Battlefield 4, Far Cry 4 and Grand Theft Auto V
Given a $650 price tag, AMD is setting up its Radeon R9 Fury X to compete with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti. There’s also the Radeon R9 295X2, which AMD knocked down to preempt the GTX 980 Ti, but has since let creep back up. One model remains on Newegg for $660 though, making it a relevant comparison.
Battlefield 4
The Radeon R9 Fury X surfaces between Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 and 980 Ti in Battlefield 4 at 2560x1440. With one exception, AMD’s single-GPU flagship keeps its nose above 60 FPS at the game’s Ultra detail preset.
Of course, this is a mature title, and both companies have had plenty of time to optimize for it. It’s not surprising, then, that the Radeon R9 295X2 is on its best behavior, easily blowing past all of the single-GPU solutions.
AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X maintains its position at 3840x2160, just behind Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti. Given a brief dip under 30 FPS, it might be wise to drop from this game’s most taxing preset in order to bring performance up a bit.
Again, the Radeon R9 295X2 shines brightest at the top of our benchmark charts. If every game made the dual-GPU card look this good, it’d be an easy winner. But as we’ll see in some of the newer titles, the 295X2 isn’t as consistent as we’d like.
Far Cry 4
The Radeon R9 Fury X leapfrogs its competition in Far Cry 4, beating both the GeForce GTX 980 Ti and Titan X, all the while maintaining more than 60 FPS at 2560x1440. Low frame time variance figures are reassuring, too.
Our bar charts suggest that AMD’s Radeon R9 295X2 is the ultimate victor. However, wild swings in the frame rate over time chart, along with disturbingly high frame time variance numbers, belie the average.
Despite all of the concern about performance at 3840x2160 with only 4GB of HBM, AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X continues demonstrating strong performance under Far Cry 4’s Ultra preset, besting Nvidia’s Titan X and 980 Ti.
Only the Radeon R9 295X2 appears faster, though we have the same concerns about its consistency at 3840x2160 as we did at 2560x1440. Mainly, big performance dips and frame time variance spikes mar an otherwise commendable average frame rate.
Grand Theft Auto V
The Fury X trails GeForce GTX Titan X and 980 Ti in Grand Theft Auto V at 2560x1440, though it remains plenty playable with a 72+ FPS average. Further, we like that the Fury X takes a generally similar path through the benchmark as its two main competitors from Nvidia in our frame rate over time chart. Areas where the cards deviate and then come back together are indicative of how their unique mixes of on-die resources facilitate more or less performance. The two Hawaii-based Radeon cards do exhibit higher frame time variance than the rest of the field, while Fury X and its newer driver appear to temper this in a good way.
The 295X2’s issues with consistency play out in a number of charts. It suffers low minimum frame rates, along with a frame rate over time line with big peaks and valleys. A winning average means little in the face of those red flags. This leaves the GeForce GTX 980 Ti as a leader in this title.
A shift to 3840x2160 has Fury X, Titan X and 980 Ti much closer to each other, all maintaining reasonable frame rates through our benchmark. Interestingly, the 295X2’s previously frenetic behavior isn’t a problem at 4K.
