One of the factors that sets the new Radeon R9 Fury apart from the Fury X is the size of the card. While neither the Sapphire Tri-X or Asus Strix R9 Fury are that much bigger than other high-end air-cooled GPUs, they’re far larger than AMD’s diminutive Radeon Fury X. Granted, that GPU used a water-cooler while the Strix (the card we have in-house) is air-cooled, but it’s not just the cooler that’s large — Asus mounted the Fury on a standard-length high-end PCB as well.
The resulting card is the Asus Strix R9 Fury DirectCU III OC, but don’t let the OC get your hopes up. AMD’s reference card is clocked at 1GHz standard, while the Strix clocks in at a maximum of 1020MHz out of the box. That 2% OC isn’t going to push the envelope, and like the Fury X, Fury isn’t expected to have much overclocking headroom. One thing to like about the R9 Fury Strix, particularly if you have older monitors, is that the GPU supports a wide range of ports. Unlike the Sapphire version of the card, which offers 3x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI, the Strix packs 3x DisplayPort, 1x DVI-D, and 1x HDMI.
According to Asus, the GPU cooler is designed to maintain a maximum temperature of 85C. That’s not nearly as low as AMD’s 50C target for Fury X, but for an air-cooled card, 85C is quite good. It’s particularly impressive given that AMD’s last high-end air-cooled cards, the R9 290 and R9 290X, often ran right up to their 95C thresholds. Asus is bringing the Strix R9 to market at $579, marginally higher than the $549 AMD is targeting for the R9 Fury in general. The heatsink and attached GPU are huge compared to previous cards, at 11.75 inches long and with significant cooler overhang.
We asked Asus why the Strix was so large, given that AMD was able to build both Fury X and the upcoming Fury Nano into much smaller cards, but the company declined to comment in detail, saying only “[W]e went with what works best for the chipset and cooling options.” We’ll have to wait and see if other vendors introduce Fury’s in smaller form factors, or if that capability is reserved for the upcoming Fury Nano.
One thing we can say about the R9 Strix — the card may be long and the fans + heatsink are large, but this card delivers excellent performance for very little noise.
Fury’s positioning, tiny review window
To say that this review is coming in hot would be an understatement. We received our Asus test card on Wednesday at 5 PM for an 8 AM Friday launch. Given my other responsibilities for ET, the time I had to spend with this GPU was further compressed. It’s not clear why Asus sampled on such short notice; manufacturers typically give much longer lead times when testing new hardware. Add in some significant problems with testbed configuration (a series of unfortunate events so mind-boggling, I’m considering writing a post about them), and the end result was a badly compressed launch cycle.Fortunately, Fury’s positioning is relatively straightforward. AMD is bringing the card in at $549, or roughly $50 more than the GeForce GTX 980. At that price point, the GPU needs to hit about 10% faster than its Team Green counterpart. AMD’s Fury X reliably delivered this kind of performance delta, but was priced to compete against the GTX 980 Ti, not the GTX 980. Fury is going after ostensibly easier prey.
Unfortunately, AMD’s rocket launch means that the 4GB HBM RAM comparisons I’ve wanted to do and wide-scale power consumption comparison are both on-hold for now. But let’s see what we can see from a quick run around the block, shall we?
All of our tests were run on a Haswell-E system with an Asus X99-Deluxe motherboard, 16GB of DDR4-2667, and Windows 8.1 64-bit with all patches and updates installed. The latest AMD Catalyst 15.7 drivers and Nvidia GeForce 353.30 drivers were used. Our power consumption figures are going to be somewhat higher in this review than in some previous stories — the 1200W PSU we used for testing was a standard 80 Plus unit, and not the 1275 80 Plus Platinum that we’ve typically tested with.
BioShock Infinite:
BioShock Infinite was tested using that game’s Ultra settings with the Alternative Depth of Field option using the built-in benchmark option at both 1080p and 4K.
BioShock Infinite was tested using that game’s Ultra settings with the Alternative Depth of Field option using the built-in benchmark option at both 1080p and 4K. Fury pulls ahead of the GTX 980 nicely, nearly tying things up with the Radeon R9 Fury X and GTX 980 Ti. Playable 4K is no problem for any of the high-end cards in this sample.
Company of Heroes 2:
Company of Heroes 2 is an RTS game that’s known for putting a hefty load on GPUs, particularly at the highest detail settings. Unlike most of the other games we tested, COH 2 doesn’t support multiple GPUs. We tested the game with all settings set to “High,” with V-Sync disabled.
Company of Heroes 2 is a mixed bag for AMD. At 1080p and a more playable framerate, we see the Fury lagging the GTX 980. At 4K, however, it’s the AMD cards that pull ahead. The margin between the Asus Strix R9 Fury and the R9 Fury X from AMD is rather small, and the Fury X ekes out a win over the stock-clocked GTX 980 Ti.
Metro Last Light:
We tested Metro Last Light in Very High Quality with 16x anisotropic filtering and normal tessellation, in both 1080p and 4K. While it’s a few years old at this point, Metro Last Light is still a punishing game at maximum detail.
The Asus Strix sweeps the GTX 980 in both tests, nearly tying the GTX 980 Ti. The overclocked version of the 980 Ti from EVGA (covered here) still edged Fury X, but the Fury offers nearly the same level of performance.
Total War: Rome 2
Total War: Rome II is the sequel to the earlier Total War: Rome title. It’s fairly demanding on modern cards, particularly at the highest detail levels. We tested at maximum detail levels in both 1080p and 4K.
In the game’s built-in benchmark, the Fury essentially ties the GTX 980 at 1080p but surpasses it in 4K, with the Fury X holding out a narrow edge above the Fury. Performance here is close across the board.
Shadow of Mordor:
Shadow of Mordor is a third-person open-world game that takes place in between The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Think of it as Far Cry: Ranger Edition (or possibly Grand Theft Ringwraith) and you’re on the right track. We tested the game at maximum detail with FXAA (the only AA option available).
In Shadow of Mordor, AMD’s Fury X doesn’t quite match the stock GTX 980 Ti in 1080p, but it ekes out a win by just under 10% in 4K mode. Similarly, the Asus Strix R9 Fury is roughly 10% faster in 1080p, but a full 26% faster in 4K mode.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Dragon Age: Inquisition is one of the greatest role playing games of all time, with a gorgeous Frostbite 3-based engine. While it supports Mantle, we’ve actually stuck with Direct3D in this title, as the D3D implementation has proven to be superior in previous testing.While DAI does include an in-game benchmark, we’ve used a manual test run instead. The in-game test often runs more quickly than the actual title, and is a relatively simple test compared with how the game handles combat. Our test session focuses on the final evacuation of the town of Haven, and the multiple encounters that the Inquisitor faces as the party struggles to reach the chantry doors. We tested the game at maximum detail with 4x MSAA.
Again, we see the Asus Strix extending a lead over the GTX 980, leading the Nvidia card by roughly 9% in 1080p mode and as much as 23.5% at 4K. The GTX 980 Ti is the fastest card overall, but AMD’s solutions continue to show superior 4K scaling compared to Nvidia — the R9 Fury X matches the GTX 980 Ti in 4K even though it’s surpassed at 1080p.
Noise and power consumption:
AMD’s initial run of Fury X coolers were remarkably quiet under load, even if some of the first batch had a pitch profile we found less-than pleasing. The Asus Strix R9 Fury isn’t quite as silent as the Fury X (that’s what you give up for using air as opposed to water), but, in a rare win for AMD, the Asus Strix R9 was logged as quieter than competing GeForce cards by both Tech Report and Anandtech (I don’t have access to sound equipment capable of picking up decibel levels low enough to be used for this kind of testing.That’s a noted turn-around for AMD, considering that Hawaii’s debut cards were infamous for their noise. Third-party designs vastly improved on the initial cards, but Fury doesn’t just compete against Nvidia on this front — it leads Team Green solidly. (TR and Anandtech differ slightly on this point; AT reports the Fury as being the quietest card, while TR logs a GTX 970 in that position). Either way, it’s a big leap forward for AMD. GPU temperatures are also excellent, with the Strix R9 typically topping out in the mid-70s Celsius.
AMD has caught some flak for building what supposedly amounted to “Fat Tonga” as opposed to an all-new GPU, but the Strix R9’s thermals prove that Sunnyvale didn’t just hook its existing GPU up to a helium tank. The Asus R9 390X uses the same cooler as the Strix R9 Fury, but TechReport shows the R9 390X running both hotter and louder for lower overall performance.
We performed our own power consumption tests at idle and using Metro Last Light at 4K to stress test all GPUs. Power consumption was measured in the third run-through, to ensure that the cards heated up.
The Strix’s overall power consumption is about 10% better than the R9 Fury X’s, which is in line with what we’d expect given overall performance. There’s still a significant gap between the GTX 980 and the R9 Strix, however, though it’s unlikely to make much difference in your power bill unless you game 24/7 or live in a state where electricity is extremely expensive.
Our watts-per-frame metric divides the power consumption in Metro Last Light by each card’s power consumption. Here, we see that the Asus Strix R9 Fury maintains the same improved power consumption ratio as the Fury X, even if it can’t quite match Nvidia’s figures.
Conclusion:
How well the R9 Fury stacks up against the GTX 980 is going to depend on what your needs are. The Asus R9 Fury Strix doesn’t quite sweep the GTX 980, but it ties or beats it in virtually every benchmark. The Asus Strix is an excellent GPU with superior cooling, even if we were a bit surprised by the giant PCB and extremely short launch window (we only received our card on Wednesday for an NDA lift on Friday.If the R9 Fury and the GTX 980 were both $500 cards, we’d say the R9 Fury was absolutely the better solution, particularly if you’re gaming above 1080p. AMD has set the price at $549, however, with the Asus Strix coming in around $579. That’s not bad, per se, but keep in mind that this GPU shows its best legs at 4K. That’s problematic, because 4K + maximum detail is still too demanding for a single GPU in most current titles. That means gamers who want to play in 4K without sacrificing visual fidelity are going to be better served by multiple GPUs, and Team Green’s multi-GPU support has long been superior to Team Red’s.
There’s an argument to be made for either card and buyers should be well-served by either solution. If you’re already in Team Red’s camp to start with, the R9 Fury is a great deal. It’s 6-10% slower than the Fury X but only costs about 85% as much, which makes it the more efficient card between the two in terms of dollars per frame. We understand why AMD chose to delay its launch slightly — the Fury steals some of the Fury X’s thunder. Combined, the Fury and Fury X put AMD on much better competitive footing against Nvidia. They aren’t the blowout wins that AMD captured in 2013, when the R9 290 and R9 290X took out the GTX 780 and GTX Titan, but they’re good cards with far better thermals than AMD’s previous top-end single card GPU launches.
AMD isn’t done with the Fury architecture just yet — Fury Nano and an unnamed dual-GPU Fury are both scheduled for later this year.
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