AMD Radeon R9 Fury X Video Card Review @ [H]

Teenyman45 said:
Kyle or Brent: Did you intend for 4 out of the 5 games used in the review to be GamesWorks, with the usual Nvidia tricks?


Still, this really is a sub-par release by AMD. With prior cards like the 7970 / 280X, the 6970, or the 5870 when cores and memory were overclocked by the same percentage, framerates scaled linearly on a 1:1 basis. I wonder if having such slow memory was bottlenecking the card as much as the 4GB limit. From the sites that did overclocking, it looked like boosts to the cores returned about 1/2 that same percentage boost in performance. This card needed more HBM and faster HBM. It also should be been available with a base waterblock and two G1/4 ports rather than having the full AiO treatment.

The last time AMD had its act together was with the release of the 5XXX series gpu. It's just getting sad at this point.
Click to expand...


Unless there is some other metric that is screwing stuff up, the Fury X has the fastest RAM of any GPU out there, at a bandwidth of 512GB/s, compared to 336GB/s of the Titan X and 980Ti.

Unless there are other inherent problems with HBM that we are unaware of (like high latency?) the memory certainly isn't to blame.

I'm going to wager a guess that Fiji was originally designed for a smaller process, and they had to re-adapt it to 28nm when it became clear that nothing smaller was going to be available in time for launch, and that this, totally messed up the power/clock curves and resulted in the subpar performance we see today.
 
I think AMD is not a fool, they have to lower the price in order to sell these cards like hot cakes. The comparison between fury X and 980ti is like a comparison between AMD 6970 and gtx 580, where the former was 150$ cheaper than the later, with performance difference marginal. But 6970 was always a hot selling card. 580 was not a failure, but was considered for enthusasts . So AMD has to revise the price of fury x to be 150$ less than 980ti.
 
I'm glad I went with nvidia this round with the 980ti. It's my first nvidia card sense the 8800gtx!

Gets here this afternoon!
 
GameWorks

An excuse many are using to blame poor performance for AMD GPUs on. This is a mistaken view, we have proven in games that use GW features that performance can be equal, and sometimes better on AMD GPUs depending on the feature. Using GW 3D effects is up to the game developer. If anyone has issue with a certain game using GW 3D effects, the game developer is the one you need to talk to. It is afteral their game, and if you feel like you know more than they do to tell them what kind of things to implement in their game, by all means, go for it.

If the majority of current, new, and popular PC games utilize GW 3D effects, perhaps this tells you something. We do not discriminate or bias or cherry pick our games we use based on whether NVIDIA or AMD has its 3D effects in the game. If we did so, we would be biased and guilty of the very thing many are claiming we do by using games that have GW 3D effects.

Don't you see, we must stay open minded, and leave NVIDIA and AMD out of it. I never think about who's technology is in the game, I just look at the game and see if the effects are forward looking, if they push the gaming industry forward, if they challenge video cards and demand GPU performance, and if people are going to play the game and how popular it is.

Don't blame us if the majority of new games, popular games, games people want to play utilize NVIDIA supplied 3D effects. We just go with what is new, popular and people are playing.

We use 5 solid games, and if we have time, 6. I wish I had the time to evaluate 10-20 games per evaluation. One man can only do so much. Keep in mind we thoroughly evaluate gameplay performance in every review, from scratch, with new drivers. It takes time to play games, find the highest playable, do fraps testing, do ap2ap, per game. We are usually extremely limited in time for launch evaluations. We are all about quality over quantity. This is a time consuming process. A little tidbit you guys don't know, I end up spending all night to get launch reviews done, and it always comes down to the wire. There is no more time for more games.

If you don't prefer quality over quantity, and gameplay experience with current and popular games, then by all means click the X.

Let's get off this stupid GameWorks issue. That is not the thing that is holding the Fury X back.
 
maverick786us said:
I think AMD is not a fool, they have to lower the price in order to sell these cards like hot cakes. The comparison between fury X and 980ti is like a comparison between AMD 6970 and gtx 580, where the former was 150$ cheaper than the later, with performance difference marginal. But 6970 was always a hot selling card. 580 was not a failure, but was considered for enthusasts . So AMD has to revise the price of fury x to be 150$ less than 980ti.
Click to expand...

That's what their hopefully doing with the non-X furry without the aio. Can't be too gimped though.

To the post above I have no problem with Gameworks, it's just most Gameworks games tend to be buggy as hell. Not just on AMD cards but Nvidia cards too! Blame it on Gameworks or not but if I was Nvidia I wouldn't want to be associated with these titles, the new Barman being a prime example. Comes bundled with their cards and is a POS, and people are likely to test their new cards with this game!
 
Last edited:
Zarathustra[H];1041688682 said:
Unless there is some other metric that is screwing stuff up, the Fury X has the fastest RAM of any GPU out there, at a bandwidth of 512GB/s, compared to 336GB/s of the Titan X and 980Ti.

Unless there are other inherent problems with HBM that we are unaware of (like high latency?) the memory certainly isn't to blame.

I'm going to wager a guess that Fiji was originally designed for a smaller process, and they had to re-adapt it to 28nm when it became clear that nothing smaller was going to be available in time for launch, and that this, totally messed up the power/clock curves and resulted in the subpar performance we see today.
Click to expand...

That was the problem AMD ran into with the 6xxx gpu series where there fewer (if generally more efficient) cores than the 5xxx series.

Semiaccurate (who are usually almost as pro AMD as Tom's is pro Nvidia) pointed out there was increased latency. There is also the prefetch difference between GDDR5 and HBM. On paper, the bandwidth indicated raw speed is higher with HBM... but on release performance isn't keeping up with that bandwidth and the limited OCing is not scaling in a 1:1 linear rate. If the problem turns out to be something as stupid as driver or bios innefificency between the GPU and the new memory type... after so many years of prototyping then AMD really does deserve to lose.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041688547 said:
IMHO, the best part of this AMD launch was that it scared Nvidia into launching the 980Ti earlier than they planned at only $650.
Click to expand...

It could also be argued NV ruined both rumored launches of the Fury X (GDC/Computex).

NV most likely knew the 980Ti was on par/faster so it launched it to be in the market first; which, in all intents and purposes, has taken away Fury's thunder.

The 980 Ti will still take sales away from Fury thanks to AMD's hype machine.

AMD needs to get their shit together ASAP.
 
Eradan said:
GTX 960?
Click to expand...

I just went back to read the [H] review of the 960. It is definitely nothing compared to this!

960:
The Bottom Line

We praised the GeForce GTX 980 and GeForce GTX 970, especially the latter, for great value and performance with incredibly impressive power savings. We honestly can't say that the GeForce GTX 960 represents such an impressive value as the GeForce GTX 970 did. The GeForce GTX 960 seems a bit constrained, even though it is being offered at a great price of $199. (Editor’s Note: The MSI GTX 960 GAMING 2G review here today is selling right now at Newegg for $239.99, and went out-of-stock and back in stock literally while typing this sentence, so YMMV.)

We evaluated MSI’s GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 2G today, a highly factory overclocked video card that operated at 1366MHz while gaming. At this clock speed the GeForce GTX 960 is competitive to an overclocked AMD Radeon R9 285. The MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 2G is able to provide a better gameplay experience than the R9 285, but not overwhelmingly so. However, when you consider that the GeForce GTX 960 cards should still be less expensive than the AMD Radeon R9 285 cards for right now, it does sweeten the pot and gives gamers another option in this price range.

The MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 2G video card performed exceptionally well with this GPU. It is overclocked rather high, and operates well above its boost speed with the Twin Frozr V cooling system. With an operating frequency of 1366MHz while gaming, you get a much faster than stock reference GTX 960 performance out of this video card without even you having to touch an overclocking knob or slider. We can't wait to dive into overclocking and see how much farther we can push the MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 2G manually. That may be the one saving grace of GeForce GTX 960, enthusiast overclocking potential.

If you are looking for a solid custom retail video card, packed full of features and built for overclocking, take a look at the MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 2G. However we are seeing an price of $239.99 on that card this morning, when we were expecting the MSI GTX 960 GAMING 2G to have a street price of $219.00. Also, this morning you can find plenty of AMD R9 285 video cards for under $200, even down to $179 after $30 MIR, which makes this space a bit confusing and simply tough to simply call one "the best."
Click to expand...

Fury X
The Bottom Line

The new AMD Fiji GPU and Fury X video card looks awesome on paper, but has underwhelmed and disappointed us when it comes to real world gameplay. The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X feels like a proof of concept for HBM technology.

In terms of gaming performance, the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X seems like better competition for the GeForce GTX 980 4GB video card, rather than the GeForce GTX 980 Ti. GTX 980 cards are selling for as low at $490 today. This is not a good thing since the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is priced at $649, the same price as the GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

Usually trying to decide between two video cards at the same price point is a wash, with very even and split performance. However, this is not the case this time with the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X and GeForce GTX 980 Ti. There is a definite pattern that leads to one video card being the best value for the money, and it is GeForce GTX 980 Ti, not the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X.

Limited VRAM for a flagship $649 video card, sub-par gaming performance for the price, and limited display support options with no HDMI 2.0 and no DVI port. To be honest, we aren't entirely sure who the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is really built for? The AMD Radeon Fury X is a confusing product, like a technology demo not fully realized, a showcase for HBM only but with no real substance. The AMD Radeon Fury X looks to be a great marketing showcase, but its prowess starts waning when you consider its value to gamers and hardware enthusiasts.
Click to expand...
 
i don't get all this negativity! this is a very well performing card but i has one issue, Price! they will drop it price and will become very, very attractive and with better drivers the performance will increase substantially. i personally don't see it as gloomy as you guys do...
 
After reading through the review (excellent writeup by the way), and the conclusion, I believe that a more appropriate name for the AMD Fury X graphics card would have been something along the lines of The AMD Stillborn.

Kool Aid guzzling fan-boys (though few of them are left) are happy to fork over the $649.99 + shipping for one of these cards. Or maybe supplies are kept artificially low in order to create demand. This release reminds me allot of the 2900XT release back in 2007... if anyone else remembers that fail.

Priced at $499.99 against the hugely popular GTX 980 4GB, the AMD Fury X would have been a more digestible release, and it would have made AMD actually look good... for once. But as it is they can keep it. In the meantime I'm rocking a pair of GTX 980 Ti (by NVIDIA, purchased from their store) in SLI and I'm loving them.
 
KENNYB said:
Did anandtech not get a review card?
Click to expand...

GPU guy is in bed sick, review is delayed.
// For readers expecting the AMD Fury X review, unfortunately Ryan has been battling a virus this week and despite his best efforts it has taken its toll. The review is near completion but with a couple of key elements still to do - please keep your eyes peeled over the next few days for the full analysis.
Click to expand...
(first thing posted under the ASRock ITX board review)

LOL @ "you should've done games that weren't TWIMTBP". :rolleyes:
 
Hmm. Will be interested to see if overclocking 980TI vs FuryX brings any changes in the competition.

Overall though, sad for gamers everywhere. Not sure why some laugh/take pleasure in this, we all lose when there aren't at least two very competitive players pushing one another.

The one positive I see is they really got the efficiency numbers up this time around. Up to what was it, 70% increase over the 290x, and less power? Fingers crossed they can figure out some way to eke more performance out of this.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
wow it is not as fast as it could be but at least they are getting us in the direction we need to go.... If this had been an Nvidia product, most of you would be singing a different tune....



G-Force 5xxx want to be competitor to the Radeon 9500 series...



Wow isn't this spot on

possible that they live in mom's basement perhaps?
Click to expand...


Seems to me some AMD fan boys are getting upset at the criticism and disappointment (backed up by [H]'s excellent review) towards the Fury X. If you actually read the posts you'd realize that most here are disappointed that Fury X doesn't live up to the hype/expectation that many had for it. We all want good competition between both camps in order to get better performance at lower price points.
 
I don't even know what to think on this card. I have read every review linked here and I've read others not linked here.

The only real common dominator is the crappy performance at lower resolutions. At 4k though, some sites benchmarks show it competing with the Titan X. Some sites results show it competing with the 980ti and some sites show it getting totally blown out of the water by everything. Some sites tested a few games and other sites tested a large amount of games showing flip flopping back and forth on which is better.

Trying to compare results with this large amount of difference between all the reviews is mind boggling.
 
Brent_Justice said:
GameWorks

...
Click to expand...

Brent, I cannot start to thank you guys enough for the work you put in.

To provide the kind of information you provide in this (and other) reviews is just amazing.

Specially after reading another review linked in this thread (guru3d I think), it clearly shows the value of the approach you guys take.

Well done [H], I am neither a green or red fanboai, but definitely a [H] fanboai. ;)
 
Wow, that was rough. What got me was that there were cases where the 290x beat the furyx. How is that even possible?

Either and still has to get a handle on optimizing Fiji with hbm or they are just dead in the water. I'm an amd supporter but they can't charge the same as the 980ti with worse performance.

I was not in the market for a gpu this year and I'm kind of glad now. 2016 is where it's at.
 
AMD have just taken stupid to a whole new level. Firstly they wait 9 months to rebrand the 200 series and loose a chunk of market share to Nvidia. Now they release a gpu which price matches a 980Ti but is slower and has less ram. Its only saving grace is its competitive at 4k but they decide to put a HDMI 1.4 connector on it so those with 4K TVs cant use it at over 30Hz. :confused:

Either AMD are totally stupid or someone is paying back handers to the top level management to make this company fail.
 
63jax said:
i don't get all this negativity! this is a very well performing card but i has one issue, Price! they will drop it price and will become very, very attractive and with better drivers the performance will increase substantially. i personally don't see it as gloomy as you guys do...
Click to expand...

Agree 100% that if this was priced against the 980, this would have been a Win!

Unfortunately I am not sure about the price drop. I hope you are right on that though.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
G-Force 5xxx want to be competitor to the Radeon 9500 series...
Click to expand...

G-Force 5xxx was pretty meh so was Radeon 2xxx was pretty meh Both were essentially personal heaters at the top end converting electricity to heat then blowing it at the back with force that will melt your face off.

I think the feeling of doom and gloom stems from the fact that pretty much the rest of the line-up from AMD is largely a rebrand granted slightly updated things here and there but no real change. So it makes the launch seem like slapped together to show they did something but it's not something that's ready.
 
SpeedyVV said:
Agree 100% that if this was priced against the 980, this would have been a Win!

Unfortunately I am not sure about the price drop. I hope you are right on that though.
Click to expand...

if they don't come up with a wonder performance driver, a price drop is absolutely a must, i don't think they are so stupid not to do so, at least i hope...:/
 
Igroock said:
No its both. Youre able to draw twice the calls with DX12 vs 11, which is primarily GPU intensive.
Click to expand...
It's way way way WAY more than twice the calls. in the 3dmark benchmark my machine was able to do right over 5 times as many calls.
 
In terms of performance there wasn't any game where the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X was faster than the GeForce GTX 980 Ti. In some games, it did match the same gameplay experience, which was a major upgrade from the AMD Radeon R9 290X. However, in every game the GTX 980 Ti always had the framerate advantage, especially when it came to minimum framerate which is important.

This is a Titanic fail.
 
shad0w4life said:
What reviews have you been reading to make such a bold statement, it's been all over, I left out Toms because that discussion is done and they are pretty shady
quick examples off the top of my head

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_Fury_X/25.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_review,26.html

It's just that the games H has in their lineup were better on 980Ti along with their testing methods being different yada yada. I don't like their game selection personally; witcher 3 was plagued with issues on Kepler and AMD, GTA V is just garbage game I can't get in to, it's just so boring, and Dead Island games are way more fun than dying light. Doesn't mean that they aren't honestly reviewed.
Click to expand...

OMG the Fury X beats the GTX980 by 3 FPS at 4k in ONE GAME!!!
 
Pretty much in line with what I expected. Rarely have I been so sad about being right.
 
Semantics said:
G-Force 5xxx was pretty meh so was Radeon 2xxx was pretty meh Both were essentially personal heaters at the top end converting electricity to heat then blowing it at the back with force that will melt your face off.

I think the feeling of doom and gloom stems from the fact that pretty much the rest of the line-up from AMD is largely a rebrand granted slightly updated things here and there but no real change. So it makes the launch seem like slapped together to show they did something but it's not something that's ready.
Click to expand...

as I recall the Radeon 9500 Pro could run the Dawn demo via a wrapper faster than the flagship Nvidia card could without one
 
Brent_Justice said:
Let's get off this stupid GameWorks issue. That is not the thing that is holding the Fury X back.
Click to expand...

Have to disagree; Gameworks is a HUGE issue of which AMD is just a relatively small factor. To properly address the damage Gameworks is doing in the gaming industry we would have to compare performance of Gameworks modified code vs. non-modified code; which cannot be easily done objectively nor without legal consequences from Nvidia.
 
Interesting all the people here & elsewhere saying AMD should "try harder". I know AMD will keep trying their best. Everyone here likes to rag on them like it's their job. They do well for the resources they have comparable to the competition, in my opinion. They're not perfect in so many ways but I'd rather have them around than not.

To all those adding nothing to this discussion but insults aimed at AMD, I'm sure you could all build a better GPU. Grow up.

That said, AMD should quickly react to Fury's relative performance by adjusting it's price accordingly, for both Fury models if not just the Air Cooled edition.
 
gnzblz said:
Seems to me some AMD fan boys are getting upset at the criticism and disappointment (backed up by [H]'s excellent review) towards the Fury X. If you actually read the posts you'd realize that most here are disappointed that Fury X doesn't live up to the hype/expectation that many had for it. We all want good competition between both camps in order to get better performance at lower price points.
Click to expand...

and if you had bothered to read any of my posts, it would have been "lets wait and see"

people getting peeved at AMD for introducing a new tech that makes a 4GB card perform almost as good as a 6GB one ought to tell you something.... the performance of this card is only going to get better with time....
 
Having only read the [H] and TPU reviews so far, I'm disappointed in the Fury X. Sub-4K performance is abysmal for the price and it should really have been marked at sub-$550 to give Nvidia some real competition.

In 4K, it's more or less similar or better to the 980 Ti if you don't use AA, something I would do if I was playing in that resolution. I guess they justify the $650 MSRP for people looking to play only in 4K without AA and with DP 1.2, a very narrow market. Are they really planning to only sell a handful?
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
and if you had bothered to read any of my posts, it would have been "lets wait and see"

people getting peeved at AMD for introducing a new tech that makes a 4GB card perform almost as good as a 6GB one ought to tell you something.... the performance of this card is only going to get better with time....
Click to expand...

Uh, if VRAM was a metric for performance the Titan X would blow away the 980 Ti. It doesn't.

VRAM only matters if you don't have enough - for most games, 4GB is still good enough, but the [H] review also showed that the 4GB is a limitation in Dying Light.
 
^ thanks for totally missing the point it's new tech and it almost performs as good as.
 
Yakk said:
Have to disagree; Gameworks is a HUGE issue of which AMD is just a relatively small factor. To properly address the damage Gameworks is doing in the gaming industry we would have to compare performance of Gameworks modified code vs. non-modified code; which cannot be easily done objectively nor without legal consequences from Nvidia.
Click to expand...

Well said. I fear Gameworks could turn the gaming scene into another "Creative Labs" minefield.
 
I just hope to god it overclocks to hell. It will be AMD's only saving grace. But the thermals on the VRM are not looking good running at over 100C
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top