The AMD Radeon R9 Fury Review, Feat. Sapphire & ASUS
by Ryan Smith on July 10, 2015 9:00 AM ESTFinal Words
Bringing this video card review to a close, we’ll start off with how the R9 Fury compares to its bigger sibling, the R9 Fury X. Although looking at the bare specifications of the two cards would suggest they’d be fairly far apart in performance, this is not what we have found. Between 4K and 1440p the R9 Fury’s performance deficit is only 7-8%, noticeably less than what we’d expect given the number of disabled CUs.
In fact a significant amount of the performance gap appears to be from the reduction in clockspeed, and not the number of CUs. And while overclocking back to R9 Fury X clockspeeds can’t recover all of the performance, it recovers a lot of it. This implies that Fiji on the whole is overweight on shading/texturing resources, as it’s not greatly impacted by having some of those resources cut off.
Consequently I can see why AMD opted to launch the R9 Fury X and R9 Fury separately, and to withhold the latter’s specifications until now, as this level of performance makes R9 Fury a bit of a spoiler for R9 Fury X. 7-8% makes R9 Fury notably slower than R9 Fury X, but it’s also $100 cheaper, or to turn this argument on its head, the last 10% or so that the R9 Fury X offers comes at quite the price premium. This arguably makes the R9 Fury the better value, and not that we’re complaining, but it does put AMD in an awkward spot.
As for the competition, that’s a bit more of a mixed bag. R9 Fury X had to compete with GTX 980 Ti but couldn’t surpass it, which hurt it and make the GTX the safer buy. On the other hand R9 Fury needs to compete with just the older GTX 980, and while it’s by no means a clean sweep for AMD, it’s a good outcome for AMD. The R9 Fury offers between 8% and 17% better performance than the GTX 980, depending on if we’re looking at 1440p or 4K. I don’t believe the R9 Fury is a great 4K card – if you really want 4K, you really need more rendering power at this time – but even at 1440p this is a solid performance lead.
Along with a performance advantage, the GTX 980 is also better competition for the R9 Fury (and Fiji in general) since the GTX 980 is only available with 4GB of VRAM. This negates the Fiji GPU’s 4GB HBM limit, which is one of the things that held back the R9 Fury X against the GTX 980 Ti. As a result there are fewer factors to consider, and in a straight-up performance shootout with the GTX 980 the R9 Fury is 10% more expensive for 8%+ better performance. This doesn’t make either card a notably better value, but makes the R9 Fury a very reasonable alternative to the GTX 980 on a price/performance basis.
The one area where the R9 Fury struggles however is power efficiency. GTX 980’s power efficiency is practically legendary at this point; R9 Fury’s is not. Even the lower power of our two R9 Fury cards, the ASUS STRIX, can’t come close to GTX 980’s efficiency. And that’s really all there is to that. If energy efficiency doesn’t matter to you then the R9 Fury’s performance is competitive, otherwise GTX 980 is a bit slower, a bit cheaper, and uses a lot less power. That said, AMD’s partners do deserve some credit for keeping their acoustics well under control despite the high power and heat load. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison against the reference GTX 980 and its blower, but at the very least picking R9 Fury over GTX 980 doesn’t mean you have to pick a loud card as well.
And that brings us to the third aspect of this review, which is comparing the R9 Fury cards from Sapphire and ASUS. Both partners have come to the plate with some very good open air cooled designs, and while it’s a bit unusual for AMD to launch with so few partners, what those partners have put together certainly paint R9 Fury in a positive light.
Picking between the two ends up being a harder task than we expected, in part because of how different they are at times. From a performance perspective the two cards offer very similar performance, with Sapphire’s mild factory overclock giving them only the slightest of edges, which is more or less what we expected.
However the power and acoustics situation is very different. On its own the ASUS STRIX’s acoustics would look good, but compared to the Sapphire Tri-X’s deliciously absurd acoustics it’s the clear runner-up. On the other hand the ASUS card has a clear power efficiency advantage of its own, but I’m not convinced that this isn’t just a byproduct of the ASUS card randomly receiving a better chip. As a result I’m not convinced that this same efficiency advantage exists between all ASUS and Sapphire cards; ASUS’s higher voltage R9 Fury chips have to go somewhere.
In any case, both are solid cards, but if we have to issue a recommendation then it’s hard to argue with the Sapphire Tri-X’s pricing and acoustics right now. It’s the quietest of the R9 Fury cards, and it’s slightly cheaper as well. Otherwise ASUS’s strengths lie more on their included software and their reputation for support than in their outright performance in our benchmark suite.
And with that, we wrap up our review of the second product in AMD’s four Fiji launches. The R9 Fury was the last product with a scheduled launch date, however AMD has previously told us that the R9 Nano will launch this summer, meaning we should expect it in the next couple of months. With a focus on size and efficiency the R9 Nano should be a very different card from the R9 Fury and R9 Fury X, which makes us curious to see just what AMD can pull off when optimizing for efficiency over absolute performance. But that will be a question for another day.
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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.