The AMD Radeon R9 Fury Review, Feat. Sapphire & ASUS
by Ryan Smith on July 10, 2015 9:00 AM ESTMiddle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Our next benchmark is Monolith’s popular open-world action game, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. One of our current-gen console multiplatform titles, Shadow of Mordor is plenty punishing on its own, and at Ultra settings it absolutely devours VRAM, showcasing the knock-on effect that current-gen consoles have on VRAM requirements.
Shadow of Mordor ends up being a big win for AMD, with the R9 Fury cards shooting well past the GTX 980. Based on our earlier R9 Fury X review this was not an unexpected result, but at the end of the day with a 20%+ performance advantage, it’s a great situation for AMD to be in.
Meanwhile the R9 Fury’s performance relative to its X-rated sibling is yet again in the 7% range. So far the performance difference between the two cards is surprisingly consistent.
Finally, since AMD’s last two $550 cards were the R9 290X and HD 7970, let’s take a look at those comparisons quickly. At 1440p the R9 Fury only has a 17% lead over the R9 290X “Uber”, which for a card almost 2 years old is more than a bit surprising. The R9 Fury has more efficient front-ends and back-ends and significant advantages in shader throughput and memory bandwidth, and yet the performance gains compared to 290X are fairly small. On the other hand 7970 owners looking to upgrade to another Radeon should like what they’re seeing, as the R9 Fury’s 79% performance advantage is approaching upgrade territory.
Shifting gears to minimum framerates, the situation is similarly in AMD’s favor at 4K. One of the outcomes of going up against the GTX 980 is that it’s just as VRAM-limited as R9 Fury is, so in a VRAM intensive game like Shadow of Mordor, neither card has an advantage. However it’s quite interesting that once we back off to 1440p, the GTX 980 surges forward.
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siliconwars - Saturday, July 11, 2015 - link
Any concept of performance per dollar?D. Lister - Saturday, July 11, 2015 - link
The Fury is 8% faster than a stock 980 and 10% more expensive. How does that "performance per dollar" thing work again? :pNagorak - Sunday, July 12, 2015 - link
By that token the 980 is not good performance per dollar either. It's sonething like a 390 non-x topping the charts. These high end cards are always a rip off.D. Lister - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
"These high end cards are always a rip off."That, is unfortunately a fact. :(
siliconwars - Saturday, July 11, 2015 - link
The Asus Strix is 9.4% faster than the 980 with 20% worse power consumption. I wouldn't call that "nowhere near" Maxwell tbh and the Nano will be even closer if not ahead.Dazmillion - Saturday, July 11, 2015 - link
Nobody is talking about the fact that the Fury cards which AMD claims is for 4k gaming doesnt have a 4k@60Hz port!!David_K - Saturday, July 11, 2015 - link
So the displayport 1.2 connector isn't capable of sending 2160p60hz. That's new.Dazmillion - Saturday, July 11, 2015 - link
The fury cards dont come with HDMI 2.0ES_Revenge - Sunday, July 12, 2015 - link
Which is true but not the only way to get that resolution & refresh. Lack of HDMI 2.0 and full HEVC features is certainly another sore point for Fury. For the most part HDMI 2.0 affects the consumer AV/HT world though, not so much the PC world. In the PC world, gaming monitors capable of those res/refresh rates are going to have DP on them which makes HDMI 2.0 extraneous.mdriftmeyer - Sunday, July 12, 2015 - link
I'll second ES_Revenge on the DP for PC Gaming. The world of 4K Home Monitors being absent with HDMI 2.0 is something we'll live with until the next major revision.I don't even own a 4K Home Monitor. Not very popular in sales either.
Every single one of them showing up on Amazon are handicapped with that SMART TV crap.
I want a 4K Dumb Device that is the output Monitor with FreeSync and nothing else.
I'll use the AppleTV for the `smart' part.