Fury X crossfire or 980ti sli

[red773]

I am torn on weather to get Fury X crossfire or 980ti sli. I was originally going 980ti but I am leaning towards the Fury X. From what I have heard crossfire scaling is an average of 85% and sli is an average of 79%. I will install waterblocks on either setup I don't care about the rads on the fury. I mostly play BF4 and I have a 4k monitor which my 970 wont do much with. (no fanboys please) which setup seems better considering DX12 is launching soon. 

[pomaranc]

I am torn on weather to get Fury X crossfire or 980ti sli. I was originally going 980ti but I am leaning towards the Fury X. From what I have heard crossfire scaling is an average of 85% and sli is an average of 79%. I will install waterblocks on either setup I don't care about the rads on the fury. I mostly play BF4 and I have a 4k monitor which my 970 wont do much with. (no fanboys please) which setup seems better considering DX12 is launching soon. 

980ti.

Fury scales better but 980ti SLI will still beat it , also 4GB of VRAM is not enough for 2 such a powerfull cards.

[Raudi_]

980ti.

Fury scales better but 980ti SLI will still beat it , also 4GB of VRAM is not enough for 2 such a powerfull cards.

But AMD made such a huge deal cause of memory bandwith on the cards being bonkers so 4GB was "enough"

[ManOfGold93]

I am torn on weather to get Fury X crossfire or 980ti sli. I was originally going 980ti but I am leaning towards the Fury X. From what I have heard crossfire scaling is an average of 85% and sli is an average of 79%. I will install waterblocks on either setup I don't care about the rads on the fury. I mostly play BF4 and I have a 4k monitor which my 970 wont do much with. (no fanboys please) which setup seems better considering DX12 is launching soon. 

Oh a purely aesthetic opinion, doing the 980tis with custom water blocks (excluding getting an air cooled fury and water cooling it) will look better due to the sli configuration you can do with water cooling. 

Personally I cant stand the look of all those rads coming off individually.

[othertomperson]

Have you considered getting another 970? You don't really need two 980 Tis for 4k, one does decently, and that's about equal to two 970s.

 

 

But AMD made such a huge deal cause of memory bandwith on the cards being bonkers so 4GB was "enough"

 

And they go and put 8GB on a 390 because 4 wasn't enough for a 1440p card? Everything AMD have said about vram requirements, from the snide marketing about the 970, through to the 300 series, through to the Fury X, has been completely incoherent.

 

As it happens, I would be inclined to agree with the Fury X team's opinion that 4GB is right for 4K. However, dual Fury Xs should be focusing on 5K in most games and 4GB would struggle there.

[Aytex]

980ti.

Fury scales better but 980ti SLI will still beat it , also 4GB of VRAM is not enough for 2 such a powerfull cards.

isnt the fury hbm vram?

[EllieThePurpleFuzzy]

980ti sli im afraid :').

 

980Ti has the features, 2gb extra vram, dont need to find places to mount 2 radiators, better performance. ...also looks better, the shortness of the fury cards bug me for some reason

[pomaranc]

But AMD mad such a huge deal cause of memory bandwith on the cards being bonkers so 4GB was "enough"

HBM is great and it will be important in the future, but now it is pointless and more VRAM would be better.

[ManOfGold93]

isnt the fury hbm vram?

Its actually better- Im not exactly sure on the number but HBM equals more vraam than just DDR5

[Raudi_]

HBM is great and it will be important in the future, but now it is pointless and more VRAM would be better.

True, but eh who else but AMD though, amirite?

[Aytex]

Its actually better- Im not exactly sure on the number but HBM equals more vraam than just DDR5

thats what i was about to say. 4gb of hbm is equevelent to 8gb of vram or 6gb idk which lol

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

980ti any day, is your case even compatible for a dual Rad? 

[ManOfGold93]

HBM is great and it will be important in the future, but now it is pointless and more VRAM would be better.

When you build a machine for the future you want components that will stay competitive, when we start making tech to take full advantage of HBM the cards should increase usefulness, but that being said, they are still veryy useful today

[pomaranc]

When you build a machine for the future you want components that will stay competitive, when we start making tech to take full advantage of HBM the cards should increase usefulness, but that being said, they are still veryy useful today

Well by the time GDDR5 will be too slow, fury x will be probably too slow as well.

[Prysin]

Oh a purely aesthetic opinion, doing the 980tis with custom water blocks (excluding getting an air cooled fury and water cooling it) will look better due to the sli configuration you can do with water cooling. 

Personally I cant stand the look of all those rads coming off individually.

You can get EK blocks for Fury X too. So that point is moot.

 

Crossfire has better frame TIMING. Which means, yes it will have lower FPS, but it will be LESS stuttering. Crossfire >>>>>> SLI any day. FPS isnt everything. Getting more FPS with 980Ti at the cost of irregular timings mean more stuttering, even with higher FPS.

 

inb4 Adaptive Vsync/Normal Vsync - would only increase input lag, and may not even improve anything due frame timing being a DRIVER ISSUE

[red773]

Oh a purely aesthetic opinion, doing the 980tis with custom water blocks (excluding getting an air cooled fury and water cooling it) will look better due to the sli configuration you can do with water cooling. 

Personally I cant stand the look of all those rads coming off individually.

I will put on EK waterblocks I dont care about the rads

[Sam Z Man]

have you considered dual fury (non x's)

[TheCookieGuru]

I am torn on weather to get Fury X crossfire or 980ti sli. I was originally going 980ti but I am leaning towards the Fury X. From what I have heard crossfire scaling is an average of 85% and sli is an average of 79%. I will install waterblocks on either setup I don't care about the rads on the fury. I mostly play BF4 and I have a 4k monitor which my 970 wont do much with. (no fanboys please) which setup seems better considering DX12 is launching soon. 

DUDE! Get another 970. You don't need to dash out the cash to get two new cards, I myself have two 970s (overclocked them, tho) and play almost every game maxed you with AA on. The only game in my library which is not maxed out is pCARS, and that is one hell of a demanding game. It is still played on high tho, and looks STUNNING.

[Thorium19]

980ti sli im afraid :').

 

980Ti has the features, 2gb extra vram, dont need to find places to mount 2 radiators, better performance. ...also looks better, the shortness of the fury cards bug me for some reason

Reread the original post, he says he'll be watercooling them in a custom loop whatever he gets.

Personally I would go for the fury X due to the massive increase in bandwidth for memory effectively meaning you don't need more than 4GB for 4K, as well as it being powerful with more likely to come with future driver updates.

However, if the most demanding game you're playing consistently is BF4, I'd look at 970 SLI instead, or even just a single 980ti as that will likely be enough.

[ManOfGold93]

I will put on EK waterblocks I dont care about the rads

Good! haha its all personal opinion some people like the rads, others do not

[othertomperson]

They put 8 as a marketing technique. It's competitor only has 4 (the 970). Doubling the amount is appealing to a consumer, especially since both are priced similarly.

 

Also, HBM != VRAM. 4 GB of HBM is enough for 4K. Heck 4 GB of VRAM SHOULD be enough for 4K, if devs coded their games properly.

 

Yeah, I know they put 8GB on because they are exploiting people's ignorance of the fact that it won't make the blindest bit of difference and that people just see the bigger number.

 

As for the benefits of HBM, I haven't seen any proof of any of AMD's claims about the Fury X, much less the benefit of HBM specifically. As you say 4GB GDDR5 is enough for 4K anyway, but I would be sceptical about this holding up for higher resolutions without solid benchmarks and comparisons against, say, the 980 -- or better yet 980 SLI in a truly vram-bound scenario.

[Prysin]

ekwb.com

 

Go to their configurator. Any FuryX will work with the FuryX waterblock

 

Sapphires R9 Fury (non X) will work with Fury X blocks, as it uses reference Fury X PCB.

[SurvivorNVL]

980ti SLI has around 92% scaling.  The 980ti out-performs the FuryX in just about all scenarios.  It is a hot card, but it's hot all the way to the victory line.

[red773]

have you considered dual fury (non x's)

Cant find a waterblock for fury non x

[Prysin]

Yeah, I know they put 8GB on because they are exploiting people's ignorance of the fact that it won't make the blindest bit of difference and that people just see the bigger number.

 

As for the benefits of HBM, I haven't seen any proof of any of AMD's claims about the Fury X, much less the benefit of HBM specifically. As you say 4GB GDDR5 is enough for 4K anyway, but I would be sceptical about this holding up for higher resolutions without solid benchmarks and comparisons against, say, the 980 -- or better yet 980 SLI in a truly vram-bound scenario.

4GB GDDR5 is enough for 4k for sure. But the memory bandwidth used by Nvidia is TOO DAMN LOW...

 

Look at R9 290X... old card, yes?

Why did it catch up to the 980 (talking about the launch of 980) once you increased resolution?

Nvidia has better driver overhead, we know that for sure.

The 980 is a MUCH stronger GPU, we know that for sure.

Both has 4GB GDDR5 memory, Nvidia is even clocked higher...

 

SO WHY, WHY DO YOU THINK NVIDIA SUCKS AT HIGHER RESOLUTIONS?

Because they give you a much much much lower bus WIDTH.

 

A R9 290X REFERENCE card, has MORE bandwidth then a 980Ti or TitanX. Now that is sort of fucked up.

 

The amount of Vram can be reduced if you can shuffle it in and out fast enough. However if you cannot move it in and out of storage (VRAM) due to a too narrow bus, then you need a bigger amount of VRAM to store that which is waiting to be moved.

 

End result is that a 980Ti has around 336GB/s transfer rate, a R9 290/290X/390/390X has 384GB/s, and Fury (any Fury) has 512GB/s.... the sheer VOLUME of data that can be moved is an order of magnitude higher....

 

So how do you correct this for Nvidia? You OC the memory speed (MHz). But the chips can only handle so much before they start producing errors. Yet, due to the initial bus width being too damn low, no matter how hard you press Nvidia memory chips, AMD only need a fraction of an increase to pull MILES away from Nvidia.

 

What AMD needs is stronger GPUs that is more efficient, their memory design (Bus Width over raw speed) is solid, and cannot be argued with.

 

Oh, just FYI... 970 SLI, forget it... 256bit bus x 7010GB/s / 8 = 224 GB/s max transfer rate.... 390 is 512 X 6000 / 8 = 384 GBs max transfer rate....

 

SLI being worse then CF in the first place, not to mention god knows how that SLI bridge affects things (After AMD started to use CF over PCIe bus, their scaling and quality has just gone up, a lot).... My guess is that the SLI/CF bridges are "too narrow" and chockes modern GPUs.. But hey, no way to know before Nvidia gets rid of it, ey?