[TweakTown] R9 Fury X Video Cards performance in CrossFire

[Gikaseixas]

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/7226/amd-radeon-r9-fury-video-cards-crossfire/index.html
IMO these offer very little over vanilla GTX 980 @ 1080p but 2 of them perform better than Titan X SLI or GTX 980ti SLI @ 4k. Bottom line, don't buy one, buy 2 minimum given that they fix the pump noise

Performance at 4K

The second Fury X helps Battlefield 4 on the Medium preset at 4K, with a huge 52% increase in performance. But it was on the Ultra preset (minus AA) that had our jaws on the floor with a 97% increase in the average frame rate, with a huge 118FPS. Wow.

Whereas GRID: Autosport wasn't making use of the second Fury X at 1080p and 144p, at 4K we're experiencing a massive 75% increase in performance. Metro: Last Light doesn't enjoy the CrossFire setup as much as the other games at 4K, but we are still seeing a 33% increase in performance.

Yet again, Shadow of Mordor scales so incredibly well on the Fury X cards in CrossFire, where we have a 70% increase in performance at 4K. Thief sees a 73% increase in performance with the second Fury X card in our system, while Tomb Raider continues to impress with a huge 93% over the single HBM-based Radeon R9 Fury X. Lastly, BioShock: Infinite finishes off our impressive run at 4K with the Fury X cards in CrossFire with 86% more performance over the single Fury X.

Final Thoughts

I have to admit it: I'm blown away. The single AMD Radeon R9 Fury X didn't really impress me, but two of them in CrossFire are an absolute powerhouse of technology. Once you get to 4K, the second HBM-based card really has your gaming experience kicking into second gear and scaling incredibly well with most of the games in our benchmarking lineup.

I didn't think that we'd see this type of performance, with all of our games playable at 4K with over 100FPS average, except for Metro: Last Light. Battlefield 4 at 4K at 118FPS average is just amazing... something that the GTX Titan X offers, for $2000 compared to around $1300.

The two radiators are annoying beyond words, there's just nothing I can type into an article that expresses my displeasure of the two huge radiators. Sure, AMD has cool operating cards with the Fury X, with around 50-55C under stress, while the upcoming Fury (which will be air-cooled) will run at around 70-75C depending on the card.

This means that the Fiji GPU is getting damn hot, and it simply needs water cooling to even compete with NVIDIA's offerings like the GeForce GTX 980 Ti and Titan X which are both air-cooled. This brings us down to the wire: if you're building a new PC, even if the Fury X or Fury X CrossFire beats the GTX 980 Ti, I would still recommend an SLI build of the GTX 980 Ti cards.

You can throw them into your system without the need of two huge spots for watercooling, and there are now plenty of third-party cards to choose from with great overclocks and cooling technology slapped onto them. This doesn't take away from the fact that AMD fans can rest assured that Fury X in CrossFire kicks some serious NVIDIA ass. Way to go, AMD.

 

[Subyman]

I skimmed through the article and didn't see why they used "medium" presets on a lot of those games. I don't think anyone that spent $1K+ would play their games at medium. When they turned from Medium to Ultra on BF4, the gap narrowed.

 

[thilanliyan]

But but but...4GB!!!

Really though, some of the minimum fps at 4K ain't great when compared to 980Ti SLI or Titan X SLI.

 

[wand3r3r]

4k and dual cards are exactly what I'm interested in.

The Fury is going to shine here as well but I'd love water without any noise. That is my only concern that I have about my current cards.

I still have a while before I'll be in the market but I'll be following the fury x and 980 ti crossfire and SLI reviews, especially at 4k. The low resolutions have a clear winner at this point.

The fury x isn't as cheap as I wish it were, but for my needs it's presumably going to be the best option. Now I have to read about FCAT and frametimes comparing both of them. I wish the article had graphs to see the few games with low mins.

It's strange the little tangent the reviewer goes on about the radiators. You don't have to like them but the reference 980 ti's can't even handle SLI without compromising on noise, which as we learned at the 290/x release is bad. Personally I think AIO coolers are the optimal solution and am willing to pay a slight premium for them. This is subjective, naturally. With $1300+ into GPUs I can probably afford a case to fit them (which would then last for many builds).

"According to our well informed industry insiders, there are only about 300,000 people who own SLI or Crossfire setups."

Basically I fall into a niche of a niche.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

This means that the Fiji GPU is getting damn hot, and it simply needs water cooling to even compete with NVIDIA's offerings like the GeForce GTX 980 Ti and Titan X which are both air-cooled.

75 degrees under gaming load for an air cooled card is "damn hot"?

 

[ShintaiDK]

75 degrees under gaming load for an air cooled card is "damn hot"?

Didnt you get the memo? 65C is cold. And 95C we dont talk about anymore.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I skimmed through the article and didn't see why they used "medium" presets on a lot of those games. I don't think anyone that spent $1K+ would play their games at medium. When they turned from Medium to Ultra on BF4, the gap narrowed.

Ye, mostly medium, avoiding AA etc. Not exactly useful for much.

 

[Hitman928]

Their Fury X numbers for BF4 (medium) are better in 4k than at 1440p. There's a few other weird things going on too. I hate when sites get results that don't make sense and have 0 commentary on them. Takes away from their credibility, imo, and it happens way too often now.

 

[Gikaseixas]

But but but...4GB!!!

Two 4GB cards beating two 12GB @ 4k resolutions... 4GB seems more than enough, i'm very surprised

 

[Enigmoid]

Review looks weird. Tweaktown has always had questionable numbers.

Reference 980 ti and titan X?

The numbers are so full of weirdness that they fail to convince me.

Why is the titan X 38% better than the 980Ti? Why are the minimums for the titan X so low?

There is no reason for these things to be occurring and furthermore, there is no explanation as to why they are occurring.

Again, what the hell is going on?

980 Ti 65/85W more than the Titan X?

The results look like nonsense because of the huge inconsistancy and the refusal to address any of these problems.

 

[wand3r3r]

Review looks weird. Tweaktown has always had questionable numbers.

Reference 980 ti and titan X?

The numbers are so full of weirdness that they fail to convince me.



Why is the titan X 38% better than the 980Ti? Why are the minimums for the titan X so low?

There is no reason for these things to be occurring and furthermore, there is no explanation as to why they are occurring.

Again, what the hell is going on?

980 Ti 65/85W more than the Titan X?

The results look like nonsense because of the huge inconsistancy and the refusal to address any of these problems.

There are certainly inconsistencies.

The power consumption could be due to having peak usage. There may be a spike or two skewing the results. It would be nice to have charts for it.

 

[crashtech]

You guys know they are using a stock clocked 5820K, right?

 

[Eymar]

There maybe valid reasons for that. In my experience Titan X sli doesn't feel as smooth as Fury X xf (so many x's), as I see hitches on TX sli every few seconds (so explains really low mins). Possible that too much memory is a bad thing as game seems to constantly use up all available memory (maybe streaming textures for caching purposes which slows down GPU).

 

[Dresdenboy]

Two 4GB cards beating two 12GB @ 4k resolutions... 4GB seems more than enough, i'm very surprised

But there are higher amounts of frame time spikes at the lower mem cards.

 

[soccerballtux]

But there are higher amounts of frame time spikes at the lower mem cards.

sometimes sacrifices must be made when you're saving $700. At any rate those might end up fixed

 

[railven]

sometimes sacrifices must be made when you're saving $700. At any rate those might end up fixed

But those spikes don't exist on 980 Ti SLI setup and you're paying the same price?

 

[happy medium]

why they used "medium" presets on a lot of those games.

Mabe because they would run out of memory?
Seems fishy at best.

 

[96Firebird]

Yeah, looking at average FPS, they had plenty of room to increase quality settings...

 

[railven]

Mabe because they would run out of memory?
Seems fishy at best.

Yeah, looking at average FPS, they had plenty of room to increase quality settings...

Guys, 4GBs is enough, as long as you don't adjust the sliders...

Meanwhile with GTA5 we can break the R9 Fury X, but only at unplayable settings. The card already teeters on the brink with our standard 4K “Very High” settings, which includes 4x MSAA but no “advanced” draw distance enhancements, with minimum framerates well below the GTX 980 Ti. Turning up the draw distance in turn further halves those minimums, driving the minimum framerate to 6fps as the R9 Fury X is forced to swap between VRAM and system RAM over the very slow PCIe bus.

 

[Ken g6]

Given that [thread=2438069]Fury Nano is Full Fiji[/thread], Nano takes only one 8-pin connector, and Fury X SLI > Titan, AMD should create a 2-Nano-in-Crossfire card. Maybe name it the Fury². I don't know how much better it would be than Fury X, but it should be possible to calculate that once we have Nano benchmarks.

 

[Silverforce11]

Hardware.fr did a CF vs SLI test, maxed settings 4K, including Project Cars & Dying Light in their tests.

CF Fury X is 10% faster than SLI 980Ti, but stutters in GameWorks titles. Basically GW has made it non viable for CF if you enjoy those titles. If you don't play them on release (& like some of us, buy them when they are on sale, patched up to fix a broken alpha release), it's fine, and CF stomps on SLI.

It's not new, CF Fury X even beats Titan X SLI.

 

[Gikaseixas]

CF Fury X even beats Titan X SLI

Thanks, i haven't seen those benches and this is proof that Fury really needs a second card to shine. CF is and has been better than SLI but AMD needs to optimize faster and consistently IMO. GW is not an excuse after a game is out for a couple of months.

 

[Jaydip]

That review is crap, I saw that earlier but didn't post because they don't know what they are doing.In couple of tests 980Ti sli >> Titan X sli wtf? yes 5820K can bottleneck a Tx sli setup but not that much.

 

[Gikaseixas]

That review is crap

The one Silverforce11 posted they have a i7 3960X @ 4.0ghz, CF still beating SLI. That's 2 - 0
The more i read, the more i get convinced that 2 Fury's X are a better bet than Nvidia's best SLI right now for 4K

 

[Jaydip]

The one Silverforce11 posted they have a i7 3960X @ 4.0ghz, CF still beating SLI. That's 2 - 0
The more i read, the more i get convinced that 2 Fury's X are a better bet than Nvidia's best SLI right now for 4K

Oh I don't doubt that CF scales better than sli now but we need some professional reviews to confirm that.