Anandtech's AMD Fury X review

[Mondozei]

Well, I was looking through the bench section and already found some data in it:



So review not far off.

Additionally, it will be interesting to read whether the card has any coil whine or not as many have complained. It seems awfully quiet, though.
The real break-out is how quiet the OC is. I wonder how an OC'd 980 Ti vs an OC'd Fury X stacks up in noise levels.

 

[Keysplayr]

Well, I was looking through the bench section and already found some data in it:



So review not far off.

Additionally, it will be interesting to read whether the card has any coil whine or not as many have complained. It seems awfully quiet, though.
The real break-out is how quiet the OC is. I wonder how an OC'd 980 Ti vs an OC'd Fury X stacks up in noise levels.

Wonder no longer. The OC'd 980Ti would be warmer and louder than the water cooled OC'd FuryX. At least it absolutely should be.
Did you purchase a FuryX?

 

[tviceman]

After market 980 TI's are 3 db louder than Fury X and 13-18 degrees warmer:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_980_Ti_SC_Plus/29.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_Fury_X/30.html

The Fury X is definitely cooler and quieter, but it also currently has less OC headroom and gets beat by about 10% at 4k and 20+% at 1440p by aftermarket 980 TI's all while consuming similar power (a little more or little less depending on which 980 TI card).

 

[jeffrey]

Fury X review?? I'm still waiting on the GTX 960 review..

 

[Stuka87]

Well, I was looking through the bench section and already found some data in it:



So review not far off.

Additionally, it will be interesting to read whether the card has any coil whine or not as many have complained. It seems awfully quiet, though.
The real break-out is how quiet the OC is. I wonder how an OC'd 980 Ti vs an OC'd Fury X stacks up in noise levels.

What people are hearing is not coil whine, its pump whine. AMD has already stated that they are aware of the issue.

 

[james1701]

Jay said in one of his vids that AMD is releasing a revision to address the whine.

 

[Sabrewings]

It's such a shame that AMD dropped the ball on the Fury X's overclocking potential. The GM200 (especially cut down as I assume the SMMs Nvidia slices are the slower ones even if they're not totally defective) can be a real screamer on OC.

The reference blower is a bit on the loud side. I used it for a couple days on my 980 TI to verify it works before ripping it off and throwing EK's Titan X waterblock and back plate on it. I've had it up to 1492MHz and below 40C load after 15 passes of Heaven 4.0. Such a beast of an overclocker that the Fury X doesn't even become an option at that point. If it had great overclocking ability with an included liquid cooler it would really be an attractive option (assuming they work on the overall smoothness through drivers).

I have no need for this kind of power at the moment (1080p 55" TV, though DSR is beautiful) so I usually run it at stock, but I plan on getting at least one (maybe more) VR headsets when they release and I don't want to compromise there. I decided to see what it could do and I'm absolutely impressed. I have no doubt the Titan X and 980 TI will still be the defacto single GPU cars when SteamVR hits the streets.

 

[Mondozei]

Wonder no longer. The OC'd 980Ti would be warmer and louder than the water cooled OC'd FuryX. At least it absolutely should be.
Did you purchase a FuryX?

I was going to. But it looks like GTX 980 to me now. The price is simply too damn high. If the Fury X had killer acoustics, I might have gone for it. Now it is silent but not ultra-silent. I don't care much for temps on a single GPU. I live in Northern Europe. Even during the summer its 18 celsius here.

 

[tweakboy]

Nice, thanks for the OCes. gb

 

[Mondozei]

It's such a shame that AMD dropped the ball on the Fury X's overclocking potential. The GM200 (especially cut down as I assume the SMMs Nvidia slices are the slower ones even if they're not totally defective) can be a real screamer on OC.

The reference blower is a bit on the loud side. I used it for a couple days on my 980 TI to verify it works before ripping it off and throwing EK's Titan X waterblock and back plate on it. I've had it up to 1492MHz and below 40C load after 15 passes of Heaven 4.0. Such a beast of an overclocker that the Fury X doesn't even become an option at that point. If it had great overclocking ability with an included liquid cooler it would really be an attractive option (assuming they work on the overall smoothness through drivers).

Great comment, and I say that because I think the exact same way
I was looking forward to Fury X but got really annoyed by the lackluster OC potential. In my view, reviewing GPUs at stock speeds simply doesn't cut it.

Even if Fury X and 980 Ti were neck-in-neck at 1440p, you have to factor in the OC differential between the two. Hawaii was also a poor overclocker.

This didn't used to be the case for AMD, but these last few generations their GPUs have been terrabad at overclocking. Not good.

I have no need for this kind of power at the moment (1080p 55" TV, though DSR is beautiful) so I usually run it at stock, but I plan on getting at least one (maybe more) VR headsets when they release and I don't want to compromise there. I decided to see what it could do and I'm absolutely impressed. I have no doubt the Titan X and 980 TI will still be the defacto single GPU cars when SteamVR hits the streets.

Yeah, I'm either getting 980 or 980 Ti. I'm leaning towards 980 and for a simple reason: Pascal. I'm getting the Valve headset and not Oculus, but even so I'm giving it at least 6 months before we'll have any decent ecosystem(and realistically give it at least a year). So Pascal is supposed to be out in Q1 2016 but as usual, look for a late spring/summer release, so about a year from now.

Better to upgrade to Pascal than to go for 980 Ti when most of the VR content will not really be available until many months after you buy the GPU and by that time Pascal wil be out or almost out, so what was the point?
Like you, I don't want to make any compromises on VR either and will aim for big Pascal right off the bat. And giving the headset(s) a few months to get the initial patches/inevitable software issues ironed out is mandatory anyway.

 

[B-Riz]

What people are hearing is not coil whine, its pump whine. AMD has already stated that they are aware of the issue.

My Nepton 140XL has pump whine.

You get used to it; because the 4790K @ 4.6 loves to stay cool, and I love having a cool running cpu.

 

[atticus14]

Great comment, and I say that because I think the exact same way
I was looking forward to Fury X but got really annoyed by the lackluster OC potential. In my view, reviewing GPUs at stock speeds simply doesn't cut it.

Even if Fury X and 980 Ti were neck-in-neck at 1440p, you have to factor in the OC differential between the two. Hawaii was also a poor overclocker.

This didn't used to be the case for AMD, but these last few generations their GPUs have been terrabad at overclocking. Not good.

From what I have seen while AMD doesn't get the eye popping numbers as Nvidia their clocks scale better when it came to tahiti and hawaii. A +100Mhz OC gave you more on AMD than Nvidia. A 7950 OC'd to 1100-1150 was a relative monster, for its time, for example.

 

[Pariah]

Well, I was looking through the bench section and already found some data in it:



So review not far off.

Additionally, it will be interesting to read whether the card has any coil whine or not as many have complained. It seems awfully quiet, though.
The real break-out is how quiet the OC is. I wonder how an OC'd 980 Ti vs an OC'd Fury X stacks up in noise levels.

Unless Anandtech got a different version of the card than everyone else it's not surprising there is no increase in noise for the overclock. A 100 Mhz boost appears to be quite an achievement with the review samples. Some sites are only getting 80 or 90Mhz. If you overclock a 980Ti by 90Mhz, you're not going to hear any discernible increase in fan noise either, especially with aftermarket models which have base clocks that are more than 100Mhz higher than stock.

 

[boozzer]

anandtech got a review out? thought ryan was sick?

 

[rgallant]

rumor has it a fury x card is in Unwinders hands and a updated MSI AB will be here in a week or two.
I guess AMD did not let MSI send him a card with the tight lock down , not a way to launch a card if it does have a fair amount of oc head room.

 

[Sabrewings]

Better to upgrade to Pascal than to go for 980 Ti when most of the VR content will not really be available until many months after you buy the GPU and by that time Pascal wil be out or almost out, so what was the point?
Like you, I don't want to make any compromises on VR either and will aim for big Pascal right off the bat. And giving the headset(s) a few months to get the initial patches/inevitable software issues ironed out is mandatory anyway.

I would've waited for Pascal, but I was building a machine in the first few weeks of June so the 980 Ti lined up perfectly. I was coming from a seven year old system with a GTX 275 so no matter what I was going to be blown away. :biggrin:

Pascal will be awesome for sure, but it's not going to make my 980 Ti any slower. And I want a SteamVR yesterday, so I'll have one before Pascal hits, hence my 980 Ti. If for any reason I really need Pascal to enjoy VR (StarVR will probably be pretty GPU crushing), it's not like I'm married to the 980 Ti. It can go in my old machine (now the wife's) and a Pascal with waterblock will be going in my new one.

 

[Stuka87]

It's such a shame that AMD dropped the ball on the Fury X's overclocking potential. The GM200 (especially cut down as I assume the SMMs Nvidia slices are the slower ones even if they're not totally defective) can be a real screamer on OC.

The reference blower is a bit on the loud side. I used it for a couple days on my 980 TI to verify it works before ripping it off and throwing EK's Titan X waterblock and back plate on it. I've had it up to 1492MHz and below 40C load after 15 passes of Heaven 4.0. Such a beast of an overclocker that the Fury X doesn't even become an option at that point. If it had great overclocking ability with an included liquid cooler it would really be an attractive option (assuming they work on the overall smoothness through drivers).

I have no need for this kind of power at the moment (1080p 55" TV, though DSR is beautiful) so I usually run it at stock, but I plan on getting at least one (maybe more) VR headsets when they release and I don't want to compromise there. I decided to see what it could do and I'm absolutely impressed. I have no doubt the Titan X and 980 TI will still be the defacto single GPU cars when SteamVR hits the streets.

So you have access to over clocking tools that are updated for Fury? Where did you get them? Because nobody has any out yet, which means nobody has been able to test overclocking yet.

 

[boozzer]

1492 oc number. can we all get his luck with our gpus?

 

[soccerballtux]

After market 980 TI's are 3 db louder than Fury X and 13-18 degrees warmer:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_980_Ti_SC_Plus/29.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_Fury_X/30.html

The Fury X is definitely cooler and quieter, but it also currently has less OC headroom and gets beat by about 10% at 4k and 20+% at 1440p by aftermarket 980 TI's all while consuming similar power (a little more or little less depending on which 980 TI card).

there's literally no reason for it to get beat so badly at 1440p. It's highly likely there's a driver bottleneck somewhere that will get ironed out

 

[Sabrewings]

So you have access to over clocking tools that are updated for Fury? Where did you get them? Because nobody has any out yet, which means nobody has been able to test overclocking yet.

No, I was referring to a 980 Ti. 1492MHz boost clock. Most Fury X reviews have an overclocking attempt, there's just no voltage control. But, come on, you shouldn't need voltage to go more than 5%. It's going to be a fail either way even if AMD does unlock it.

 

[Dresdenboy]

there's literally no reason for it to get beat so badly at 1440p. It's highly likely there's a driver bottleneck somewhere that will get ironed out

I'm on my mobile now. Is there a clear difference in any cgraphics rendering path components between Fury X and 980/Ti?

 

[boozzer]

sabre, I just realized that your oc is almost 50% over stock 980 ti.

with your luck, you really should buy some lotto tickets.

 

[Sabrewings]

sabre, I just realized that your oc is almost 50% over stock 980 ti.

with your luck, you really should buy some lotto tickets.

Lol, that'd be nice. Maybe I should. Though, I just sold a big four wheeled toy so I have more money than sense right now as it is. Hence why I have a brand new high end computer. :$ Anyway, seeing how high most aftermarket cards go, it shouldn't be a huge surprise.

I'd think most people could achieve what I did. Note, that's on water with an XSPC RX360 dedicated to cooling just the GPU, though you wouldn't necessarily need something that big. I planned ahead in case I ever wanted to add a second GPU. All I did was crank the voltage to the max and move the slider over to a rough spot. I never even had a crash, I just stopped going. I have no need for the extra power, like I mentioned before I was just curious what she could do. I took my 4790k up to 4.8GHz for giggles, but brought it back to stock again because I have no need for that. I'm just a tinkerer and love the sport of it. :biggrin:

 

[96Firebird]

Is that 1492MHz the boost clock, or your base clock? If that is the boost clock, ie what Afterburner shows, that is pretty average for a 980 Ti...

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_980_Ti_SC_Plus/33.html

Edit - Nevermind, I see you said it was boost clock.

 

[boozzer]

Is that 1492MHz the boost clock, or your base clock? If that is the boost clock, ie what Afterburner shows, that is pretty average for a 980 Ti...

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_980_Ti_SC_Plus/33.html

if all 980 ti can oc to 50% over reference, there is no competition. it would be so worth it to get the 980 ti evga hybrid.

but that is a big if.

is there a dedicated website with user submitted oc numbers + proof?

oh, what exactly do you mean by boost and base clock?