Sapphire R9 Fury Tri-X OC 4 GB Review

Name: Sapphire R9 Fury Tri-X OC 4 GB
Brand: Sapphire

W1zzard

on Aug 7th, 2015,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: Sapphire

(32 Comments) »

Introduction

About a month ago, just two weeks after its flagship Radeon R9 Fury X launch, AMD launched its little sibling, the R9 Fury positioned as a big money-maker for the "Fiji" silicon. To say AMD is at the forefront of new technology is an understatement. The company rigorously pursues and in many cases introduces new technology into the PC consumer-graphics space. AMD's past two memorable technological breakthroughs in this space were Graphics CoreNext, a powerful new number-crunching machinery for the GPU, which made not just AMD but also a lot of crypto-currency enthusiasts a lot of money, and GDDR5 memory in their giant-killing Radeon HD 4870. The past year hasn't been kind to AMD in terms of GPU-market share, which is partly because the company didn't introduce anything major since 2013—all due to competition from NVIDIA with its "Maxwell" architecture and probably also because the company is focusing on high-volume ISV deals, such as new-generation game consoles, and the development of the chip that drives the card we're reviewing today, the Radeon R9 Fury.

Unlike the R9 Fury X, this SKU doesn't have a defined reference-design. AMD is allowing its board partners to go to town with it. To make it as affordable as possible, conventional air-based cooling solutions are used. At this time, there are only three board partners who offer this card, ASUS, whose card we reviewed on launch day, and Sapphire, whose we are reviewing today. There is also a card from PowerColor we may look at in the future.

The card we're reviewing today is the Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury Tri-X OC. It features the company's latest triple-fan, triple-slot cooling solution, comes overclocked out of the box, and has a dual-BIOS that lets you increase the board's power limit.

While AMD has announced an MSRP of $549, none of the cards currently available are retailing at that price. The current going rate for both cards is $570 instead.

Please note that there is a Sapphire R9 Fury Tri-X and a Fury Tri-X OC. The version without "OC" comes at reference design clocks of 1000 MHz and the OC version we are reviewing today is clocked at 1040 MHz on the GPU.

Radeon R9 Fury Market Segment Analysis
	GeForce GTX 970	Radeon R9 290X	Radeon R9 390X	GeForce GTX 780 Ti	GeForce GTX 980	Radeon R9 Fury	Sapphire R9 Fury Tri-X OC	Radeon Fury X	GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Shader Units	1664	2816	2816	2880	2048	3584	3584	4096	2816
ROPs	56	64	64	48	64	64	64	64	96
Graphics Processor	GM204	Hawaii	Hawaii	GK110	GM204	Fiji	Fiji	Fiji	GM200
Transistors	5200M	6200M	6200M	7100M	5200M	8900M	8900M	8900M	8000M
Memory Size	4096 MB	4096 MB	8192 MB	3072 MB	4096 MB	4096 MB	4096 MB	4096 MB	6144 MB
Memory Bus Width	256 bit	512 bit	512 bit	384 bit	256 bit	4096 bit	4096 bit	4096 bit	384 bit
Core Clock	1051 MHz+	1000 MHz	1050 MHz	876 MHz+	1126 MHz+	1000 MHz	1040 MHz	1050 MHz	1000 MHz+
Memory Clock	1750 MHz	1250 MHz	1500 MHz	1750 MHz	1750 MHz	500 MHz	500 MHz	500 MHz	1750 MHz
Price	$310	$300	$430	$390	$480	$549	$570	$650	$650

Packaging

You will receive:

Graphics card
Documentation + driver CD
HDMI cable
DP-to-DVI adapter

The Card

Sapphire's card comes with clean lines and orange highlights. You can see that the actual PCB is quite short, the cooler extending far beyond its length. You will also find a metal backplate on the card. Dimensions of the card are 31.0 cm x 11.5 cm.

Installation requires three slots in your system.

Display connectivity options include three full-size DisplayPorts and one HDMI port. The package includes a DP to DVI adapter, so users of older monitors don't have to buy additional adapters.

The GPU also includes an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible, which includes HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies support.