Is gameworks to blame for Fury's lackluster debut?

[Pariah]

Ok, you might have an argument with some SFF cases despite more of them being designed to work with water cooling easier but for even micro-atx let alone mid-atx cases? Its hard to fit a couple of 120-140mm rads? A fractal, corsair, nzxt, phanteks, thermaltake case made in the last couple of years? Nuts.

What case would the "smaller" Fury X board fit in, that a standard size card like a 980Ti would not fit in? As the case gets smaller, do you think multiple Fury X's will become easier to squeeze in the case vs multiple Ti's?

 

[JDG1980]

No just no. This is no where close to a Conroe style situation you're insane to even try to compare it.

There is one way in which this is worryingly similar to the Conroe situation: AMD failed to win the performance crown in spite of having a new technology that the competitor lacked. In this case, it's HBM. In the case of the K10, it was the on-die memory controller (Conroe still used a classic front-side bus). When Intel integrated the memory controller in Nehalem (which could basically be described as Conroe+IMC), they took another big step ahead of AMD, and AMD was never really able to catch up. What will happen when Nvidia starts using HBM2? In that case, AMD has to compete on a raw architecture basis, but die-shrunk GCN 1.2 doesn't seem like it is going to be competitive enough with Pascal (Maxwell+HBM2).

That said, AMD's CPU business still managed to do OK for a while even after Conroe's release. It was a serious blow, but not an insta-kill. Thuban was a decent budget alternative to Nehalem, especially if you did lots of multi-threaded work, and it didn't do too badly on single-threaded tasks either. It was Bulldozer that really torpedoed AMD's CPU division. Billions of dollars of R&D spent on a product that in many ways was objectively worse than its own predecessor. AMD would have been far better off with a straight die-shrink of Thuban followed by incremental tweaks.

 

[tential]

There is one way in which this is worryingly similar to the Conroe situation: AMD failed to win the performance crown in spite of having a new technology that the competitor lacked. In this case, it's HBM. In the case of the K10, it was the on-die memory controller (Conroe still used a classic front-side bus). When Intel integrated the memory controller in Nehalem (which could basically be described as Conroe+IMC), they took another big step ahead of AMD, and AMD was never really able to catch up. What will happen when Nvidia starts using HBM2? In that case, AMD has to compete on a raw architecture basis, but die-shrunk GCN 1.2 doesn't seem like it is going to be competitive enough with Pascal (Maxwell+HBM2).

That said, AMD's CPU business still managed to do OK for a while even after Conroe's release. It was a serious blow, but not an insta-kill. Thuban was a decent budget alternative to Nehalem, especially if you did lots of multi-threaded work, and it didn't do too badly on single-threaded tasks either. It was Bulldozer that really torpedoed AMD's CPU division. Billions of dollars of R&D spent on a product that in many ways was objectively worse than its own predecessor. AMD would have been far better off with a straight die-shrink of Thuban followed by incremental tweaks.

I see your point and imo we'll need next year to confirm. It's extremely disappointing results but also amd generally gets better with time right now so we may see fury with a 10%+ lead at stock vs stock within a year.

Either way though, it's a wash and 980ti is the recommended buy in my opinion unless you desperately need small form factor or watercooling. I'm going to wait to see the results at a pc as I only have my phone right now with Internet access but right now fury still interests me on watercooling and dx12 perf.

I'm just very very turned off in general though and I swear someone shared the same sentiments earlier where this launch basically made them want to skip this group all together.

If I had to describe this launch in a catch phrase it's too little too late. It started off great, then under delivered hard and for all the marketing hype and e3 show amd got a lot of eyes on their product to under deliver.

For a new product line launch at e3 they needed to wow people and this just didn't wow. Even the r9 290 launch was a surprise in performance imo. This is less interesting than the 290/x launch right now with amd the execution of things is just so horrendous that I dunno if I'd want to buy the fury x at even 550(i obviously would). Their ineptitude is starting to rub me the wrong way very very hard.

 

[exar333]

What case would the "smaller" Fury X board fit in, that a standard size card like a 980Ti would not fit in? As the case gets smaller, do you think multiple Fury X's will become easier to squeeze in the case vs multiple Ti's?

I can say that card at 10.5'' might not fit in my current build. If you have rads and fans stacked, it can eat up space fast. That, and who wants cables darn near rubbing up to a fan anyway? Even on bigger cases, a shorter gpu means more 'useable' 3.5 slots too. That's why I got the short-pcb version myself. Still a inch or so longer than fury, but it made a huge difference in cabling and tubing.

Compact GPUs are great, especially since we have great cooling options available to us.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I agree, overall the card is quite good, performance can match the 980 ti in many games, power usage difference is hardly worth mentioning... the trouble is that a few games under perform on FuryX, and you have other considerations like memory capacity and overclock for example in favor of Nvidia, even the watercooler, it can be both and advantage and disadvantage...

so the same price is hard to justify... the only thing is that the card aspires to be more like a Titan X in terms of "premium" design...

but it should cost more than the 980 but less than the 980 Ti, $549 or $599 would make reviews more positive I think.

Fury is a decent card, I think the nano is even more exciting. I like the smaller size but i agree water cooling could be considered either a plus or minus. The problem I see with AMD is the rest of the lineup, which is basically a refresh of a rebrand, while nVidia has a new, efficient architecture across the board, especially important in mobile.

 

[sandorski]

GW doesn't help, but given that only some games use it, there's not much hindrance from it. If every Game was using it, then it would be a valid question.

 

[Grooveriding]

I think gameworks is bad for everyone because most games wind up broken due to it. Some get fixed earlier than others. Off the top of my head Far Cry 4, Dying Light, Watchdogs.. all broken at launch. There are a few I'm forgetting.

https://community.wbgames.com/t5/Su...C-Version-of-Arkham-Knight/m-p/575332#U575332

Arkham Knight is so broken they have halted sales of the PC version. Now that is really bad. :\

 

[Silverforce11]

Go look at the [H] review where they test a few games, mostly GameWorks where Fury X in there loses to the 980Ti by 25% but at other sites, its a tie at 1440p and 4K.

At other sites that use an overall summary chart, the more GW titles are in there, the more it skews towards NV.

You must be blind if you think GW has no influence.

 

[iiiankiii]

GW doesn't help, but given that only some games use it, there's not much hindrance from it. If every Game was using it, then it would be a valid question.

But, wait. Some review sites are using PRIMARILY GameWorks. If a uniform reader were to read a site like H, the conclusion is simple to them, the Fury X is a lot slower than the GTX 980TI. But, clearly (or rather, not really), that's not the case because, as you've pointed out, not all games use Gameworks. Perception paints a different picture, though.

 

[sandorski]

But, wait. Some review sites are using PRIMARILY GameWorks. If a uniform reader were to read a site like H, the conclusion is simple to them, the Fury X is a lot slower than the GTX 980TI. But, clearly (or rather, not really), that's not the case because, as you've pointed out, not all games use Gameworks. Perception paints a different picture, though.

That's why relying on any one site is foolish.

 

[Paul98]

Had there just been a bunch of games released that heavily favored the reactions would have been much better to fury

 

[gamervivek]

AMD find themselves in the position that they put nvidia in earlier with their gpus having lower clockspeeds and having to rely on higher resolution for better performance relatively. nvidia's dominance on the gaming development side however has remained the same.

Techpowerup put it at parity with 980Ti at 4k with removal of Project Cars, so that's a big difference making game. Tom's has it faster at 4k like sweclockers, so while I don't really believe AMD has hit a home run here the criticism and some of the topics seem bewildering.

An 8GB version with mature drivers will be it though. TechReport's review shows it having many hiccups with some 99th percentile frametimes as bad as 290X. So there is quite a room for improvement.

 

[sm625]

Consider the following review, which shows that I don't think it's Gameworks fault, but instead just weird choices by reviewer:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/video-card-reviews/amd-radeon-r9-fury-x-review/

So he compares a *stock* Fury X to an *overclocked* 980 Ti to conclude that AMD doesn't deliver. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison, kind of weird.

It's almost as if some reviewers have a bias going into the review, and then make subtle changes to fulfill their own prophecy. Who knows, maybe it's subconscious?

It is perfectly valid to compare the superclocked 980 ti to the Fury. Because both cards are within 5% of each other in terms of price and average gaming power consumption. The superclocked 980 ti consumes just 5% more power than the Fury and it only costs 5% more. Yet it clearly outperforms the Fury X by more than 5%. Fury X should be $599.

 

[Headfoot]

It pretty much is ...

Fiji is both late and it underperforms against the competition much like their K10 CPUs ...

Fiji would've been fine if it had released earlier and had some micro-architectural updates to gain some features but none of those things have happened ...

It's not even remotely like Conroe.

Fiji trades blows with 980 Ti, just a little later. People are disappointed because the 980 Ti stole the thunder. If Fiji came out before 980 Ti the story would be totally different.

Conroe demolished everything else without question. It wasn't within 2-3% in many cases like Fiji is to GM200.

 

[xthetenth]

An 8GB version with mature drivers will be it though. TechReport's review shows it having many hiccups with some 99th percentile frametimes as bad as 290X. So there is quite a room for improvement.

It's weird that TechReport's showing that, when Guru3D and Sweclockers are showing it having very good FCAT graphs in general.

 

[TemjinGold]

AMD is to blame for Fury's lackluster debut.

 

[exar333]

At the end of the day, GW is irrelevant. People care how it performs. The reasons why don't matter to the average user, no matter if it is inherently unfair or not. I am not saying GW is justified in any way, just that AMD will be graded by their performance in popular titles. Be that 1 out 5 GW, 4/5 or even 5/5.

 

[Keysplayr]

AMD is to blame for Fury's lackluster debut.

^ Agreed.

 

[Dribble]

I think gameworks is bad for everyone because most games wind up broken due to it. Some get fixed earlier than others. Off the top of my head Far Cry 4, Dying Light, Watchdogs.. all broken at launch. There are a few I'm forgetting.

https://community.wbgames.com/t5/Su...C-Version-of-Arkham-Knight/m-p/575332#U575332

Arkham Knight is so broken they have halted sales of the PC version. Now that is really bad. :\

As you well know GW is not the problem with AK, you can turn the GW features off and it still runs terribly. The problem is they outsourced the PC port to some dodgy company who did a terrible job of it. The biggest fix is to use an SSD as it streams stuff in much faster removing much of the hitching that you see with a mechanical HD, none of this has anything to do with GW.

As for Fury well it's AMD's job to make it great, no one else's - certainly not nvidia's.

 

[Grooveriding]

As you well know GW is not the problem with AK, you can turn the GW features off and it still runs terribly. The problem is they outsourced the PC port to some dodgy company who did a terrible job of it. The biggest fix is to use an SSD as it streams stuff in much faster removing much of the hitching that you see with a mechanical HD, none of this has anything to do with GW.

As for Fury well it's AMD's job to make it great, no one else's - certainly not nvidia's.

Disagree. Gameworks is the universal constant in all these broken titles that use it. It's worth looking at the gameworks information. It goes beyond just turning on the gpu compute things like smoke or debris effects. It does shadowing, animations, fire etc. Games using it have a lot of the functionality throughout the game without the ability to disable any of it.

My comment had nothing to do with Fury X reviewing badly. The card is just bad, positioned poorly in terms of its performance, price etc. Gameworks is hurting users of either AMD or nvidia cards though, with broken games, terrible performance, abysmal optimization etc. It needs to go or nvidia needs to fix it, because currently it's a disaster for gaming.

 

[Keysplayr]

Disagree. Gameworks is the universal constant in all these broken titles that use it. It's worth looking at the gameworks information. It goes beyond just turning on the gpu compute things like smoke or debris effects. It does shadowing, animations, fire etc. Games using it have a lot of the functionality throughout the game without the ability to disable any of it.

My comment had nothing to do with Fury X reviewing badly. The card is just bad, positioned poorly in terms of its performance, price etc. Gameworks is hurting users of either AMD or nvidia cards though, with broken games, terrible performance, abysmal optimization etc. It needs to go or nvidia needs to fix it, because currently it's a disaster for gaming.

What do you mean you disagree? Did not Dribble just inform you that with Gameworks off in Batman AK it has major problems? You throw illogic in the face of that simply throwing a blanket statement over all things Nvidia and gameworks. Gameworks is not the issue, I think we all know that now.

 

[n0x1ous]

What do you mean you disagree? Did not Dribble just inform you that with Gameworks off in Batman AK it has major problems? You throw illogic in the face of that simply throwing a blanket statement over all things Nvidia and gameworks. Gameworks is not the issue, I think we all know that now.

What he is saying is there is performance issues with any game that has employed gameworks libraries whether they are turned on or not. Its an easy trend to spot.

 

[Grooveriding]

What he is saying is there is performance issues with any game that has employed gameworks libraries whether they are turned on or not. Its an easy trend to spot.

Exactly my point. Initially it was trying to lay the blame on Ubisoft as a crap developer - partially true :awe: - because Unity, Watch Dogs and Far Cry 4 all shipped broken. Now though we've see games from other developers with gameworks all ship broken as well.

The universal is gameworks; Dying Light, Watch Dogs, Far Cry 4, Arkham Knight, AC: Unity. All shipped seriously broken and most continue to have issues. All suffered from terrible optimization, buggy graphics etc. Arkham Knight is so bad they pulled it from shelves. Even Witcher 3 while not using gameworks, does implement hairworks and that costs you 15-20fps at all times to mildly alter the hair on Geralt. This has become all the inefficiency of gpu physx amplified to ruin game optimization.

Gameworks really is a disaster for gaming. I would expect game developers to turn away from it until it's fixed or axed. What developer wants to follow in the footsteps of Rocksteady and have to pull a game off the shelves ? The game runs fine on consoles, within those 30fps limitations. What's different on PC ? Gameworks. In fact it's even worse on PC as half the features are bugged and don't work - see ambient occlusion - broken on PC and doesn't even activate...

 

[railven]

Exactly my point. Initially it was trying to lay the blame on Ubisoft as a crap developer - partially true :awe: - because Unity, Watch Dogs and Far Cry 4 all shipped broken. Now though we've see games from other developers with gameworks all ship broken as well.

The universal is gameworks; Dying Light, Watch Dogs, Far Cry 4, Arkham Knight, AC: Unity. All shipped seriously broken and most continue to have issues. All suffered from terrible optimization, buggy graphics etc. Arkham Knight is so bad they pulled it from shelves. Even Witcher 3 while not using gameworks, does implement hairworks and that costs you 15-20fps at all times to mildly alter the hair on Geralt. This has become all the inefficiency of gpu physx amplified to ruin game optimization.

Gameworks really is a disaster for gaming. I would expect game developers to turn away from it until it's fixed or axed. What developer wants to follow in the footsteps of Rocksteady and have to pull a game off the shelves ?

Hopefully enough devs see the list and stop getting in bed with NV.

 

[96Firebird]

I played FC4 and Dying Light just fine at launch...