The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X Review: Aiming For the Top
by Ryan Smith on July 2, 2015 11:15 AM EST
Almost 7 years ago to this day, AMD formally announced their “small die strategy.” Embarked upon in the aftermath of the company’s struggles with the Radeon HD 2900 XT, AMD opted against continuing to try beat NVIDIA at their own game. Rather than chase NVIDIA to absurd die sizes and the risks that come with it, the company would focus on smaller GPUs for the larger sub-$300 market. Meanwhile to compete in the high-end markets, AMD would instead turn to multi-GPU technology – CrossFire – to offer even better performance at a total cost competitive with NVIDIA’s flagship cards.
AMD’s early efforts were highly successful; though they couldn’t take the crown from NVIDIA, products like the Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 5870 were massive spoilers, offering a great deal of NVIDIA’s flagship performance with smaller GPUs, manufactured at a lower cost, and drawing less power. Officially the small die strategy was put to rest earlier this decade, however even informally this strategy has continued to guide AMD GPU designs for quite some time. At 438mm2, Hawaii was AMD’s largest die as of 2013, still more than 100mm2 smaller than NVIDIA’s flagship GK110.
AMD's 2013 Flagship: Radeon R9 290X, Powered By Hawaii
Catching up to the present, this month marks an important occasion for AMD with the launch of their new flagship GPU, Fiji, and the flagship video card based on it, the Radeon R9 Fury X. For AMD the launch of Fiji is not just another high-end GPU launch (their 3rd on the 28nm process), but it marks a significant shift for the company. Fiji is first and foremost a performance play, but it’s also new memory technology, new power optimization technologies, and more. In short it may be the last of the 28nm GPUs, but boy if it isn’t among the most important.
With the recent launch of the Fiji GPU I bring up the small die strategy not just because Fiji is anything but small – AMD has gone right to the reticle limit – but because it highlights how the GPU market has changed in the last seven years and how AMD has needed to respond. Since 2008 NVIDIA has continued to push big dies, but they’ve gotten smarter about it as well, producing increasingly efficient GPUs that have made it harder for a scrappy AMD to undercut NVIDIA. At the same time alternate frame rendering, the cornerstone of CrossFire and SLI, has become increasingly problematic as rendering techniques get less and less AFR-friendly, making dual GPU cards less viable than they once were. And finally, on the business side of matters, AMD’s market share of discrete GPUs is lower than it has been in over a decade, with AMD’s GPU plus APU sales now being estimated as being below just NVIDIA’s GPU sales.
AMD's Fiji GPU
Which is not to say I’m looking to paint a poor picture of the company – AMD Is nothing if not the perennial underdog who constantly manages to surprise us with what they can do with less – but this context is important in understanding why AMD is where they stand today, and why Fiji is in many ways such a monumental GPU for the company. The small die strategy is truly dead, and now AMD is gunning for NVIDIA’s flagship with the biggest, gamiest GPU they could possibly make. The goal? To recapture the performance crown that has been in NVIDIA’s hands for far too long, and to offer a flagship card of their own that doesn’t play second-fiddle to NVIDIA’s.
To get there AMD needs to face down several challenges. There is no getting around the fact that NVIDIA’s Maxwell 2 GPUs are very well done, very performant, and very efficient, and that between GM204 and GM200 AMD has their work cut out for them. Performance, power consumption, form factors; these all matter, and these are all issues that AMD is facing head-on with Fiji and the R9 Fury X.
At the same time however the playing field has never been more equal. We’re now in the 4th year of TSMC’s 28nm process and have a good chunk of another year left to go. AMD and NVIDIA have had an unprecedented amount of time to tweak their wares around what is now a very mature process, and that means that any kind of advantages for being a first-mover or being more aggressive are gone. As the end of the 28nm process’s reign at the top, NVIDIA and AMD now have to rely on their engineers and their architectures to see who can build the best GPU against the very limits of the 28nm process.
Overall, with GPU manufacturing technology having stagnated on the 28nm node, it’s very hard to talk about the GPU situation without talking about the manufacturing situation. For as much as the market situation has forced an evolution in AMD’s business practices, there is no escaping the fact that the current situation on the manufacturing process side has had an incredible, unprecedented effect on the evolution of discrete GPUs from a technology and architectural standpoint. So for AMD Fiji not only represents a shift towards large GPUs that can compete with NVIDIA’s best, but it represents the extensive efforts AMD has gone through to continue improving performance in the face of manufacturing limitations.
And with that we dive in to today’s review of the Radeon R9 Fury X. Launching this month is AMD’s new flagship card, backed by the full force of the Fiji GPU.
| AMD GPU Specification Comparison | ||||||
| AMD Radeon R9 Fury X | AMD Radeon R9 Fury | AMD Radeon R9 290X | AMD Radeon R9 290 | |||
| Stream Processors | 4096 | (Fewer) | 2816 | 2560 | ||
| Texture Units | 256 | (How much) | 176 | 160 | ||
| ROPs | 64 | (Depends) | 64 | 64 | ||
| Boost Clock | 1050MHz | (On Yields) | 1000MHz | 947MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 1Gbps HBM | (Memory Too) | 5Gbps GDDR5 | 5Gbps GDDR5 | ||
| Memory Bus Width | 4096-bit | 4096-bit | 512-bit | 512-bit | ||
| VRAM | 4GB | 4GB | 4GB | 4GB | ||
| FP64 | 1/16 | 1/16 | 1/8 | 1/8 | ||
| TrueAudio | Y | Y | Y | Y | ||
| Transistor Count | 8.9B | 8.9B | 6.2B | 6.2B | ||
| Typical Board Power | 275W | (High) | 250W | 250W | ||
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | ||
| Architecture | GCN 1.2 | GCN 1.2 | GCN 1.1 | GCN 1.1 | ||
| GPU | Fiji | Fiji | Hawaii | Hawaii | ||
| Launch Date | 06/24/15 | 07/14/15 | 10/24/13 | 11/05/13 | ||
| Launch Price | $649 | $549 | $549 | $399 | ||
With 4096 SPs and coupled with the first implementation of High Bandwidth Memory, the R9 Fury X aims for the top. Over the coming pages we’ll get in to a deeper discussion on the architectural and other features found in the card, but the important point to take away right now it that it packs a lot of shaders, even more memory bandwidth, and is meant to offer AMD’s best performance yet. R9 Fury X will eventually be joined by 3 other Fiji-based parts in the coming months, but this month it’s all about AMD’s flagship card.
The R9 Fury X is launching at $649, which happens to be the same price as the card’s primary competition, the GeForce GTX 980 Ti. Launched at the end of May, the GTX 980 Ti is essentially a preemptive attack on the R9 Fury X from NVIDIA, offering performance close enough to NVIDIA’s GTX Titan X flagship that the difference is arguably immaterial. For AMD this means that while beating GTX Titan X would be nice, they really only need a win against the GTX 980 Ti, and as we’ll see the Fury X will make a good run at it, making this the closest AMD has come to an NVIDIA flagship card in quite some time.
Finally, from a market perspective, AMD will be going after a few different categories with the R9 Fury X. As competition for the GTX 980 Ti, AMD is focusing on 4K resolution gaming, based on a combination of the fact that 4K monitors are becoming increasingly affordable, 4K Freesync monitors are finally available, and relative to NVIDIA’s wares, AMD fares the best at 4K. Expect to see AMD also significantly play up the VR possibilities of the R9 Fury X, though the major VR headset, the Oculus Rift, won’t ship until Q1 of 2016. Finally, it has now been over three years since the launch of the original Radeon HD 7970, so for buyers looking for an update AMD’s first 28nm card, Fury X is in a good position to offer the kind of generational performance improvements that typically justify an upgrade.
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K_Space - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
Between now and 2016 (preferably before the holiday season) I see AMD dropping the Fury X price and churning up better drivers; so it's not all too bleak. But it's still annoying that both of these could have been fixed before launch.dragonsqrrl - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
Yep, the Fury X is essentially vaporware at this point. It basically doesn't exist. Some tech journalists with inside information have estimated that fewer than 1000 were available for NA at launch. Definitely some supply issues to say the least, which I suspect is mostly due to the HBM.I have no idea why AMD hyped up Fiji so much prior to launch. In a sense they just made it that much more difficult for themselves. What kind of reaction were they expecting with rhetoric like "HBM has allowed us to create the fastest GPU in the world", along with some of the most cherry picked pre-launch internal benchmarks ever conceived? It just seems like they've given up and are only trying to engage their most zealous fanboys at this point.
All that being said, I don't think Fury X is a terrible card. In fact I think it's the only card in AMDs current lineup even worth considering. But unfortunately for AMD, the 980Ti is the superior card right now in practically every way.
chizow - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
Yep, it is almost as if they set themselves up to fail, but now it makes more sense in terms of their timing and delivery. They basically used Fury X to prop up their Rebrandeon stack of 300 series, as they needed a flagship launch with Fury X in the hopes it would lift all sails in the eyes of the public. We know Rebrandeon 300 series was set in stone and ready to go as far back as Financial Analsyts Day (Hi again all AMD fanboys who said I was wrong) with early image leaks and drivers confirming this as well.But Fury X wasn't ready. Not enough chips and cards ready, cooler still showing problems, limited worldwide launch (I think 10K max globally). I think AMD wanted to say and show something at Computex but quickly changed course once it was known Nvidia would be HARD launching the 980Ti at Computex.
980Ti launch changed the narrative completely, and while AMD couldn't change course on what they planned to do with the R9 Rebrandeon 300 series and a new "Ultra premium" label Fury X using Fiji, they were forced to cut prices significantly.
In reality, at these price points and with Fury X's relative performance, they really should've just named it R9 390X WCE and called it a day, but I think they were just blindsided by the 980Ti not just in performance being so close to Titan X, but also in price. No way they would've thought Nvidia would ask just $650 for 97% of Titan X's performance.
So yeah, brilliant moves by Nvidia, they've done just about everything right and executed flawlessly with Maxwell Mk2 since they surprised everyone with the 970/980 launch last year. All the song and dance by AMD leading up to Fury X was just that, an attempt to impress investors, tech press, loyal fans, but wow that must have been hard for them to get up on stage and say and do the things they did knowing they didn't have the card in hand to back up those claims.
kn00tcn - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
do you want a nobel prize after all that multiple post gloating? you're not the one leaking, we already knew fiji was the only new gpu, i never saw any 'fanboys' as you call them saying the 3 series will be new & awesome... like you're talking to an empty room & patting yourself on the backguess who is employed at amd? the guy that did marketing at nvidia for a few years, why do you think fury x is called fury x?
FLAWLESS maxwell hahahahaha.... 970 memory aside, how about all the TDR crashes in recent drivers, they even had to put out a hotfix after WHQL (are we also going to ignore kepler driver regression?)
yes amd has to impress everyone, that is the job of marketing & the reality of depending on TSMC with its cancelled 32nm & delayed/unusable 20nm... every company needs to hype so they dont implode, all these employees have families but you're probably not thinking of them
how the heck is near performance at cold & quiet operation a flop!? there are still 2 more air cooled fiji releases, including a 175watt one
'4gb isnt enough', did you even look at the review? this isnt geforce FX or 2900xt, talk about a reverse fanboy...
chizow - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
Wow awesome where were all these nuggets of wisdom and warnings of caution tempering the expectations of AMD fans in the last few months? Oh right, no where to be found! Yep, plenty with high conviction and authority insisting R9 300 won't be a rebrand, that Fiji and HBM would lead AMD to the promise land and be faster than the overpriced Nvidia offerings of 980, Titan X etc etc.http://www.anandtech.com/show/9239/amd-financial-a...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9266/amd-hbm-deep-di...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9383/amd-radeon-live...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9241/amd-announces-o...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9236/amd-announces-r...
No Nobel Prize needed, the ability to gloat and say I told you so to all the AMD fanboys/apologists/supporters is plenty! Funny how none of them bothered to show up and say they were wrong, today!
And yes the 970, they stumbled with the memory bandwidth mistake, but did it matter? No, not at all. Why? Because the error was insignificant and did not diminish its value, price or performance AT ALL. No one cared about the 3.5GB snafu outside of AMD fanboys, because 970 delivered where it mattered, in games!
Let's completely ignore the fact 970/980 have led Nvidia to 10 months of dominance at 77.5% market share, or the fact the 970 by itself has TRIPLED the sales of AMD's entire R9 200 series on Steam! So yes, Nvidia has executed flawlessly and as a result, they have pushed AMD to the brink in the dGPU market.
And no, 4GB isn't enough, did YOU read the review? Ryan voiced concern throughout the entire 4GB discussion, saying while it took some effort, he was able to "break" the Fuiry X and force a 4GB limit. That's only getting to be a BIGGER problem once you CF these cards and start cranking up settings. So yeah, if you are plunking down $650 on a flagship card today, why would you bother with that concern hanging over your head when for the same price, you can buy yourself 50% more headroom? Talk about reverse fanboyism, 3.5GB isn't enough on a perf midrange card, but its jolly good A-OK for a flagship card "Optimized for 4K" huh?
And speaking of those employees and families. You don't think it isn't in their best interest, and that they aren't secretly hoping AMD folds and gets bought out or they get severance packages to find another job? LOL. Its a sinking ship, if they aren't getting laid off they're leaving for greener pastures. Everyone there is just trying to stay afloat hoping some of these rumors a company with deep pockets will come and save them from the sinking dead weight that has become of ATI/AMD.
D. Lister - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
My concern is, the longer AMD's current situation lingers, the higher the chance that the new buyers would simply cannibalize AMD's tech and IPs and permanently put down the brand "AMD", due to the the amount of negative public opinion attached to it.chizow - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
@D. Lister sorry missed this. I think AMD as a brand/trademark will be dead regardless. It has carried value brand connotation for some time and there was even some concern about it when AMD chose to drop the name ATI from their graphics cards a few years back. Radeon however I think will live on to whoever buys them up, as it still carries good marketplace brand recognition.Intel999 - Friday, July 3, 2015 - link
@ChizowDude, what's the deal? Did an AMD logoed truck run over your dog or something.
Seems like every article regarding AMD has you spewing out hate against them. I think we all realize Nvidia is in the lead. Why exert so much energy to put down a company that you have no intention of ever buying from?
AMD wasn't even competing in the high end prior to the Fury X release. So any sales they get are sales that would have gone to the 980 by default. So they have improved their position. A home run? No.
Take pleasure in knowing you are a member of the winning team. Take a chill pill and maybe the comments sections can be more informative for the rest of us.
I, for one, would prefer to not having to skip over three long winded tirades on each page that start with Chizow.
chizow - Friday, July 3, 2015 - link
@Intel999, if you want to digest your news in a vacuum, stick your head in the sand and ignore the comments section as you've already self-prescribed!For others, a FORUM is a place to discuss ideas, exchange points of view, provide perspective and to keep both companies and fans/proponents ACCOUNTABLE and honest. If you have a problem, maybe the internet isn't a place for you!
Do you go around in every Nvidia or Intel thread or news article and ask yourself the same anytime AMD is mentioned or brought up? What does this tell you about your own posting tendencies???
Again, if you, for one, would prefer to skip over my posts, feel free to do so! lol.
silverblue - Friday, July 3, 2015 - link
I think you need to blame sites such as WCCFTech rather than fanboys/enthusiasts in general for the "Fury X will trounce 980 Ti/Titan X" rumours.Also, if the 970 memory fiasco didn't matter, why was there a spate of returns? It's obvious that the users weren't big enough NVIDIA fanboys to work around the issue... going by your logic, that is.
The 970 isn't a mid-range card to anybody who isn't already rocking a 980 or above. 960, sure.
Fury X is an experiment, one that could've done with more memory of course, and I usually don't buy into the idea of experiments, but at least it wasn't a 5800/Parhelia/2900 - it's still the third best card out there with little breathing space between all three (depending on game, of course), not quite what AMD promised unless they plan to fix everything with a killer driver set (unlikely). The vanilla Fury with its GDDR5 may stand to outperform it, albeit at a slightly higher power level.