XFX AMD R9 Fury X
Still Team Red’s top end
BOY, WOULD IT BE NICE to see a high-end card from AMD right now, huh? The Fury X certainly feels like it’s lagging a bit, especially with the likes of the GTX 1080, and now the Titan X, throwing themselves into the battle for GPU domination. But, for bang for buck, it’s still an exceptional card. Right now, you can purchase an oldschool water-cooled Fury X for less than $400, making it cheaper than the cheapest GTX 980 or 980 Ti, a card it fought with for superiority.
It’s an ambitious move on AMD’s part, but that’s what the Fiji core at the heart of the Fury X has always been about. With a leap into high-bandwidth memory, an innovative step forward in reference cooler design, and the ambition to place it on not one but three separate styles of card, each with a different purpose, it was certainly ballsy. Did it pay off? Well, not quite, but you have to admire its gusto.
As a performer, the Fury X is staggering for its size and limited VRAM. At 1440p, it dominates, easily securing 60 frames per second in most AAA titles. In fact, it’s not too far off the performance of a GTX 1070. Where the Fury X really comes unstuck is 4K gaming and overclocking. Although HBM’s colossal memory bandwidth does help to alleviate some of the bottleneck at higher resolutions, it just doesn’t have enough grunt in the core to really push the frame rates at the top end. On top of that, overclocking might as well not exist. It’s a sordid affair—at most, we managed to add another 75MHz on the core clock, and 25MHz on the memory clock, certainly not enough to write home about. The volatility of the programs used, and AMD’s lack of support for over-volting, leave much to be desired.
For the money, its similar performance as the GTX 980 Ti and GTX 1070 makes this card an appetizing offer. 1440p performance is exceptional, and the overall styling is really something else—a genuine innovation on AMD’s part.
VERDICT8
XFX AMD R9 Fury X
FURIOSA Staggering 1440p performance; great value for money; cool.
FURIOUS FIVE Coil whine; no overclocking headroom; struggles at 4K.
$ 400, www.amd.com