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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CiccioB - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
The myth, here again!Let's see these numbers of a miraculous vs crippling driver.
And I mean I WANT NUMBNERS!
Or what you are talking about is just junk you are reporting because you can't elaborate yourself.
Come on, the numbers!!!!!!!!!
FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
So you lied loguerto, but the sad truth is amd bails on it's cards and drivers for them FAR FAR FAR sooner than nvidia does.YEARS SOONER.
Get with it bub.
Count Vladimir - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
Hard evidence or gtfo.Roboyt0 - Sunday, July 12, 2015 - link
I am very interested to see how much of a difference ASUS' power delivery system will make for (real) overclocking in general once voltage control is available. If these cards act the same as the 290's did, then AMD's default VRM setup could very likely be more than capable of overclocks in the 25% or more range. I'm basing the 25% or more off of my experience with a half dozen reference based R9 290's, default 947MHz core, that would reach 1200 core clock with ~100mV additional. And if you received a capable card then you could surpass those clocks with more voltage.It appears AMD has followed the EXACT same path they did with the 290 and 290X. The 290X always held a slight lead in performance, but the # of GPU components disabled didn't hinder the 290 as much as anyone thought. This is exactly what we see now with the Fury ~VS~ Fury X...overclock the Fury and it's the better buy. All while the Fury X is there for those who want that little bit of extra performance for the premium, and this time you're getting water cooling! It seems like a pretty good deal to me.
Once 3rd party programmers(not AMD) figure out voltage control for these cards, history will likely repeat itself for AMD. Yes, these will run hotter and use more power than their Nvidia counterparts...I don't see why this is a shock to anyone since this is still 28nm and similar enough to Hawaii...What no one seems to mention is the amount of performance increase compared to Hawaii in the same power/thermal envelope..it's a very significant jump.
Whom in the enthusiast PC world really cares about the additional power draw? We're looking at 60-90W under normal load conditions; Furmark is NOT normal load. Unless electricity where you hail from is that expensive, it isn't actually costing you that much more in the long run. If you're in the market for a ~$550 GPU, then you probably aren't too concerned with buying a good PSU. What the FurMark power draw of the Fury X/Sapphire Fury really tell us is that the reference PCB is capable of handling 385W+ of draw. This should give an idea of what the card can do once we are able to control the voltage.
These cards are enthusiast grade and plenty of those users will remove the included cooler for maximum performance. A full cover waterblock is going to be the key to releasing the full potential of Fury(X) just like it was for 290(X). It is a definite plus to see board partners with solid air cooling solutions out of the gate though...Sapphire's cooling solution fares better in temperature AND noise during FurMark than ASUS' when it's pulling 130W additional power! Way to go Sapphire!
My rant will continue concerning drivers. Nvidia has mature hardware with mature drivers. The fact AMD is keeping up, or winning is some instances, is a solid achievement. Go back to a 290(X) review when their primary competition was a 780 Ti, where the 780 Ti was usually winning. Now, the 390(X), that so many are calling a rebranded POS, easily bests the 780 Ti and competes with GTX 980. Nvidia changed architecture, but AMD is still competitive? Another commenter said it best by saying: "An AMD GPU is like a fine wine, and gets better with age."
This tells me 3 things...
1) Once drivers mature, AMD stands to gain solid performance improvements.
2) Adding voltage control to enable actual overclocking will show the true potential of these cards.
3) Add these two factors together and AMD has another winning product.
Lastly we still have DX12 to factor into all of this. Sure, you can say DX12 is too far away, but in actuality it is not. I know there are those people who MUST HAVE the latest and greatest hardware every time something new comes around every ~9 months. However, there are plenty more of us who wait a few generations of GPUs to upgrade. If DX12 brings even a half of the anticipated performance gains and you're in the market, then purchasing this card now, or in the coming months, will be a solid investment for the coming years.
Peichen - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
Whatever flats your boat. There are still some people like you that believes FX CPUs are faster than i7s and they are what keeps AMD afloat. The rest of us.... we actually consider everything and go Intel & Nvidia.There are 3 fails in your assumptions:
1. Fiji is a much bigger core tied to 4 HBM modules. OC will likely not be as "smooth" as 290X
2. 60-90W is not just cost in electricity. It is also getting a PSU that will supply the additional draw and more fan(s) and better case to get the heat out. Or suffer the heat and noise. The $15-45 a year in additional electricity bill also means you will be in the red in a couple od years.
3. You assume AMD/ATI driver team is still around and will be around a couple of years in the future.
silverblue - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
3. Unless the driver work has been completely outsourced and there's proof of this happening, I'm not sure you can use this as a "fail".Fiji isn't a brand new version of GCN so I don't expect the huge gains in performance that are being touted, however whatever they do bring to the table should benefit Tonga as well, which will (hopefully) distance itself from Tahiti and perhaps improve sales further down the stack.
Count Vladimir - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
Honestly, driver outsourcing might be for the best in case of AMD.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
The most electrically efficient 3D computer gaming via an ARM chip, right? Think of all the wasted watts for these big fancy GPUs. Even more efficient are text-based games.FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
You forgot he said spend a hundred and a half on a waterblock...for the amd card, for "full potential"..ROFL - once again the future that never comes is very bright and very expensive.
beck2050 - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
A bit disingenuous as custom cooled over clocked 980s are the norm these days and easily match or exceed Fury, while running cooler with much less power and can be found cheaper. AMD HAS its work cut out.