AMD has released its second graphics card to utilize it’s new high-bandwidth memory, the R9 Fury. This follows the release of the R9 Fury X just a few weeks ago.
After reading through reviews and benchmarks (linked below), we can confirm several expectations. The non-X Fury is definitely the “little brother” card to the $650 Fury X, being both slower and cheaper.
That might sound less exciting, but with its $100 lower price tag, the Fury is actually the better card for the value, and it is still a very powerful card in its own right.
At $550, the R9 Fury beats the $500 NVIDIA GTX 980 at 1440p gaming. The 10% increase in price gets you about a 10% increase in performance at 1440p resolution compared to the GTX 980.
When playing at 1080p resolution, however, the performance is roughly the same as the 980. So, if you’re planning to stick with 1080p gaming on your R9 Fury, you might not get much value for your extra $50.
In contrast with the watercooled Fury X, the R9 Fury is a more standard air-cooled card. Reviews say the card runs quiet, so AMD seems to have learned their lesson after the complaints about noise with the R9 290 and 290X. Temperatures run higher compared to the Fury X, but are still very respectable for a high-end card.
Overall, the R9 Fury is a good card, aside from the uncompetitive price when it comes to 1080p gaming. AMD does not rock the boat with this launch. You can safely opt for the card, or the GTX 980, and the performance-to-price ratio would be roughly even.
We’ll be adding the R9 Fury as a worthy alternative to the GTX 980 in the Exceptional tier. Once the card begins appearing in stores, we’ll add it to the Logical Increments guide in the countries where it’s available.
Reviews and benchmarks: