Dragon Age: Inquisition

Our RPG of choice for 2015 is Dragon Age: Inquisition, the latest game in the Dragon Age series of ARPGs. Offering an expansive world that can easily challenge even the best of our video cards, Dragon Age also offers us an alternative take on EA/DICE’s Frostbite 3 engine, which powers this game along with Battlefield 4.

Dragon Age: Inquisition - 3840x2160 - Ultra Quality - 0x MSAA

Dragon Age: Inquisition - 3840x2160 - High Quality

Dragon Age: Inquisition - 2560x1440 - Ultra Quality - 0x MSAA

Similar to Battlefield 4, we have swapped out Mantle for DirectX here; the R9 Fury X didn’t suffer too much from Mantle, but it certainly was not in the card’s favor.

Perhaps it’s a Frostbite thing or maybe AMD just got unlucky here, but Dragon Age is the second-worst showing for the R9 Fury X. The card trails the GTX 980 Ti at all times, by anywhere between 13% and 18%. At this point AMD is straddling the line between the GTX 980 and GTX 980 Ti, and at 1440p they fall closer to the GTX 980.

Meanwhile I feel this is another good example of why single-GPU cards aren’t quite ready yet for no-compromises 4K gaming. Even without MSAA the R9 Fury X can’t break out of the 30s, we have to drop to High quality to do that. On the other hand going to 1440p immediately gets Ultra quality performance over 60fps.

Finally, the R9 Fury X’s performance gains over its predecessor are also among their lowest here. The Fiji based card picks up just 22% at 4K, and less at 1440p. Once again we are likely looking at a bottleneck closer to geometry or ROP performance, which leaves the shaders underutilized.

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  • anandreader106 - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link

    @Wreckage Not quite. Cash reserves play a role in evaluating a company's net worth. When AMD acquired ATI, they spent considerable money to do so and plunged themselves into debt. The resulting valuation of AMD was not simply the combined valuations of AMD and ATI pre-acquisition. Far from it.

    AMD is the undisputed underdog in 2015, and has been for many years before that. That is why Ryan gave so much praise to AMD in the article. For them to even be competitive at the high end, given their resources and competition, is nothing short of impressive.

    If you cannot at least acknowledge that, than your view on this product and the GPU market is completely warped. As consumers we are all better off with a Fury X in the market.
  • Yojimbo - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link

    Yes, NVIDIA was definitely the underdog at the time of the AMD purchase of ATI. Many people were leaving NVIDIA for dead. NVIDIA had recently lost its ability to make chipsets for Intel processors, and after AMD bought ATI it was presumed (rightly so) that NVIDIA would no longer be able to make chipsets for AMD processors. It was thought that the discrete GPU market might dry up with fusion CPU/GPU chips taking over the market.
  • chizow - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link

    Yep, I remember after the merger happened most AMD/ATI fans were rejoicing as they felt it would spell the end of both Nvidia and Intel, Future is Fusion and all that promise lol. Many like myself were pointing out the fact AMD overpayed for ATI and that they would collapse under the weight of all that debt given ATI's revenue and profits didn't come close to justifying the purchase price.

    My how things have played out completely differently! It's like the incredible shrinking company. At this point it really is in AMD and their fan's best interest if they are just bought out and broken up for scraps, at least someone with deep pockets might be able to revive some of their core products and turn things around.
  • Ranger101 - Friday, July 3, 2015 - link

    Well done Mr Smith. I would go so far as to say THE best Fury X review on the internet bar
    none. The most important ingredient is BALANCE. Something that other reviews sorely lack.

    In particular the PCPer and HardOCP articles read like they were written by the green
    goblin himself and consequently suffer a MASSIVE credibility failure.

    Yes Nvidia has a better performing card in the 980TI but it was refreshing to see credit

    given to AMD where it was due. Only dolts and fanatical AMD haters (I'm not quite sure
    what category chizow falls into, probably both and a third "Nvidia shill") would deny that
    we need AMD AND Nvidia for the consumer to win.

    Thanks Anandtech.
  • Michael Bay - Friday, July 3, 2015 - link

    Except chizow never stated he wishes to see AMD dead.
    I guess it`s your butthurt talking.
  • chizow - Friday, July 3, 2015 - link

    Yep, just AMD fanboys ;)

    "What's Left of AMD" can keep making SoCs and console APUs or whatever other widgets under the umbrella of some monster conglomerate like Samsung, Qualcomm or Microsoft and I'm perfectly OK with that. Maybe I'll even buy an AMD product again.
  • medi03 - Sunday, July 5, 2015 - link

    "AMD going away won't matter to anyone but their few remaining devout fanboys'
    So kind (paid?) nVidia troll chizow is.
  • chizow - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link

    @medi03 no worries I look forward to the day (unpaid?) AMD fantroll's like you can free yourselves from the mediocrity that is AMD.
  • chizow - Friday, July 3, 2015 - link

    Yet, still 3rd rate. The overwhelming majority of the market has gone on just fine without AMD being relevant in the CPU market, and recently, the same has happened in the GPU market. AMD going away won't matter to anyone but their few remaining devout fanboys like Ranger101.
  • piiman - Friday, July 3, 2015 - link

    "AMD going away won't matter to anyone but their few remaining devout fanboys'

    Hmmm you'll think different when GPU prices go up up up. Competition is good for consumers and without it you will pay more, literally.

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