AMD Radeon R9 Fury X 4 GB

[Vayra86]

...and as expected, while HBM was an interesting experiment, but at the same cost as a 980 Ti, the requirement of having to find a place to put a AIO water cooler, and sub-par overclocking performance in comparison to the 980 Ti, I think that it's safe to say that GPU prices aren't going anywhere and that my suspicious of HBM not making night and day difference seems to be true. I suspect it's more bandwidth than the GPU can utilize and we're probably not seeing huge differences because memory probably wasn't a bottleneck yet.

Either way, unless I see a really good reason, I'm getting pushed towards the green camp and I'm a little bummed that the hype was (once again,) overstated. Not to say that this isn't an interesting experiment, it's just a costly experiment that I would rather spend on something a little more proven while the technology evolves. Clearly AMD has some tweaking to do.

You may have hit the nail on the head.
We've been presented with a deluge of strategic errors from AMD this last few years. From Piledriver architecture with cores sharing FPU and cache to Fury's HBM and its probable limitations, with more in between.
Add to that tactical errors like the 290/290x release weeks before the custom coolers where available and you have a company directed by idiots.

Precisely what I have been saying these past years on every slide from AMD that came past and screamed awesomeness, and on every forum user here that said HBM was going to change the world. It is nothing new: AMD has a new tech, AMD markets it as the future, the future seems very far away on release of said tech. They have fundamental timing and time-to-market issues, fundamental marketing shortcomings, and develop products ahead of their prime.

My most optimistic approach was a 10% gain over 980ti stock, and even with a max overclock on Fury you won't even get near.

 

[BiggieShady]

I wonder how much power consumption reduction came from water cooling. I'd love to see if it leaks current like crazy at 80 C and to what extent power gating is helping.

 

[Folderu]

Wow, just wow... All those comments filled with hate, now i wish amd did not exist, it would be nice to see the guys here where will they throw their hate at.
If you just read the comments before the review you will think that this card is like 980ti - 999999 fps vs Fury x 15 fps, thats how much hate this card gets and i dont understand why, it runs all the games smooth.
Ok there are some numbers at lower resolutions but who the hell notices 125 fps vs 119 at 1080p and at 4k the reviewer needs to add commas to fps numbers to show direferences sometimes.
The only downside i see to this card is the price, it should be cheaper but not by much, this is a solid card when compaired to nvidia top offerings.

 

[Fluffmeister]

I'm waiting for ASUS, which should arrive in the next weeks. MSI arrives Monday, was stuck in customs.

Cool, looking forward to the MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming review, that's the badboy I've got my eye on.

I'm sure it's gonna be much of a muchness with the Gigabyte G1, but still... oh it's pretty.

Wow, just wow... All those comments filled with hate, now i wish amd did not exist, it would be nice to see the guys here where will they throw their hate at.
If you just read the comments before the review you will think that this card is like 980ti - 999999 fps vs Fury x 15 fps, thats how much hate this card gets and i dont understand why, it runs all the games smooth.
Ok there are some numbers at lower resolutions but who the hell notices 125 fps vs 119 at 1080p and at 4k the reviewer needs to add commas to fps numbers to show direferences sometimes.
The only downside i see to this card is the price, it should be cheaper but not by much, this is a solid card when compaired to nvidia top offerings.

Doesn't help with all the ridiculous hype, either via AMD directly or their more fanatical followers of which there are many.

Anyway it swings both ways, the reviews of cards like the GTX 480 are there still for all to read and the endless bile they generated, hell AMD even spent money mocking that card with videos.

So yeah, what goes around comes around.

 

[Vayra86]

Wow, just wow... All those comments filled with hate, now i wish amd did not exist, it would be nice to see the guys here where will they throw their hate at.
If you just read the comments before the review you will think that this card is like 980ti - 999999 fps vs Fury x 15 fps, thats how much hate this card gets and i dont understand why, it runs all the games smooth.
Ok there are some numbers at lower resolutions but who the hell notices 125 fps vs 119 at 1080p and at 4k the reviewer needs to add commas to fps numbers to show direferences sometimes.
The only downside i see to this card is the price, it should be cheaper but not by much, this is a solid card when compaired to nvidia top offerings.

You would be right in a utopian world where the enthusiast segment cannot be overclocked at all and enthusiasts shell out money for subpar offerings (oh wait, they do... Titan?). With all cards at stock, the Fury X doesn't come out *too* bad. But we live in a world where overclocking has become part of the business model, especially for GPU, and where the direct competitor offers an overclock potential of AT LEAST 10% above stock performance, and much more in most cases. And we live in a world where performance is not JUST about FPS, but maybe even more about frame pacing. Take a good long look at the Techreport review and you will see a Fury X reintroduce pacing issues we last saw in 2013. Sure, drivers, but this is the way the cards lie now and AMD did release a Fury X driver already.

All things considered this card simply has no compelling USP's (Unique Selling Points) and the ones it does have, are cosmetic at best (water cooling, small form factor). In a market where you are the underdog, that is NOT enough.

 

[Lionheart]

What a huge disappointment! The framerates between resolutions aren't consistent which has me guessing.... Needs driver updates. God damn it AMD I wanna like & support you but you make it hard sometimes not to this is a bad product at all, it's good yet your own hyped killed it, but then again I hyped myself up for it so in the end I'm just as guilty The 4k results are good though, 1440p pretty good to but anything lower it just feels like the GPU ain't being utilized properly. Sigh.... I might just wait for the Fury, Nano or better driver support but I gotta say, a GTX 980 Ti looks more enticing too me now but I seriously don't wanna go back to Nvidia, sick of their gameworks BS implementation in games.

 

[Steevo]

Immature drivers and biting off a huge project seems to have bitten them in the ass, I hope they bring the performance up with driver optimizations and maturing BIOS and perhaps some further tuning of the clock speeds.


While it is cool to see them bring new tech to the table my fear here is the long standing failure in delivery. They need to get on polishing this quickly or they will lose another generation of profit, and if its Mantle or DX12, or even going back to the original GCN hardware so be it (Tonga is slower than Tahiti per clock/shader) and this chip is only 40% faster than the 7970 at the same clocks speed despite being twice the card!

So I guess if they can squeeze the performance to something more level with drivers, and then get the clocks higher, they can still win this.

 

[Casecutter]

It was a valiant effort... it's not enough hardly anymore than a few fingers hold on the ledge.

I suppose it has pressure on pricing... but even then not really. I could imagine AIB customs of 980Ti bumping in price given this... After seeing this I think AMD might've re-juggled pricing on this launch to $630… Why they probably know they can sell all they have in the plan at this price. If there’s return on investment and suitable profit in this, isn’t that all that matters right now?

It just feels as though there have been comprises, shoe-string budgets, and bad decision making... that have AMD seemingly “shooting” there knee(s) off at every turn. AMD is just mismanaged, now to that point it needs to be unburden from the BoD, being subject to debt, and quarterly reports. They need the deep pockets of “a daddy Warbucks”; perchance only way to get back in the game without clawing back inch by inch without a slip-up… that’s tough hall on limited R&D. Either way they need to work unencumbered, not trying to control the bludgeon of stock, just nose to R&D grindstone.

If unfettered, just holding to an austere tack that’s about maybe 3-4 hardware projects, keep to a strict though achievable course with little or no fanfare. The product launches, promote the merits and move on. Time to market is all important, while quash the rumor mill. Offer hard timelines, with zilch as to “promises”. For example, say you have Zen / Artic Islands and provide the market quarter each will commence. Don't provide any information you can't conclusive achieve, no “in theory”, just facts don't over sell! While absolutely nothing from rouge executives (get rid of most) and hardly present anything years out. Get better at controlling the message and hopefully with that less overblown rumors. If something comes out “truth or not” defuse it ASAP. Just say that it “unsubstantiated”, while we do not speak to unreleased product and continue to develop on multiple R&D proposals.

To me that how Intel's playbook reads, although yes a bigger scale and longer term. That who/what they are, stay to who you are now.

 

[Zakin]

Man this does almost remind me of a repeat of Bulldozer hype, into disappointment and depression. At least it's not that disappointing in actual performance, but seriously AMD's marketing (hype) team need to actually talk to the engineers on what is actually coming out in the end. Looks like my brother is without a doubt going to a 980, he's been sick of problems on his AMD card anyway, but I still wanted to give them another shot, always like an underdog.

 

[birdie]

Folderu,

I don't know about other people but I hoped the the Fury X would ensue a new round of healthy competition in the GPU industry and AMD somewhat failed in that regard (considering its price/performance/power draw/etc. at the moment). The Fury X is a wonderful GPU/architecture, I'd even say a engineering marvel, considering its power efficiency (as compared to previous AMD products), but it still failed to live up to the expectations. That's the real issue here. Perhaps it was priced correctly (let's say $550 or less) then there'll be less hatred.

And those who trash AMD are simply complete idiots. We've already reaped the fruits of a missing competition in the CPU market, now many feel like it's becoming the issue in the GPU market as well.

 

[SonicZap]

The Fury X is a wonderful GPU/architecture, I'd even say a engineering marvel, considering its power efficiency (as compared to previous AMD products)

90% of that improved power efficiency likely comes from HBM (which Nvidia is going to get with Pascal) and much lower operating temperature compared to their earlier high-end GPUs. Fury X runs at 50'C, Hawaii runs at 95'C. That makes a huge difference since power efficiency always goes down as temperature goes up. I don't see improvements in GCN itself, and that's worrying me. The architechture was very competitive with Kepler, but to me it seems that AMD is either focusing everything on Arctic Islands or... sitting on Tonga's GCN and hoping that it'll compete for the next decade, while Maxwell already kills it brutally.

 

[Vayra86]

You know that if AMD priced this piece of hardware at 550 they would instantly turn profit into loss, I mean the amount of hardware and tech on that product is way out of line, especially compared to the price points and hardware used for every other card on the market. 4096 shaders, (or 8900M transistors!) expensive HBM, the R&D that went into bringing it all into this form factor and a liquid cooled package. Any price drop will hurt them, no doubt. Compare that to Nvidia's top cards and the difference in 'metal used for performance' is staggering. The logical question is how they expected to ever turn a solid margin on this card, even if it WAS a halo product. Now with it not living up to that standard, they have essentially shot themselves in the foot.

Basically AMD is already forced into serious optimization of the card if they ever want it to be profitable. Once again I fail to see a solid business perspective on this release, where the fuck is it?

 

[Batou1986]

Rest in pieces AMD

 

[Joss]

They should just have produced the chips and leave the PCBs and coolers to the partners.

 

[Absolution]

What if we look at it this way. For the hardcore 4K gamer, the Fury X is a good alternative to the Titan X. It does manage to kill nvidia top of the creme, in the sense the Titan is about 6% faster for for roughly twice the price.

ie, at 4K is does manage to beat the Titan X as being a better alternative.

 

[the54thvoid]

Not to rub salt on any wounds but if Nvidia deign to release a full core GM200 (Titan spec) with 6Gb ram, unlimited TDP (within reason), adjustable voltage and let partners do the shroud and cooling work - the granddaddy of all gaming GPU's would take some beating at 28nm. Given what we've seen Fury X do now, we should all understand that surely for this generation, the chips are down and everyone can make their minds up. AMD need to take this arch design forward and find it the room to go faster.
Kepler was realistically limited at 1100-1200Mhz but Maxwell is up to what? 1500Mhz? Hawaii was 1100 (pushing it) and Fiji is the same. If AMD can tame the variables and get the clocks like Maxwell - it'd piss all over it.

 

[hero1]

I used quote marks with the "forgot" word, but seriously: it's 104C under heavy load with the dedicated copper pipe?

They could have just made things easier and have a custom air cooler that took away the heat from every part of that PCB equally. They seriously screwed that up. Like the rest of the people here, I love competition, performance and better pricing. I probably will be going 4K in a few months but even then I will consider going the Nvidia route once again (I have bought from both sides equally).

 

[NC37]

Why all the disappointment? It runs pretty decently for what I was expecting. Too pricey for what it does, IMO. But either way, Fury Nano is where things will likely really shine. If not, AMD just sunk themselves with one of the worst rebrands ever.

 

[the54thvoid]

What if we look at it this way. For the hardcore 4K gamer, the Fury X is a good alternative to the Titan X. It does manage to kill nvidia top of the creme, in the sense the Titan is about 6% faster for for roughly twice the price.

ie, at 4K is does manage to beat the Titan X as being a better alternative.

Just no.

By your own argument, the similarly priced 980ti beats the Fury X.

 

[LogitechFan]

Ok, so basically it' a huge meh and is DOA with this price. RIP AMD, it was nice having you around.

 

[SASBehrooz]

Like I thought and said .... I knew that it will not beat 980ti. big fail for amd. is this card really deserve 9.2 rate? so why 980ti is not 10?
just compare the specifications. kidding me ? 384bit vs 4096bit. lol

just love my 3.5gb 970. wp nvidia

 

[semitope]

If this were an nvidia card the sentiment would be the other way. It's sad but true that AMD has to do a lot more to be seen in the positive. Nvidia can get away with so much. Even if they lie nobody cares

The fury X is a solid card. It's a new card with a new architecture and a new VRAM technology. Yet its frequently on part, sometimes under, sometimes above the more mature Maxwell 2 cards.

The biggest issue is simply the $649 price but most of those bashing it would be fine paying more for nvidia cards that perform worse than cheaper cards (which they did).

The performance will only get better over time and it could shine with dx12 so I'd call it more than a failure.

 

[Petey Plane]

Wow, just wow... All those comments filled with hate, now i wish amd did not exist, it would be nice to see the guys here where will they throw their hate at.
If you just read the comments before the review you will think that this card is like 980ti - 999999 fps vs Fury x 15 fps, thats how much hate this card gets and i dont understand why, it runs all the games smooth.
Ok there are some numbers at lower resolutions but who the hell notices 125 fps vs 119 at 1080p and at 4k the reviewer needs to add commas to fps numbers to show direferences sometimes.
The only downside i see to this card is the price, it should be cheaper but not by much, this is a solid card when compaired to nvidia top offerings.

Check out the frame-time benchmarks on a couple other sites. They are considerably worse with the Fury (compared to the 980ti). They may have the same average FPS on a lot of games, but the nVidia delivers much smoother gameplay. This is partially a driver issue, but AMD has always struggled with frame times. Unfortunately, AMD appears to have dropped the ball with the Fury X. Here's hoping that the followup, when HBM is more mature, can actually compete. As it is now, there is no reason to buy the Fury over the 980ti.

All that being said, i'm really looking forward to the Nano. If it can put down 980 numbers in a form factor similar to the ITX 970s, then AMD will have a legitimate (although niche market) winner.

Also, lol at anyone who buys the Fury X in the first month. It will inevitably be $550 to $600 a few weeks from now. They'll have to, otherwise only AMD Fanbois and system integrators will buy them.

 

[64K]

AMD just doesn't have the resources to top Nvidia. There's something going on with AMD but they're denying it at this point. It may just be shit rumors.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/amd-weighing-a-business-break-up-or-spin-off-reuters-says/

 

[the54thvoid]

If this were an nvidia card the sentiment would be the other way. It's sad but true that AMD has to do a lot more to be seen in the positive. Nvidia can get away with so much. Even if they lie nobody cares

The fury X is a solid card. It's a new card with a new architecture and a new VRAM technology. Yet its frequently on part, sometimes under, sometimes above the more mature Maxwell 2 cards.

The biggest issue is simply the $649 price but most of those bashing it would be fine paying more for nvidia cards that perform worse than cheaper cards (which they did).

The performance will only get better over time and it could shine with dx12 so I'd call it more than a failure.

But it's not an Nvidia card. Its AMD. They said it was the best card in the world. Their pre-release benchmarks were evidently lies. This is like a cult whose leader says the coming comet will bring death and when nobody dies the cult leader says - "your faith has saved you".

There are assholes here saying it's fail. It's obviously not. It's a damn fine card - make no mistake. The main issue is it was touted and hyped, and hyped and hyped as a Titan X slayer (more by fans). The problem for the Fury X is......

...

...

the GTX 980ti is better. Nvidia is allowing custom variants with silly clocks and better coolers. Now, if AMD can (for technical reasons) allow AIB's to play with the Fury X PCB, then maybe this card will grow wings and kick ass properly. But we dont know for now. So yeah, the card has failed to meet the fan based perceived objective. Deal with it.

Let's hope they allow the board partners to work their magic on it.