AMD Fury X Postmortem: What Went Wrong?

[Enigmoid]

But but but HBM is like cache and 4 GB isn't limiting at 4k! Basically AMD will have to work the same kind of driver bs NVIDIA did with 970 to manage the limited VRAM. Except 970 is a mid tier card and this is AMD's best.

It can be like 'cache' all it wants but capacity is capacity.

After watching The TechReport podcast, which was quite interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28CECF_Cieo

I'm real curious to see how the FuryX's huge shader array can be used to it's advantage. They discussed it around the 37 minute mark.

The big sticking point was divergent technologies, NVidia specializing in Geometry output, and AMD specializing in Compute and Shader throughput. The former being best for right now, and the latter being better for tomorrow, allegedly.

VR being a huge upcoming market and a lot of VR companies utilizing LiquidVR and it's compute centric approach to problems. This might become THE card for VR.

Reviews doing Apples to Apples comparisons using the exact same settings possibly aren't playing to the strengths of each card. MSAA vs. SMAA for example.

Now this does get fuzzy in how to directly compare the cards, but I just thought it was quite an interesting point in regards to the disappointing showings of the FuryX.

Perhaps. But I though VR involved drawing two slightly different scenes (or one scene two ways) for each eye. Lots of CPU overhead and stress on the front end.

This looks again like a Pitcarin/ Tahiti blunder. Just compare the 270X vs. 280. The 280 has 24% more raw GFLOPS (3.35 vs. 2.7 TFLOPS) yet is only ~15% faster.

http://translate.google.com/transla...se.de/2015-01/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-im-test/

The 280X has 4.096 TFLOPS (+ 52%) yet according to the last TPU benchmark is only 24% faster.

 

[Stormflux]

Perhaps. But I though VR involved drawing two slightly different scenes (or one scene two ways) for each eye. Lots of CPU overhead and stress on the front end.

This looks again like a Pitcarin/ Tahiti blunder. Just compare the 270X vs. 280. The 280 has 24% more raw GFLOPS (3.35 vs. 2.7 TFLOPS) yet is only ~15% faster.

http://translate.google.com/transla...se.de/2015-01/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-im-test/

The 280X has 4.096 TFLOPS (+ 52%) yet according to the last TPU benchmark is only 24% faster.

Those are more shader operations rather than loading things twice. It's more like loading things once and calculating per eye. Which is a GPU task. On top of that, there is tracking and processing of video/data which are now largely GPU tasks. The following; albeit an AMD piece is nicely detailed.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9124/amd-dives-deep-on-asynchronous-shading

While real test cases aren't available, and banking on future tech no matter how close is a tough sell, it remains to be seen. I am curious though.

 

[Piroko]

So, a couple of days ago I ordered one from the initial stock. I wanted to try out AIO watercooling anyways and I was curious.

The card's back in its box and will be returned by me in the next days, I'll get to the reasons later.

My first impressions after unboxing: "Woah, heavy!", followed by "woah, tiny!"

Reference HD7770 for comparison. That rubber finished cover is milled aluminum btw and the screws are (annoyingly) TX6 Torx. Fit and finish of the whole assembly is unprecedented, it's an engineers wet dream.

As for gaming performance, I only tried out GTA5 in the short time that it was in my PC. Was playing on 2550*1440, all normal graphics settings maxed, MSAA 4x, advanced settings off (clearly told me I'd go over 4GB if I used them and I just didn't care enough to try it).
Anyways, with these settings the game would run at a perfectly locked 60fps no matter where I went or how crazy I got. No stutters, no performance drops.

And, what amused me even more, my system was dead silent during gaming. Not just "Best triple fan at low rpm" silent (which isn't that silent once you factor in the case fans), but really silent. Two BeQuiet 120mm fans in the front @ 7V, stock Intel copper heatsink+fan, Fury Radiator mounted in the back pushing air out of a Define R3. Take your Systems' noise level at idle and it'll still be louder. That silent. Definitely piqued my interest in water cooling.

So, why am I sending it back? Well... The pump. It emits a high pitch whine, exactly like this one. Not even the foamed case was able to deafen it and the trick of applying pressure on the pump wasn't helping much with my sample. Classic case of "reduce one noise source and start noticing the next one". Only that this one was very irritating. Not as much during gaming, even the background noise in GTA5 would comfortably drown it, but during regular desktop use.
It took me two hours to get very annoyed by it, apply the pressure trick and another two hours after that to pull the plug and rip it back out :\


Couple of other tidbits: The card was delivered in a box that had the air freight stickers still on it, delivered by Saudi Arabian Airlines from Hong Kong to Frankfurt, made me giggle.
The fan is not connected through a standard 4-Pin connector, the wires are color coded though, so replacing that isn't trivial but doable. It was also the loudest part of my system, but tolerable in noise.
I measured power consumption at the wall while I had it, never exceeded 400W for the whole system.

Honestly the pump is the only flaw I can think of, at least for gaming at 1440p. But this particular one sadly was a dealbreaker for me :|
Such a shame, was by far the cheapest AIO that is worthwile (ignoring 295x2).

 

[exar333]

Interesting...

On a side note -aAnyone seen someone adding another fan to the other side of the rad in a pull config?

 

[sontin]

It can be like 'cache' all it wants but capacity is capacity.

And it works like a charm:
Modor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_wNEOviaeE
Watch Dogs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEbVMUniJLM
GGGGGGGTA5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hnuj1OZAJs

https://www.youtube.com/user/sloppywetblow/videos

They havent even cared to optimize for these games at all. The driver is doing some fancy stuff, it is just unbelievable...

 

[monstercameron]

And it works like a charm:
Modor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_wNEOviaeE
Watch Dogs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEbVMUniJLM
GGGGGGGTA5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hnuj1OZAJs

https://www.youtube.com/user/sloppywetblow/videos

They havent even cared to optimize for these games at all. The driver is doing some fancy stuff, it is just unbelievable...

Why do you have to be so transparent?
AMD has had optimized drivers out for those games...

 

[sontin]

There is something wrong with Fiji memory management. The driver doesnt fill all of the 4GB of the ram. It makes a cut at ~3800mb or less.

He uploaded a video of AC:Unity and Fury X shows 3800mb vram usage. On a GTX980 it is 4000mb.

So either they havent optimized for games like Modor and Watch Dogs or their optimizations dont work in certain games.

PCPer shows Fiji's problem in GTA5: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...Review-Fiji-Finally-Tested/Grand-Theft-Auto-V

A 290X has less spikes.

 

[Keysplayr]

It probably has it's driver written to keep the memory from going over 4GB with perhaps a bit of a cushion. HBM is new, so cut them some slack until a few more driver revisions are rolled out.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Its nothing to do with HBM. That excuse needs to go away by now. However its GCN 1.2. And the 285 aka 380 didnt get much love on that matter. So what love there is to give we have to see. But they had their time to work on it. The 285 wasnt released yesterday.

 

[boozzer]

So, a couple of days ago I ordered one from the initial stock. I wanted to try out AIO watercooling anyways and I was curious.

The card's back in its box and will be returned by me in the next days, I'll get to the reasons later.

My first impressions after unboxing: "Woah, heavy!", followed by "woah, tiny!"

Reference HD7770 for comparison. That rubber finished cover is milled aluminum btw and the screws are (annoyingly) TX6 Torx. Fit and finish of the whole assembly is unprecedented, it's an engineers wet dream.

As for gaming performance, I only tried out GTA5 in the short time that it was in my PC. Was playing on 2550*1440, all normal graphics settings maxed, MSAA 4x, advanced settings off (clearly told me I'd go over 4GB if I used them and I just didn't care enough to try it).
Anyways, with these settings the game would run at a perfectly locked 60fps no matter where I went or how crazy I got. No stutters, no performance drops.

And, what amused me even more, my system was dead silent during gaming. Not just "Best triple fan at low rpm" silent (which isn't that silent once you factor in the case fans), but really silent. Two BeQuiet 120mm fans in the front @ 7V, stock Intel copper heatsink+fan, Fury Radiator mounted in the back pushing air out of a Define R3. Take your Systems' noise level at idle and it'll still be louder. That silent. Definitely piqued my interest in water cooling.

So, why am I sending it back? Well... The pump. It emits a high pitch whine, exactly like this one. Not even the foamed case was able to deafen it and the trick of applying pressure on the pump wasn't helping much with my sample. Classic case of "reduce one noise source and start noticing the next one". Only that this one was very irritating. Not as much during gaming, even the background noise in GTA5 would comfortably drown it, but during regular desktop use.
It took me two hours to get very annoyed by it, apply the pressure trick and another two hours after that to pull the plug and rip it back out :\


Couple of other tidbits: The card was delivered in a box that had the air freight stickers still on it, delivered by Saudi Arabian Airlines from Hong Kong to Frankfurt, made me giggle.
The fan is not connected through a standard 4-Pin connector, the wires are color coded though, so replacing that isn't trivial but doable. It was also the loudest part of my system, but tolerable in noise.
I measured power consumption at the wall while I had it, never exceeded 400W for the whole system.

Honestly the pump is the only flaw I can think of, at least for gaming at 1440p. But this particular one sadly was a dealbreaker for me :|
Such a shame, was by far the cheapest AIO that is worthwile (ignoring 295x2).

amd supposedly fixed the problem with the initial batches, if you like the card enough, try the rma at least once :biggrin: and you seem to love it in fact. I am waiting on a bit more info before I pull the trigger.

 

[monstercameron]

amd supposedly fixed the problem with the initial batches, if you like the card enough, try the rma at least once :biggrin: and you seem to love it in fact. I am waiting on a bit more info before I pull the trigger.

I will buy one eventually but there are no stocks at Amazon or newegg. It also doesn't help that to fill the void that this card supposed to I got a camera instead. Sigh amd get a launch right ffs!

 

[boozzer]

I will buy one eventually but there are no stocks at Amazon or newegg. It also doesn't help that to fill the void that this card supposed to I got a camera instead. Sigh amd get a launch right ffs!

alot of people are refreshing the product pages constantly. and if they are on amazon, 1 click buys :biggrin: you cannot beat those guys, ever. there is even a browser extension that gives you warning when they get restock. pretty crazy we gamers are.

 

[Piroko]

amd supposedly fixed the problem with the initial batches, if you like the card enough, try the rma at least once :biggrin: and you seem to love it in fact. I am waiting on a bit more info before I pull the trigger.

I do for what it is, it's absolutely gorgeous. But I have no idea which cards are considered to be the first stock and which are supposedly fixed, and that leaves me annoyed.
My current stance is that I'll return it now, wait a couple of weeks for prices to settle and the rest of the lineup to launch and then I'll reevaluate. I'll likely try water again and so far between 700€ 980 Hybrid, 700€ Fury X and 820€ 980TI Hybrid there's little to debate about value imho.

 

[soccerballtux]

A chip like this would be designed to compete on price, performance, and perf/watt with GM204

they've been doing that and it doesnt work

 

[soccerballtux]

This is slightly off topic, but years ago when I had my Pentium 4 2.6c rig and a ATI 9800 Pro (128 mb I think) when playing World of Warcraft if I spun the camera around real fast it would suddenly stutter to hell. Would that have been a VRAM issue? I have always wondered.

i had that in wow on my 6800GT, 256MB. yes, that's what it was

 

[soccerballtux]

I think what he is getting at is AMD said they would be doing driver optimizations to avoid 4GB being a limitation at 4K. This may consist of intelligently swapping data out/in BEFORE the 4GB limit is hit to avoid hitting system RAM entirely. But here in GTA V, we see it may not be working well.

Something is going on with VRAM in that video because the usage drops big time when it hits those stutter points, almost as if the cache gets wiped out and then the game starts filling it again.

they haven't implemented that yet. Most likely this is poor engine design-- at 3600 it wants 400MB, it can't have that, so it freaks out and goes on a garbage collection rampage to make room

 

[looncraz]

I would love for this "un-optimised" driver thing to be true. I was hoping the Fury X would be a bit better atleast on par at 1440p with the Ti.

I am in the market for a new card and its a bit of a toss up really I know the 980Ti is currently better but the pricing for cards here is a bit whack, AMD is always cheaper in NZ than Nvidia for some reason. I can get a Fury X for $100USD cheaper than a standard reference 980Ti... makes the decision a bit harder.

With that kind of price difference the decision should be simple, IMHO.

The standard 980Ti is absolutely not worth $100 more than the stock Fury X at 1440p. Noise, temperature, compute, size, are all better. And FreeSync monitors are popping up in much cheaper than any GSync monitor, should that be your thing.

 

[ocre]

With that kind of price difference the decision should be simple, IMHO.

The standard 980Ti is absolutely not worth $100 more than the stock Fury X at 1440p. Noise, temperature, compute, size, are all better. And FreeSync monitors are popping up in much cheaper than any GSync monitor, should that be your thing.

If you say it, then it must be true.

I am fairly certain fury x will come down in price. Lets give it a few months, at least enough time for the channels to fill up.

I won't mind being wrong though.

 

[godihatework]

how many people here truly believe that titan x is a "luxury" product? premium product? not trolling?

EVERY video card is a luxury product.

it's just a matter of scale.

 

[brandonmatic]

EVERY video card is a luxury product.

it's just a matter of scale.

It's a luxury product because people who are buying these aren't doing it solely for function, but are paying in part for fit and finish. Same with the high end Nvidia cards. There's no need for nickel plating, soft-touch plastics, etc. on a video card from a functionality standpoint.

It's the same way that a fancy watch or even fancy bottled water (Voss) are both luxury products.

 

[tviceman]

With that kind of price difference the decision should be simple, IMHO.

The standard 980Ti is absolutely not worth $100 more than the stock Fury X at 1440p. Noise, temperature, compute, size, are all better. And FreeSync monitors are popping up in much cheaper than any GSync monitor, should that be your thing.

Not worth $100 more? Absolute performance for Fury X is worse and overclocking is way worse, especially at 1440p and 1080p. Aftermarket 980 TI's don't perform as well in the temp and noise department, but that is literally splitting molecules at that point.

High end customers want the best performance without throwing all logic out of the door (ahem Titan). The reason people are saying Fury X needs to be $550 is because OC'd Fury X vs. OC'd Titan X gets absolutely destroyed at 1440p. We're talking 20-25%. And the perf/$ ration of an OC'd $670 aftermarket 980 TI vs. an OC'd $550 Fury X is nearly the same. At release, the 780 TI was able to price itself $150 more than the R9 290x for only 15% more performance when both were OC'd. The performance delta between a $550 Fury X and $650-670 aftermarket 980 TI will be the same, but the performance difference will be larger.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

It is crazy how small it is. I have an HD 5750 here and its about the same size, while my 770 is just looking "overlong".

Can't wait for smaller cards.

 

[tential]

I will buy one eventually but there are no stocks at Amazon or newegg. It also doesn't help that to fill the void that this card supposed to I got a camera instead. Sigh amd get a launch right ffs!

Ya, I'm probably going to buy a new fancy washer/dryer combo with the steam options instead of this card at this rate. AMD just lost a lot of sales to the 980TI, gtx 900 series, titan x, other tech, etc. to release the fury x so sloppily. With no OC results it's even harder to judge.

I'm going to wait for the new revision with a new pump (and see if any other issues can be fixed) and new drivers first before making a conclusion. We've already heard reports over on reddit that people who got later driver revisions than the ones sent to most american review sites are getting different results.

 

[boozzer]

EVERY video card is a luxury product.

it's just a matter of scale.

come on now, you know that is 100% not what the posters in this thread meant by luxury ^_^ no matter how true your post is, it has no bearing on what I asked.

 

[godihatework]

come on now, you know that is 100% not what the posters in this thread meant by luxury ^_^ no matter how true your post is, it has no bearing on what I asked.

No, not really. A 750LI certainly is more "luxury" than a 135i, but at the end of the day they're both more luxurious than the red line.

Folks need to get some perspective here. End of the day the Titan remains the "best of the best" regardless of how slim that margin may be. Complaints that focus on a limited few being willing to pay for that smack of jealously, rather than frugality.