I was all set to buy Fury X, after looking at benchmarks bought 980ti SLI instead. Both cards are reference and both will run pretty much all the time at 1380 core, it's great to have video cards that overclock again after three generations of AMD cards that barely did 50mhz over stock.
While I agree with you that 980Ti OC SLI > Fury X OC CF for 4K gaming overall, it really comes down to the games too. If by accident you happen to play the games that run way faster on Fury X CF, no amount of overclocking on 980Ti SLI will catch them; and vice versa.
This
recent review tests 10 games at 4K:
Scenario 1 -- Stock vs. stock:
"The average frame rate data saw the Fury X cards come out 4% ahead of the GTX 980 Tis based on the 10 games that we tested at 4K. However, of the games we tested, the Fury X combo was faster in only four of them and that includes a 1% advantage in Battlefield 4. Where the Fury X Crossfire setup won big was in Thief where it was 50% faster and Total War: Attila where it was 36% faster. Removing Thief's result sees the Fury X cards losing to the GTX 980 Tis overall by 1%. The games where the margin was 5% or less either way included Metro: Redux, Battlefield 4, Hitman: Absolution (due to a CPU limitation) and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Now for the interesting part, typically we expect Nvidia to have the edge when looking at frame time (99th percentile) performance, but this wasn't the case here. The R9 Fury X Crossfire cards were on average 22% faster when comparing the 99th percentile data. Again, the Fury X Crossfire cards scored big in Thief and Total War: Attila, but were also faster in Battlefield 4, The Witcher and even Metro Redux. There was only one game where the margins were close either way and that was Hitman, again a game that we suspect was CPU limited.The frame time wins were 50/50, but where AMD was faster it was a lot faster."
We can conclude, on average Fury X CF > 980Ti SLI (stock vs. stock)
Scenario 2 - Overclocked vs. Overclocked
"Everything changes when overclocking comes into play. The GTX 980 Ti offers loads of overclocking headroom where as the Radeon R9 Fury X offers almost none. As a result, when comparing average frame rates once overclocked, the GTX 980 Ti graphics cards became 11% faster on average. Games where the GTX 980 Ti SLI cards were previously slower, such as Battlefield 4 and Watch Dogs, now favored the green team. That isn't entirely surprising as overclocking saw SLI performance boosted by 15% on average, whereas the Crossfire configuration gained just a percent or two. The frame time data now also favored Nvidia by 5%.
If we go back and look at the average frame rate performance of each game while also taking note of the minimum frame rates we see that the GTX 980 Ti SLI setup delivered very playable performance in seven of the 10 games, the Fury X Crossfire cards on the other hand provided what we consider to be very playable performance in six of the 10 games while remaining playable in the rest. Gamers wanting to play at 4K will be happy with either setup overall, but we feel Nvidia offers a more consistent gaming experience while allowing for an additional 15% performance bump through overclocking. Normally we don't place so much emphasis on overclocking, but we feel those seeking an enthusiast multi-GPU setup are probably able and willing to enjoy the benefits of overclocking."
We can conclude, on average 980Ti SLI OC > Fury X CF OC
Source
The trouble for AMD is that enthusiasts buying $650+ cards
do overclock and on top of that 980Ti has HDMI 2.0 and 6GB of VRAM which add extra appeal. Lack of HDMI 2.0 ruled out Fury/X for all HDTV 4K gamers.
Performance wise, Fury X CF does surprisingly well and it's without a doubt better than 980 Ti reference SLI at 4K in terms of balance of noise levels and performance, but once we introduce after-market 980Ti cards + overclocking, 980Ti SLI OC wins. Still though, a lot of people on this forum bought reference 980Ti/980Ti SLI even before Fury X even launched which clearly suggests deep brand preference/bias. In other words even if Fury X had 20-25% overclocking headroom, those same individuals wouldn't have purchased the Fury X anyway. Those who waited on both Fury X and 980Ti to see how they stack up in overclocking and SLI are really the brand agnostic/objective gamers, you included! :thumbsup:
Unfortunately for AMD, the NV loyalists will just keep buying NV cards no matter what while objective gamers will skip both the Fury and Fury X for 980Ti. This is going to pummel market share even further.
If AMD had priced their Fury cards $100 less, which would result in a $200 savings over 980Ti SLI, then at least some argument could be made. Also, at that point the Fury would be clearly superior to the 980 as well. But having buzzing pump was just as big of a screw up as having a reference blower on the HD7970Ghz/R9 290X because this perception will remain for Fury X for likely the entire time it exists on the market. First impressions is what people remember.
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OTOH, the strong showing of Fury X CF vs. 980Ti SLI without overclocking basically implies that Fury CF would beat 980 SLI in high rez gaming since it basically nearly a max overclocked 980 just to match a stock Fury at 1440P.
I did find the power usage surprising after reading so much FUD online. Fury X OC CF and 980Ti OC SLI consume a pretty similar amount of power if the user doesn't do wasteful overvolting on the Fury X.
Certainly there is no major differences in power usage; it really does come down to overclocking and 6GB of VRAM as a bonus.
Looking at the above, AMD did reach their goals of actually beating 980TI SLI in 4K with Fury X CF but they couldn't overcome the major disadvantage in overclocking headroom. Having said that the Fury X OC CF is far closer to 980Ti OC SLI than HD5870 CF was to GTX480 SLI or HD6970 CF was to GTX580 SLI. In that case, if it weren't for NV's massive 20-25% overclocking headroom, this would be one of the closest generations. AMD though already used up their HBM advantage but NV is going to introduce a new GPU architecture with Pascal + HBM2. That's really what's scary as to how AMD will find a way to compete in 2016-2018 with a lot less financial resources.
I know I'll probably be ran out of town on a rail for posting this, but I genuinely wonder about it. I want to put together an AMD system, but I can't help but wonder what would happen in the event that AMD is no longer a going concern? I would imagine at this point in time it would be irrelevant. By the time it actually comes to that, if it does, then the card would be so obsolete it wouldn't matter.
I've read the same thoughts you have during 2011, and 2012, and 2013, and 2014. Every year someone says that "what if AMD goes bankrupt soon?"
I think what really damaged AMD is lack of proper refresh cards in the $100-400 segments. They waited way too long to launch R9 390/390X and they really flopped when it came to reference blowers for 7970/7970Ghz/R9 290 series. Looking at current standing though, AMD is in a decent position but the perception that AMD is a budget brand and makes hot and loud cards persists which is hurting the brand's lower segments like R7 265, 270/270X/285/280X/290. That means 750/750ti/960 are cleaning up the $80-250 market with little effort, which is pretty shocking considering that the price/performance of 750/750Ti/960 is very poor without special sales.