Fury X owners thread

[noko]

So, the end of the year is fast approaching being just 5 weeks away, and not a peep on the launch of the X2 version?.......


The entire fury lineup was supposed to launch this year after all and even though it may be a completely silly expectation, the more they delay it the more the odds are it's packing more than 4GB per GPU being a real possibility.


Silly hope I know, but one can dream no?.....

Or they can the X2 and get Greenland out 2nd quarter of next year . What price are they going to sell the X2 for? If AMD pulls a very fast one at $899 or something crazy like that they would not be able to make enough of them. Sell them higher and next year Greenland will make the X2 look anemic and some of your customers wished they waited or regret buying AMD.

 

[shadow001]

Or they can the X2 and get Greenland out 2nd quarter of next year . What price are they going to sell the X2 for? If AMD pulls a very fast one at $899 or something crazy like that they would not be able to make enough of them. Sell them higher and next year Greenland will make the X2 look anemic and some of your customers wished they waited or regret buying AMD.

Honestly, the crazy amount of GPU power that's technically possible with 4 furies working together, and somehow creating a game anytime soon that actually puts a high enough workload to really see the hardware limits, is such that we're seriously heading into the land of academics in a big way.


That will apply even more so with Greenland and Pascal of course........These days I don't even bother with any performance testing under 4k resolutions, because it's nothing more than a pissing match between both companies, and not so much worrying about smooth game performance........Both options are well north of 60 Fps and play pretty much anything smoothly, even on a single card.



So I doubt that even though it's a given that Greenland and Pascal will be faster, anyone will be regretting anything with Furies or GTX980 TI's, especially in multi GPU setups as the software to really test their full potential is still 2~3 years away......It's taking ever longer to make games simply because the artwork in them has a much higher quality and overall complexity as well, but with that comes a lot of work for the development teams too so it takes a lot of time to create it.


Get's crazy when there can be upwards of 400 people making a game, and even then it can take 4 years easy.

 

[shadow001]

On an update note, it seems that the Fury X2 cards will be officially released by the end of the year according to Guru 3D:


http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/dual-gpu-amd-radeon-r9-fury-x2-in-circulation.html


So with all the anticipation for Greenland and Pascal and taking things to a whole new level, a specific set of circumstances that apply to my case and make the Fury X2 purchase more appealing overall are coming together and make the decision a lot easier to make, all things considered:


1: I'm a multi GPU fanatic and always have been, and a pair of X2 Furies for some Quad crossfire mayhem is simply a crazy amount of GPU firepower not likely to run out of poke anytime soon, while using less power than my current setup (300 watts X 4 cards to feed each )>


2: Developers are using more and more procedurally generated effects as time goes on given the huge amount of pixel shading power available, rather than relying on ever larger resolution textures that even when compressed, still take up a lot of video card memory to store on which was my main fear if the cards are still using 4GB onboard.


3: By being 4 GPU's on 2 cards rather than 4 separate cards, it frees up 2 PCI-e slots for which I can re install my awesome sound card ( Asus sonar Essence STX ), and as we all know onboard sound from a motherboard still sucks when compared to a dedicated sound card in terms of overall quality.....Get's the job done but that it really.


4: 4th slot takes the LSI raid controller I already own and can go nuts on SSD's and setting them up for some insane transfer speeds, as it has it's own CPU + controller onboard the card and handles 8 drives without using any expanders ( up to 128 with expanders.... ).



5: Final reason is mainly that the Fury X2's, like their single GPU versions, will ship with their own water cooling setup, and I am very much a fanatic of silence and low temperatures and as we all saw, the cooler on the single GPU cards does a pretty good job on both fronts......Might allow to even not bother with a custom loop anymore, as do I really need to overclock with 4 GPU's onboard. do I?......



6: Greenland and Pascal will be faster still, but to beat 4 cards together will take at least 2 to match 4 furies or 3 to really beat them by any meaningful amount and even then the settings have to be beyond 4k resolutions, so that means using a display that goes beyond 4k and the only one available for now is Dell's 27" at 3000$, and i'd have to ditch the sound card or PCI-e raid card to fit that 3rd card anyhow.



7: Dual GPU cards using either Greenland or Pascal GPU's aren't coming out anytime soon, given that even the single GPU versions are still a fair amount away as it is, so potential dual GPU versions may only happen in 2017 and all we have to see is how long the 295x2 has been on the market, until it's replacement is officially released later this month for proof (R295x2 was released in April 2014, yup 18+ months ago ).


Don't hold your breath basically.....



So those Dual GPU furies and using a pair of them are sounding mighty tempting indeed, once one considers all of the above....It doesn't apply for single or even dual GPU users, but for full on Quad GPU insanity, and I really am that far off the deep end for sure.....

 

[noko]

On an update note, it seems that the Fury X2 cards will be officially released by the end of the year according to Guru 3D:


http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/dual-gpu-amd-radeon-r9-fury-x2-in-circulation.html


So with all the anticipation for Greenland and Pascal and taking things to a whole new level, a specific set of circumstances that apply to my case and make the Fury X2 purchase more appealing overall are coming together and make the decision a lot easier to make, all things considered:


1: I'm a multi GPU fanatic and always have been, and a pair of X2 Furies for some Quad crossfire mayhem is simply a crazy amount of GPU firepower not likely to run out of poke anytime soon, while using less power than my current setup (300 watts X 4 cards to feed each )>


2: Developers are using more and more procedurally generated effects as time goes on given the huge amount of pixel shading power available, rather than relying on ever larger resolution textures that even when compressed, still take up a lot of video card memory to store on which was my main fear if the cards are still using 4GB onboard.


3: By being 4 GPU's on 2 cards rather than 4 separate cards, it frees up 2 PCI-e slots for which I can re install my awesome sound card ( Asus sonar Essence STX ), and as we all know onboard sound from a motherboard still sucks when compared to a dedicated sound card in terms of overall quality.....Get's the job done but that it really.


4: 4th slot takes the LSI raid controller I already own and can go nuts on SSD's and setting them up for some insane transfer speeds, as it has it's own CPU + controller onboard the card and handles 8 drives without using any expanders ( up to 128 with expanders.... ).



5: Final reason is mainly that the Fury X2's, like their single GPU versions, will ship with their own water cooling setup, and I am very much a fanatic of silence and low temperatures and as we all saw, the cooler on the single GPU cards does a pretty good job on both fronts......Might allow to even not bother with a custom loop anymore, as do I really need to overclock with 4 GPU's onboard. do I?......



6: Greenland and Pascal will be faster still, but to beat 4 cards together will take at least 2 to match 4 furies or 3 to really beat them by any meaningful amount and even then the settings have to be beyond 4k resolutions, so that means using a display that goes beyond 4k and the only one available for now is Dell's 27" at 3000$, and i'd have to ditch the sound card or PCI-e raid card to fit that 3rd card anyhow.



7: Dual GPU cards using either Greenland or Pascal GPU's aren't coming out anytime soon, given that even the single GPU versions are still a fair amount away as it is, so potential dual GPU versions may only happen in 2017 and all we have to see is how long the 295x2 has been on the market, until it's replacement is officially released later this month for proof (R295x2 was released in April 2014, yup 18+ months ago ).


Don't hold your breath basically.....



So those Dual GPU furies and using a pair of them are sounding mighty tempting indeed, once one considers all of the above....It doesn't apply for single or even dual GPU users, but for full on Quad GPU insanity, and I really am that far off the deep end for sure.....

Probably be OK with a single 4K monitor, but knowing you you will end up with 3 4K monitors resulting in a slow slide show.

You might consider X2 plus a Nano . It should cream anything in 4K, lower power, save you a few bucks and still give you great gaming performance. Then Pascal or Greenland will be the next real big option for upgrading.

 

[shadow001]

Probably be OK with a single 4K monitor, but knowing you you will end up with 3 4K monitors resulting in a slow slide show.

You might consider X2 plus a Nano . It should cream anything in 4K, lower power, save you a few bucks and still give you great gaming performance. Then Pascal or Greenland will be the next real big option for upgrading.

I don't find the need to use 3 monitors to be as useful as they used to be, as at the time most displays were relatively small compared to what's available now, as there are 32" 4k displays using E-IPS, PLS, PVA display tech and within reasonable prices ranges, such as this Samsung model:


http://www.ncix.com/detail/samsung-u32d970q-32in-970-series-ac-103402-1224.htm


Or Asus:

http://www.ncix.com/detail/asus-pa328q-32in-4k-ips-2d-114411.htm


Or even bigger still, with a 40" Philips model:

http://www.ncix.com/detail/philips-bdm4065uc-27-40in-4k-wide-4e-109600.htm


All the above options while more expensive than average, are still within reasonable price ranges and get away from the dreaded TN display tech which is cheaper, but no where as good in terms of image quality.


So the need to use 3 smaller displays in either eyefinity or Nvidia's surround mode in order to combine them, to make a much larger display surface isn't as much there as it used to be.......A 40" display is going to take up a hell of a lot of room on your desk and it's just 2~3 feet away from your eyeballs....LOL.


I might still keep one of my existing displays as a secondary monitor in extended mode for non gaming purposes ( assuming I still have enough desk space left over.... ), but not so much for gaming anymore, as the bezels are annoying even if they are thin and compensated thru the CCC.

 

[shadow001]

An interesting option would be a display that starts with the same vertical resolution as a 4K display (2160 pixels), but use a 21*9 aspect ratio rather than the usual 16*9 aspect ratio, so the overall resolution would be 5032*2160.



There are 34" displays using 21*9 aspect ratios and a 3440*1440 resolution after all, so the above example is just the same but with the vertical resolution of a 4k display as a starting point and only the aspect ratio changes so the tech is available to pull this off, and do so with the prices being reasonable.

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

I'm sure that it'll happen one day but even going from 2560x1440 to 3440x1440 took a decent hit in performance.

34% more than 4k, **** that.

I don't think that there is an option on the market that would get fo4 to run at that resolution.

I do agree that I would love to see that large of a 21:9 display. Don't know how much larger I would want to go than my current 34" though.

 

[Hapatingjaky]

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/dual-gpu-amd-radeon-r9-fury-x2-in-circulation.html

I'd really like to see a Dual GPU from both camps. But launch these at the release of the new arch. I'd love to do a Mini build with just one in an Air240 from Corsair.

 

[shadow001]

I'm sure that it'll happen one day but even going from 2560x1440 to 3440x1440 took a decent hit in performance.

34% more than 4k, **** that.

I don't think that there is an option on the market that would get fo4 to run at that resolution.

I do agree that I would love to see that large of a 21:9 display. Don't know how much larger I would want to go than my current 34" though.

True, it would be quite a bit more demanding for sure, but since both Greenland and Pascal are on a node change and add HBM 2.0 to the mix, and either one might really have twice the transistor budget and 2 to 3x more memory bandwidth to play with......


I'm already taking for granted that either option will be close to twice as fast as the current Furies or GTX980 TI's on those 2 reasons alone, even if a large chunk of that extra transistor budget isn't even dedicated to gaming, as both AMD and Nvidia want a piece of the HPC market (Dual precision math required here), for which it's totally not needed for a gaming card at all, but does take up transistor budget in those dies, regardless of version as the die is always the same and it's the driver that exposes it (or not).


GM 200 and Fiji became faster in gaming, but worse in dual precision math than the previous generation from both camps......Tahiti can do DP at 1/2 clock in the firepro version (2.5 teraflop theoretical maximum) and Kepler was in the 1.8 teraflop range, again theoretical max....Latest gen is nowhere near these figures.


Display size wise, 34" is plenty to be honest but the higher resolution doesn't necessarily mean worse performance as the pixel density is higher to begin with, so there's less need to use AA.....At least not to such high levels as it would be the case with lower resolutions.


My hodge podge triple display setup in portrait mode, with a bezel compensated total resolution of 4730*2560 pixels, and I find myself not needing more than 2X AA as anything higher hardly makes a difference unless i'm really trying to find the odd jagged edge, depending on the angle i'm looking the image at ( it's not obvious).


The diagonal comes to about 46 inches between all 3 screens, so a 3840*2160 resolution on a smaller 32 inch is just about perfect to say goodbye to the need to use AA all that much....Even the 40 incher I listed would be pretty damn good at 3840*2160....2X AA would be needed, 4X if you're really picky but never need 8X AA anymore at all, regardless of game.


Not needing that much AA, saves memory bandwidth, fill rate, pixel shading or texturing speed, all depending on the type of AA used so it's more resources available to render the actual graphics, and not just filtering the image as the display resolutions were much lower in previous years.

 

[noko]

I would love to go 21:9 resolution for UHD. 3440x1440 aspect, 34" is just about perfect for size and aspect ratio (with higher resolution maybe 37" to 38" would be better). Which to me means two next generation cards with at least 8gb of memory each or more. Also 21:9 you can watch a blue ray full screen with no bars, really a great aspect ratio for games, videos as well as having multiple programs on the screen at once.

I would think DP 1.3 would be needed, HDMI 2.0a is the real standard for UHDTV, we have to see how next year players work with the current HDMI 2.0.

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

Maybe 21:9 with the same horizontal resolution of 4k would be ideal. Darn near native for watching 4k content with black bars and a good bit less demanding than 4k.

 

[shadow001]

I would think DP 1.3 would be needed, HDMI 2.0a is the real standard for UHDTV, we have to see how next year players work with the current HDMI 2.0.

It does make me wonder how Dell pulls it off with their 27" 5K monitor though, as it must be insane in terms of bandwidth with regards to any connection used, be it HDMI or Display port specification.


It is 5120*2880 resolution after all, which is even higher than the 21*9 aspect ratio and using a 5000*2160 resolution that I suggested earlier (same vertical resolution as 4K basically).


Could they be using a pair of display ports for that one monitor?.....Can't see a single one being enough.

 

[Skinner]

It does make me wonder how Dell pulls it off with their 27" 5K monitor though, as it must be insane in terms of bandwidth with regards to any connection used, be it HDMI or Display port specification.


It is 5120*2880 resolution after all, which is even higher than the 21*9 aspect ratio and using a 5000*2160 resolution that I suggested earlier (same vertical resolution as 4K basically).


Could they be using a pair of display ports for that one monitor?.....Can't see a single one being enough.

Yep two in mst mode. I use this one for quite a while now and its x²

 

[shadow001]

Yep two in mst mode. I use this one for quite a while now and its x²

Thought as much, as I didn't see how a single display port cable would be enough to deliver the data requirements in gaming and doing so at 60 Fps......Watching movies at half that frame rate maybe, but not gaming.



Given that the Dell display is a professional monitor and supporting such high resolutions on a 27" screen, the image must be stunning indeed, and the need for AA in games is pretty optional unless one is _REALLY_ fussy about it.....

 

[demo]

Well, AA (full scene - Adaptive/Transparency AA, SSAA, or shader based) isn't just to remove jaggies along polygon edges, but to also clean up transparencies, textures, shaders, shadows etc, and more importantly remove noise or shimmer in motion. Those are large functions of AA.

While 4K or 5K at 27" is damn impressive with excellent fidelity, noise/shimmer still occurs without AA and still can/does look pretty bad in motion - especially scenes with lots of foliage (think Crysis, BF4, StarWars etc.). It's just very harsh on the eyes. I would honestly prefer to play at a lower res with better filtering than a higher res with no filtering.


Take transparencies like foliage for example, a bush or tree isn't made up of individually rendered leaves, but rather a large texture/s with lots of leaves drawn on it and transparent sections in between. Without Adaptive/Transparency AA or SSAA etc those leaves wont receive treatment and every leaf will be jaggy, and shimmer like crazy in motion. This applies for any asset using a 'base' transparent texture, which are many in any given scene. Thus, such types of filtering are needed.

That's said, at 4K and 5K I think shader based methods like SMAA or FXAA actually look pretty good and are an abvious choice thanks to the low performance hit.

I know Nvidias TXAA or shader based Temporal AA in general (as seen in star wars) blur the image, but hot damn do they look sweet in motion. The temporal AA method in star wars looks exceptionally good on the forest level imho, there's basically no motion noise at all. It's just so clean, the best I've seen irrespective of display resolution. I do run 3200x1350 downsampled to help though, and the combination is great. More GPU power able to run 150% or 200% render res on a 3440x1440 display, in combination with TAA/TXAA, must produce a f-cking fantastic image. That's what I'd be doing with all those GPU's you have shadow, for a better gaming experience imho.

 

[shadow001]

Well, AA (full scene - Adaptive/Transparency AA, SSAA, or shader based) isn't just to remove jaggies along polygon edges, but to also clean up transparencies, textures, shaders, shadows etc, and more importantly remove noise or shimmer in motion. Those are large functions of AA.

While 4K or 5K at 27" is damn impressive with excellent fidelity, noise/shimmer still occurs without AA and still can/does look pretty bad in motion - especially scenes with lots of foliage (think Crysis, BF4, StarWars etc.). It's just very harsh on the eyes. I would honestly prefer to play at a lower res with better filtering than a higher res with no filtering.


Take transparencies like foliage for example, a bush or tree isn't made up of individually rendered leaves, but rather a large texture/s with lots of leaves drawn on it and transparent sections in between. Without Adaptive/Transparency AA or SSAA etc those leaves wont receive treatment and every leaf will be jaggy, and shimmer like crazy in motion. This applies for any asset using a 'base' transparent texture, which are many in any given scene. Thus, such types of filtering are needed.

That's said, at 4K and 5K I think shader based methods like SMAA or FXAA actually look pretty good and are an abvious choice thanks to the low performance hit.

I know Nvidias TXAA or shader based Temporal AA in general (as seen in star wars) blur the image, but hot damn do they look sweet in motion. The temporal AA method in star wars looks exceptionally good on the forest level imho, there's basically no motion noise at all. It's just so clean, the best I've seen irrespective of display resolution. I do run 3200x1350 downsampled to help though, and the combination is great. More GPU power able to run 150% or 200% render res on a 3440x1440 display, in combination with TAA/TXAA, must produce a f-cking fantastic image. That's what I'd be doing with all those GPU's you have shadow, for a better gaming experience imho.

I suppose, but as resolutions get ever higher we also are well into the land of diminishing returns for a fair amount of filtering effets too.......The performance hit can still be quite high depending on the type used, but the visual enhancement sometimes isn't huge and people need to do a double take to notice them.....



Guess that's the advantage of getting older and my eyesight isn't what it used to be anymore.....It applies natural AA on it's own....



Anyhow, I see there's still no news on the Dual GPU Fury X2 cards and we're just 3 weeks away from the end of the year, so the clock is ticking....

 

[Spyhawk]

I suppose, but as resolutions get ever higher we also are well into the land of diminishing returns for a fair amount of filtering effets too.......The performance hit can still be quite high depending on the type used, but the visual enhancement sometimes isn't huge and people need to do a double take to notice them.....



Guess that's the advantage of getting older and my eyesight isn't what it used to be anymore.....It applies natural AA on it's own....



Anyhow, I see there's still no news on the Dual GPU Fury X2 cards and we're just 3 weeks away from the end of the year, so the clock is ticking....

Yeah...wish that card was out now....would be interested in a FuryX2 to play with during my Christmas vacation :-)

I want something and right now I've been looking at all high end options...yes...even Nvidia. Haven't been with them since the GTX 285. Might give them a try but still might end up getting the furyX even if I will need to cough up 15% perf to do so. Really like that card....then there is that part of me that says...hey ! your 7970 can keep you over till gext gen...be patient and wait...grrr...getting hard to wait lol

 

[SoCalMX70]

This is the rumor:

http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-r9-fury-x2-launch/

So, market availability by January? Hopefully?

 

[The Mac]

not really much of a rumor, Lisa Su has said multiple times the x2 would be launched by the end of the year.

 

[SoCalMX70]

not really much of a rumor, Lisa Su has said multiple times the x2 would be launched by the end of the year.

Still haven't seen concrete evidence of actual availability date though. Wouldn't be surprised if we don't see stock until February or March really...

Also, how about that Asetek lawsuit? I get that the responsibility and burden likely fall with Cooler Master, but is there a possibility that AMD re-thinks the cooler that they launch the X2 with? If so, we could see some serious delay. It's pretty late in the game at this point...