The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X Review: Aiming For the Top
by Ryan Smith on July 2, 2015 11:15 AM ESTFar Cry 4
The next game in our 2015 GPU benchmark suite is Far Cry 4, Ubisoft’s Himalayan action game. A lot like Crysis 3, Far Cry 4 can be quite tough on GPUs, especially with Ultra settings thanks to the game’s expansive environments.
Like the Talos Principle, this is another game that treats AMD well. The R9 Fury X doesn’t just beat the GTX 980 Ti at 4K Ultra, but it beats the GTX Titan X as well. Even 1440p Ultra isn’t too shabby, with a smaller gap but none the less the same outcome.
Overall what we find is that the R9 Fury X has a 9% lead at 4K Ultra, and a 4% lead at 1440p Ultra, making this one of the only games where AMD takes the lead at 1440p. However something interesting happens if we run at 4K with lower quality settings, and that lead evaporates very quickly, shifting to an NVIDIA lead by roughly the same amount. At this time I don’t have a good explanation for this other than to say that whatever is going on at Ultra, it clearly is very different from what happens at Medium quality, and it favors AMD.
Finally, the performance gains over the R9 290X are around average. At 4K and 1440p Ultra the R9 Fury X picks up 35%; at 4K Medium that shrinks to 30%.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
458 Comments
View All Comments
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 barnone. 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.