The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X Review: Aiming For the Top
by Ryan Smith on July 2, 2015 11:15 AM ESTTotal War: Attila
The second strategy game in our benchmark suite, Total War: Attila is the latest game in the Total War franchise. Total War games have traditionally been a mix of CPU and GPU bottlenecks, so it takes a good system on both ends of the equation to do well here. In this case the game comes with a built-in benchmark that plays out over a large area with a fortress in the middle, making it a good GPU stress test.
Attila is the third win in a row for AMD at 4K. Here the R9 Fury X beats the GTX 980 Ti by 5% at the Max quality setting. However as this benchmark is very forward looking (read: ridiculously GPU intensive), the actual performance at 4K Max isn’t very good. No single GPU card can average 30fps here, and framerates will easily dip below 20fps. Since this is a strategy game we don’t have the same high bar for performance requirements, but sub-30fps still won’t cut it.
In which case we have to either compromise on quality or resolution, and in either case AMD’s lead dissolves. At 4K Quality and 1440p Max, the R9 Fury X trails the GTX 980 Ti by 8% and 3% respectively. And actually the 1440p results are still a good showing, but given AMD’s push for 4K, to lose to the GTX 980 Ti by more at the resolution they favor is a bit embarrassing.
Meanwhile, Atilla has always seemed to love pushing shaders more than anything else, so it comes as no great surprise that this game is a strong showing for the R9 Fury X relative to its predecessor. The performance gains at 4K are a consistent 52%, right at the top-end of our performance expectation window, and a bit smaller (but still impressive) 43% at 1440p.
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Samus - Saturday, July 4, 2015 - link
Being an NVidia use for 3 generations, I'm finding it hard to ignore this cards value, especially since I've invested $100 each on my last two NVidia cards (including my SLI setup) adding liquid cooling. The brackets alone are $30.Even if this card is less efficient per watt than NVidia's, the difference is negligible when considering kw/$. It's like comparing different brand of LED bulbs, some use 10-20% less energy but the overall value isn't as good because the more efficient ones cost more, don't dim, have a light buzz noise, etc.
After reading this review I find the Fury X more impressive than I otherwise would have.
Alexvrb - Sunday, July 5, 2015 - link
Yeah a lot of reviews painted doom and gloom but the watercooler has to be factored into that price. Noise and system heat removal of the closed loop cooler are really nice. I still think they should launch the vanilla Fury at $499 - if it gets close to the performance of the Fury X they'll have a decent card on their hands. To me though the one I'll be keeping an eye out for is Nano. If they can get something like 80% of the performance at roughly half the power, that would make a lot of sense for more moderately spec'd systems. Regardless of what flavor, I'll be interested to see if third parties will soon launch tools to bump the voltage up and tinker with HBM clocks.chizow - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
Water cooling if anything has proven to be a negative so far for Fury X with all the concerns of pump whine and in the end where is the actual benefit of water cooling when it still ends up slower than 980Ti with virtually no overclocking headroom?Based on Ryan's review Fury Air we'll most likely see the downsides of leakage on TDP and its also expected to be 7/8th SP/TMU. Fury Nano also appears to be poised as a niche part that will cost as much if not more than Fury X, which is amazing because at 80-85% of Fury X it won't be any faster than the GTX 980 at 1440p and below and right in that same TDP range too. It will have the benefit of form factor but will that be enough to justify a massive premium?
Alexvrb - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
You can get a bad batch of pumps in any CLC. Cooler Master screwed up (and not for the first time!) but the fixed units seem to be fine and for the units out there with a whine just RMA them. I'm certainly not going to buy one, but I know people that love water cooled components and like the simplicity and warranty of a CL system.Nobody knows the price of the Nano, nor final performance. I think they'd be crazy to price it over $550 even factoring in the form factor - unless someone releases a low-profile model, then they can charge whatever they want for it. We also don't know final performance of Fury compared to Fury X, though I already said they should price it more aggressively. I don't think leakage will be that big of an issue as they'll probably cap thermals. Clocks will vary depending on load but they do on Maxwell too - it's the new norm for stock aircooled graphics cards.
As for overclocking, yeah that was really terrible. Until people are able to tinker with voltage controls and the memory, there's little point. Even then, set some good fan profiles.
Refuge - Thursday, July 23, 2015 - link
To be honest, the wine I've seen on these isn't anything more than any other CLC I've ever seen in the wild.I feel like this was blown a bit out of proportion. Maybe I'm going deaf, maybe I didn't see a real example. I'm not sure.
tritiumosu3 - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
"AMD Is nothing if not the perineal underdog"...
perineal =/= perennial! You should probably fix that...
Ryan Smith - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
Thanks. Fixed. It was right, and then the spell-checker undid things on me...ddriver - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
I'd say after the Hecktor RuiNz fiasco, "perpetual underdog" might be more appropriate.testbug00 - Sunday, July 5, 2015 - link
Er, what fiasco did Hector Ruiz create for AMD?Samus - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I'm wondering the same thing. When Hector Ruiz left Motorola, they fell apart, and when he joined AMD, they out-engineered and out-manufactured Intel with quality control parity. I guess the fiasco would be when Hector Ruiz left AMD, because then they fell apart.