once again Nvidia’s 980 Ti takes commanding leads in the same games: Project Cars, Alien Isolation, and GTA V.

To be completely honest, I expected Fury X to topple the 980 Ti in terms of pure gaming performance. I’m willing to give AMD the benefit of the doubt for the next couple months, since we’re obviously dealing with brand new architecture that will benefit from more mature drivers. But driver updates also bring performance uplift for the competition.

Is Fury X a viable card for 4K gaming? Absolutely. Is its performance alone a compelling enough reason to dissuade people from a 980 Ti? No, not in my opinion. But let’s look at the rest of the picture.

I don’t typically take deep dives into power consumption, but Fiji’s specs on paper demands at least some investigation. I tested my system under full load running Metro Last Light Redux completely maxed out at 4K. Here’s what peak system power looked like:

GTX 980 Ti: 378W
Radeon 390x: 423W
Radeon Fury X: 411W

I never expected Fury X to beat Maxwell’s efficiency (though Fiji has the potential to down the road), but there’s a positive takeaway here: Fury X is using 2% less power than the 390x, but delivering roughly 15% faster performance.

Sometimes you have to go to extremes to test a theory. And my theory is that 4GB of HBM is enough right now, but in the very near future (let’s say 6 months to a year) it may not be. So I fired up Grand Theft Auto V in 4K, switched all quality settings to High, turned off tessellation and ambient occlusion, and cranked anti-aliasing up to 8xMSAA. Let me stress that 8xMSAA is utterly ridiculous at 4K resolutions. But the idea was to test its limits.

This particular GTA V benchmark test (note that my standard one has MSAA turned off) brought the Fury X to its knees, clocking average framerates of 12fps to 20fps. I noticed artifacting, and gameplay frequently came to a screeching halt. In 3 of the 5 scenes, the minimum framerate dropped all the way to zero.

Meanwhile, Nvidia’s 980 Ti chugged along at 25fps to 30fps, never once stuttering or displaying artifacts. While I consider this an edge case (again, this level of anti-aliasing is unnecessary at 4K), it does prove that AMD may have their work cut out for them in the messaging department. Testing the efficiency and/or benefits to HBM with existing reporting tools is tricky.

So Fury is slower in 60% of games, sometimes dramatically so, and the games it does win are by an average of 3 fps, it uses more power, has less overclocking ability (currently), completely dies in a stress test designed to test high VRAM usage (which the 980ti manages to struggle through barely), and the author's conclusion is it "fell just short" of "obliterating" the competition? This is what happens when you let company loyalty influence your opinion of a specific product. Because from a neutral perspective, everything about that review was entirely damning to Fury and not at all supportive of the author's conclusion.

 

[B-Riz]

Eh, 33 watt difference, is it the end of the world?

 

[2is]

Eh, 33 watt difference, is it the end of the world?

Don't forget it's slower. Don't forget it doesn't overclock well at all don't forget worse price/performance ratio as well as worse performance/watt ratio.

But somehow that forbes article concluded it fell "just short" of "obliterating" the 980Ti in spite of losing out on ever performance metric, at times substantially, and that AMD finally listened to the community...

Then there's you... Knowing the truth about it's performance, read this article, allowed it to alter your perception of reality, and ran with it. :\


EDIT: And here's something else to chew on. Arguably, RussianSensation and Silverforce11 are probably the two best guys around here to make a strong case for Fury, and even they have largely left it alone.

 

[krumme]

Don't forget it's slower. Don't forget it doesn't overclock well at all don't forget worse price/performance ratio as well as worse performance/watt ratio.

But somehow that forbes article concluded it fell "just short" of "obliterating" the 980Ti in spite of losing out on ever performance metric, at times substantially, and that AMD finally listened to the community...

Then there's you... Knowing the truth about it's performance, read this article, allowed it to alter your perception of reality, and ran with it. :\


EDIT: And here's something else to chew on. Arguably, RussianSensation and Silverforce11 are probably the two best guys around here to make a strong case for Fury, and even they have largely left it alone.

Yeaa now go buy the 980ti and share thoughts in nv subforum - or shared forum.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Eh, 33 watt difference, is it the end of the world?

Of course not. And the author mentions the frame limiter feature can dial back power usage considerably, which is an important contention. And the small size and watercooling is good for smaller cases... but his conclusion about the relative merits of each card ignores all of Nvidia's victories, including a pretty crushing defeat in a test designed to show how HBM handles RAM usage above 4 GB, and offers that Fury provides just as much value at the price point as the 980 TI, which is a pretty bold proclamation given all its relative shortcomings. Fury has some great potential, but there's pretty universal consensus that it is priced too high for the value it offers. If you're going to review a card in the interest of providing feedback for potential consumers, you can't ignore that there is a product on the market that is superior in performance and power consumption just because this one has a "genuinely sexy hardware design."

 

[2is]

Yeaa now go buy the 980ti and share thoughts in nv subforum - or shared forum.

Tell you what, you gift me $650 via paypal and I'll do just that. I'll take care of tax and shipping costs. Otherwise, I'll keep posting in whichever sub forum peaks my interest, within the guidelines of the forum rules which is what I'm doing here.

 

[3DVagabond]

The issue with the "better for the future" speculation is that the Fury X has 4 GB of ram. So that kind of messes with the line of thinking that you should speculate and buy it for future enjoyment.

Since consoles have a fixed amount of RAM available, I don't think we'll see requirements go up any more for a while.

 

[B-Riz]

Of course not. And the author mentions the frame limiter feature can dial back power usage considerably, which is an important contention. And the small size and watercooling is good for smaller cases... but his conclusion about the relative merits of each card ignores all of Nvidia's victories, including a pretty crushing defeat in a test designed to show how HBM handles RAM usage above 4 GB, and offers that Fury provides just as much value at the price point as the 980 TI, which is a pretty bold proclamation given all its relative shortcomings. Fury has some great potential, but there's pretty universal consensus that it is priced too high for the value it offers. If you're going to review a card in the interest of providing feedback for potential consumers, you can't ignore that there is a product on the market that is superior in performance and power consumption just because this one has a "genuinely sexy hardware design."

Honestly, right now, today, I would almost buy both to use for a month, then sell one and keep one.

I feel there are too many intangibles, mostly software, between drivers and the actual games one plays, to make a worthwhile decision.

I am more curious as to where both stand in 6 - 8 months, and how they both perform in Windows 10 on the favorite games.

 

[coercitiv]

Eh, 33 watt difference, is it the end of the world?

Peak power consumption is not the whole story though. Tom's hardware average power consumption while gaming paints a slightly different picture.

 

[B-Riz]

Peak power consumption is not the whole story though. Tom's hardware average power consumption while gaming paints a slightly different picture.

Right on, I read through the Tom's review, thought it had some good nuggets.

I only linked the Forbes article because the author says it is a good card, not super awesome great world beater, but some good competition from AMD.

And they did not bash the 980 Ti either, both are good cards.

For the record, I am not happy about $650+ vid cards, but that is the new reality.