AMD's R9 Fury X - Pump Whine Fixed

[LAwLz]

Thats absurd. Thats like buying a car that has problems and being told its your fault its got problems, you bought it.

They paid cm to make them pumps. Cm screwed it up by giving them noisy pumps and amds fault was letting it get distributed with such a noisy pump.

No it's not like your car analogy (because AMD is not the final customer like in your analogy, which makes a big difference).

 

If you want an analogy I think this one is better. A friend gives me 1000 dollars and says "hey can you build me a PC?". If I then go out and buys really crappy parts whose fault is it the computer ended up bad? Is it Intel's fault because "It's not my fault the Celeron G1840 doesn't perform so well. Intel should have made it better" or is it entirely my fault for picking the bad part to begin with? Could I blame the poor GPU performance on AMD because "I could only fit a Radeon 5450 in the budget"?

The entire build is my fault. It is not Intel's or AMD's fault I picked out bad parts.

[Sakkura]

I did say for the lolz... And Techpowerup, techreport, and maximumpc is shit at benchmarking? And Tom's Hardware somehow magically isn't?

 

Techpowerup and Tech Report are fine, but Tech Report did not test Witcher 3 at 4K, and Techpowerup actually shows the Fury X beating the GTX 980 Ti at 4K. By the shallowest of margins, sure, but it's not compatible with your claim.

 

MaximumPC is shit, no frame times and just very shallow testing in general. PC Gamer's bad for this type of testing too. Jayztwocents is just generally not that competent.

 

Guru3D is okay, but only limited 4K testing, with no clear number for the Fury X and 980 Ti in Witcher 3 at 4K (just a graph showing the 980 Ti slightly above the Fury X). Tweaktown is so-so, they have some wonky results in their Fury X review (not particularly team red vs. team green, odd stuff like a 390X beating a Fury X or a Titan X being more than a third faster than a 980 Ti), but more importantly they did not even test Witcher 3.

 

So yeah, "all the sites show the 980 Ti beating the Fury X in Witcher 3 @4K", except some of them didn't test that game/resolution, some of them showed the opposite of what you claim, some sites getting the opposite results were left out, and some of the sites/reviewers are just not reliable in general.

[Notional]

Someone seems to not understand business. Maybe I can clear some things up.

 

AMD is the customer of Cooler Master pumps.

Distributors/retailers are the customers of AMD.

You are the customer of the retailer.

You are the end user/consumer of the AMD product.

 

Cooler Master is responsible for making bad pumps. AMD isn't necessarily the company that makes the reference parts (isn't it Sapphire?). But AMD has the overall responsibility of the final product, that the consumer gets to use. CM has botched their quality control, and you could say Sapphire has too.

 

Either way, Linus said he didn't have any pump noise problems on the WAN show. So it is not ALL pumps. Others on forums say, the noise stops when you install the newest drivers.

[HashtagFTW]

Techpowerup and Tech Report are fine, but Tech Report did not test Witcher 3 at 4K, and Techpowerup actually shows the Fury X beating the GTX 980 Ti at 4K. By the shallowest of margins, sure, but it's not compatible with your claim.

 

MaximumPC is shit, no frame times and just very shallow testing in general. PC Gamer's bad for this type of testing too. Jayztwocents is just generally not that competent.

 

Guru3D is okay, but only limited 4K testing, with no clear number for the Fury X and 980 Ti in Witcher 3 at 4K (just a graph showing the 980 Ti slightly above the Fury X). Tweaktown is so-so, they have some wonky results in their Fury X review (not particularly team red vs. team green, odd stuff like a 390X beating a Fury X or a Titan X being more than a third faster than a 980 Ti), but more importantly they did not even test Witcher 3.

 

So yeah, "all the sites show the 980 Ti beating the Fury X in Witcher 3 @4K", except some of them didn't test that game/resolution, some of them showed the opposite of what you claim, some sites getting the opposite results were left out, and some of the sites/reviewers are just not reliable in general.

But you also said the Fury X edged out both the 980 Ti / Titan X, which I don't think any of the sites did besides kitguru / ones well within margin of error. I was also pretty damn sure I saw the 4k numbers from Tech Report, but I guess I got things messed up with the AMD 4k article and the review. As for Tweaktown, I didn't actually look at the review since the site was down at the time, just some repost from a forum where they included some graphs at 4k, so my mistake for being an idiot and not waiting until the site was back up. Maximum PC, I'm just a bit biased to since I happen to be a long time reader, and I would like to believe they're right even if their tests were a bit shallow. PCGamer though, I seriously don't know why they would make the Fuy X look worse than it is, since you know, AMD did reveal the Fury X at the PC Gaming show sponsored by AMD, so even if their testing methods were a bit shallow just like Maximum PC, they can't possibly be too off.  And then there's Linus, and maybe we'll see some numbers that match my words, maybe we won't, we'll have to see in the upcoming video. I don't see what's wrong with Guru3D at all, there's 1440p numbers, FCAT, and decent graphs, so I don't know why they're only "ok"? 

So yeah, while not all of them show 980 Ti beating Fury X like I said (so I was wrong somewhat), they don't exactly agree with you either, since 70% says 980Ti and / or Titan X > Fury X, 20% says margin of error, 10 % says Fury X > 980 Ti / Titan X. Other reliable reviewers like Aandtech didn't include W3. 

[Sunako]

Someone seems to not understand business. Maybe I can clear some things up.

 

AMD is the customer of Cooler Master pumps.

Distributors/retailers are the customers of AMD.

You are the customer of the retailer.

You are the end user/consumer of the AMD product.

 

Cooler Master is responsible for making bad pumps. AMD isn't necessarily the company that makes the reference parts (isn't it Sapphire?). But AMD has the overall responsibility of the final product, that the consumer gets to use. CM has botched their quality control, and you could say Sapphire has too.

 

Either way, Linus said he didn't have any pump noise problems on the WAN show. So it is not ALL pumps. Others on forums say, the noise stops when you install the newest drivers.

National please list the item in the wan show he says that. me and the 4 friends i asked don't remeber him mentioning no pump noise on his.

also the fury X cant be changed from the ref design. its is purely AMD's fault for allowing faulty units (bad pump noise) to go out.

go watch the pcper podcast  @ 47:40 second or so ryan  quotes AMD as saying they will have the problem fixed before retail goes out.

in which chase it did not happen. they did  fix it but not in the time frame or  pulling the faulty card first.

[Vozella]

Great! I'm glad people gave it time to recover. 

[Takata]

National please list the item in the wan show he says that. me and the 4 friends i asked don't remeber him mentioning no pump noise on his.

also the fury X cant be changed from the ref design. its is purely AMD's fault for allowing faulty units (bad pump noise) to go out.

go watch the pcper podcast  @ 47:40 second or so ryan  quotes AMD as saying they will have the problem fixed before retail goes out.

in which chase it did not happen. they did  fix it but not in the time frame or  pulling the faulty card first.

At about 44:43 on the WAN show (https://youtu.be/W13spJMhUj8?t=44m41s), Linus claims that their pump didn't whine. He comments further at 46:52. Maybe he's just getting old and insensitive to high pitched noises, or maybe he's just taking the inherent "cheapness" (compared to a custom loop) of the Fury X's cooling system into account and not expecting it to be silent, or even quiet. ...Or maybe the stickered pumps are more "hit and miss" as opposed to "consistently bad".

 

As for the PCPer podcast... the quote is:

"The issue is limited to a very small batch of initial production samples and we have worked with the manufacturer to improve the acoustic profile of the pump. This problem has been resolved and a fix added to production parts and is not an issue. "

You could interpet this optimistically and assume that the noisy pumps were limited to the review samples and that no pumps from the initial batch were sold to consumers. ...Or you could be more pessimistic, and assume none of that. "Initial production samples" probably refers to the first batch of Fury Xs, some of which go to reviewers, and most of which go to launch-day or launch-week customers. "Fix added to production parts" probably means that future Fury Xs will not use the noisy pump design, but that changes nothing for the Fury Xs which were already sent out. You can probably RMA any Fury X with a stickered pump though, since by saying "the problem has been resolved", AMD admits this _was_ an actual problem.

 

I notice the whole statement _is_ spin from the PR department, easy to interpret in a way that favours AMD, but without outright lying. "Very small batch" downplays the fact that the majority of Fury Xs currently in existence might have this problem, and "problem has been resolved" omits that the problem is only resolved (hopefully) for future Fury Xs, not for the ones currently in circulation.

[Sakkura]

But you also said the Fury X edged out both the 980 Ti / Titan X, which I don't think any of the sites did besides kitguru / ones well within margin of error.

 

I said it did that in Tom's Hardware's review. Because it did.

 

 

I was also pretty damn sure I saw the 4k numbers from Tech Report, but I guess I got things messed up with the AMD 4k article and the review. As for Tweaktown, I didn't actually look at the review since the site was down at the time, just some repost from a forum where they included some graphs at 4k, so my mistake for being an idiot and not waiting until the site was back up. Maximum PC, I'm just a bit biased to since I happen to be a long time reader, and I would like to believe they're right even if their tests were a bit shallow. PCGamer though, I seriously don't know why they would make the Fuy X look worse than it is, since you know, AMD did reveal the Fury X at the PC Gaming show sponsored by AMD, so even if their testing methods were a bit shallow just like Maximum PC, they can't possibly be too off.  And then there's Linus, and maybe we'll see some numbers that match my words, maybe we won't, we'll have to see in the upcoming video. I don't see what's wrong with Guru3D at all, there's 1440p numbers, FCAT, and decent graphs, so I don't know why they're only "ok"? 

So yeah, while not all of them show 980 Ti beating Fury X like I said (so I was wrong somewhat), they don't exactly agree with you either, since 70% says 980Ti and / or Titan X > Fury X, 20% says margin of error, 10 % says Fury X > 980 Ti / Titan X. Other reliable reviewers like Aandtech didn't include W3.

 

I'm not saying a site like PC Gamer would make the Fury X look worse than it is. There's always going to be some variation between the results different sites reach. It's just that, to get the most accurate picture of overall performance, you should look at a wide selection of reliable sites. That'll even out the random variation.

 

Guru3D's 1440p numbers still aren't 4K numbers, which is specifically what we're talking about here. And the fact that they don't show their FPS numbers at 4K, just a graph that you can only see the approximate results from, is a bit disappointing. But as I said, they're okay.

 

So we end up with a muddy picture, with 2 reliable sites (Techpowerup and Tom's Hardware) saying the Fury X is faster in W3 at 4K, and 1 reliable site (Guru3D) saying the 980 Ti is faster at 4K. Given how small the margin of victory is in either of those reviews, I think we can only reasonably conclude that it's too close to call.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Lol don't really understand how anyone can call Jayztwocents incompetent... His benchmarks as he explains are all cards pushed to the limit, and that's where the fury x gets obliterated. Sure they might trade some blows at stock speeds, but when one card can hit 50% overclock on reference and the other can only do 10% it's fairly obvious which should preform better.

Also Jayz benchmarking methodology is significantly less prone to random variation (outside of silicon lottery) than just about everyone else's I've seen.

Extremely through.

[othertomperson]

"Fixed"

Just Like AMD drivers were "Fixed" 

And Nvidia's Drivers were "Fixed"

 

 

Can't speak for AMD but the 353.38 hotfix did fix the issues I was having.

[TorqueS]

Lol don't really understand how anyone can call Jayztwocents incompetent... His benchmarks as he explains are all cards pushed to the limit, and that's where the fury x gets obliterated. Sure they might trade some blows at stock speeds, but when one card can hit 50% overclock on reference and the other can only do 10% it's fairly obvious which should preform better.

Also Jayz benchmarking methodology is significantly less prone to random variation (outside of silicon lottery) than just about everyone else's I've seen.

Extremely through.

You know...when I'm searching for a review, I want stock speeds(+ OCs applied by manufacturers). I want to know what the card is capable of outside of the box. Jay is one of my favourite reviewers, but I do not really embrace the OCed methodology.

 

What if my card can't reach the speeds his card does?

Ah, if the reviewer OCs it to a speed that most cards can do, then I have no problem with those results.

But a MAX OC depends on each and every card(cooling, VRM, thermal interface etc.). 

[TroubleKlef]

hmm... in regards to the whole who is to blame AMD, CM, or the customer..

 

CM built faulty coolers

AMD was the customer who bought them.

But AMD also has to make sure of QA before it sells the card to consumers.

Customer buys said Fury X.

Who is to blame?

 

I say AMD as they're the final point in the manufacturing process before it ships to 'regular consumers'.

[gcubed]

You know...when I'm searching for a review, I want stock speeds(+ OCs applied by manufacturers). I want to know what the card is capable of outside of the box. Jay is one of my favourite reviewers, but I do not really embrace the OCed methodology.

 

What if my card can't reach the speeds his card does?

Ah, if the reviewer OCs it to a speed that most cards can do, then I have no problem with those results.

But a MAX OC depends on each and every card(cooling, VRM, thermal interface etc.). 

 

There are people that do not overclock or only do mild overclocking. For these people tests based on factory settings are what they need.

There are also people that try to squeeze every bit of power they can from their equipment. For these people tests based on maximum overclocking are what is needed.

Overclockers do gain a small benefit to seeing the numbers at factory settings, also.

 

Yes, the Silicon Lottery applies to GPU's just as much as it does to CPU's and APU's, so it is going to take a few overclocking benchmarks to get an accurate picture of the Fury X's overclocking abilities. The limits AMD placed on the Fury may be them being conservative with a product relying on a technology that has not been released to the wild before. It could also mean that the first generation of this new technology is very sensitive. BIOS revisions from AMD or a custom BIOS will give us an answer to that.

 

VRAM is a consideration, but in today's games, only a handful will spike above 4 GB in memory usage. Game mods have a tendency to increase a game's VRAM footprint, but most of the people I know don't use an excessive amount of mods. There are a few people out there that a card with 32GB of VRAM will not be enough (they will always be unsatisfied, though). The Fury's VRAM may become questionable in a year, but now not so much.

 

Right now, whether a person should buy a Fury or a 980ti pretty much depends on market prices and which games they want to play. In most cases, the performance is about the same, (I am sorry, but I just cannot get excited over a 1 to 5 FPS difference).

[mr moose]

(I am sorry, but I just cannot get excited over a 1 to 5 FPS difference).

 

So good to read this,  over the last year or two I have read that many posts where people are getting the knickers all  bunched up about saving $50 over 2 FPS and 30 watts, then they go off and totally blow that saving buying over rated PSU's and motherboards with features they'll never use.  A good reality check is needed sometimes and 5 fps is hardly worth consideration when there is so much more important things to consider (like noise, cost, secondary use performance).

[Sakkura]

hmm... in regards to the whole who is to blame AMD, CM, or the customer..

 

CM built faulty coolers

AMD was the customer who bought them.

But AMD also has to make sure of QA before it sells the card to consumers.

Customer buys said Fury X.

Who is to blame?

 

I say AMD as they're the final point in the manufacturing process before it ships to 'regular consumers'.

 

Well, actually there are more companies involved. Cooler Master doesn't own the actual factories, so AMD contracted Cooler Master who subcontracted a Chinese company to actually build the stuff. Then the pumps were sent off to some other Chinese company subcontracted by the board partners to assemble the finished cards.

 

It's all quite complicated, and it's not entirely surprising that QC issues can arise. It's unfortunate (for AMD especially) that it wasn't caught before the launch though, because it's a little niggle that seems to be easily fixable, but which can have a significant negative effect on the perception of the card.

[Curufinwe_wins]

You know...when I'm searching for a review, I want stock speeds(+ OCs applied by manufacturers). I want to know what the card is capable of outside of the box. Jay is one of my favourite reviewers, but I do not really embrace the OCed methodology.

What if my card can't reach the speeds his card does?

Ah, if the reviewer OCs it to a speed that most cards can do, then I have no problem with those results.

But a MAX OC depends on each and every card(cooling, VRM, thermal interface etc.).

Not that there isn't a place for people that don't overclock cards, but imho if you spend 650 dollars on a graphics card and are not willing to push it to the limit, I would recommend going with cheaper cards anyways.

I am not concerned with Jayz max oc reviews because he also has numerous 980 ti's listed and even in his original 980 to review he scaled everything back to 1400 which every single card can do basically without exception.

Personally I think it's idiotic in todays market to even look at the base clock fps because both amd and nvidia (but especially nvidia) hold back their chips at stock to give more "oc headroom".

But hey if you don't want to push cards to the limit then in general jayztwocents isn't really the channel for you.

[HashtagFTW]

I said it did that in Tom's Hardware's review. Because it did.

 

 

I'm not saying a site like PC Gamer would make the Fury X look worse than it is. There's always going to be some variation between the results different sites reach. It's just that, to get the most accurate picture of overall performance, you should look at a wide selection of reliable sites. That'll even out the random variation.

 

Guru3D's 1440p numbers still aren't 4K numbers, which is specifically what we're talking about here. And the fact that they don't show their FPS numbers at 4K, just a graph that you can only see the approximate results from, is a bit disappointing. But as I said, they're okay.

 

So we end up with a muddy picture, with 2 reliable sites (Techpowerup and Tom's Hardware) saying the Fury X is faster in W3 at 4K, and 1 reliable site (Guru3D) saying the 980 Ti is faster at 4K. Given how small the margin of victory is in either of those reviews, I think we can only reasonably conclude that it's too close to call.

Ok then. We can both agree on that. But I still wasn't trying to cherry pick 

[zMeul]

Tom's - AMD Radeon R9 Fury X Power And Pump Analysis

 

Information About The RMA

 

In the end, there are a number of people suffering due to this massive demonstration of incompetence to implement decent quality assurance. There’s AMD, its partners that just buy these graphics cards from AMD after having them labeled and packaged in China, as well as the stores and the customers.

 

Looking at the first of AMD’s emails that we quoted at the beginning, it’s pretty clear by now that the “very small batch” was, at best, an understatement. We’ve contacted some of AMD’s partners directly to ask them if they are aware of the problem and willing to do spot checks. We also wanted to know how they are handling cards that customers found to be defective and if they have stopped delivering affected cards to stores.

 

We’d first like to note that all of AMD’s partners told us the exact same thing. We’re not reporting their names, since this information was mainly given by the R&D departments of the companies in question, and there haven’t been, and most probably won’t be, any official statements. This isn’t much of a problem, since the main message was that all of the spot checks yielded graphics cards with the same pump problem, even though its severity varied. None of AMD’s partners are planning to return the cards directly to AMD at this point for a variety of reasons and to avoid ending up on AMD’s bad side.

 

The good news is that AMD will apparently reimburse its partners for any losses suffered due to customers actually returning their graphics cards. Is this a ploy to sell at least part of the affected stock, because some customers aren’t that sensitive to noise and others don’t want to go to the trouble of an RMA? This would limit the financial damages, of course. However, it might still lead to undesirable results due to the damages to AMD’s and its partners' images. It’s questionable if the financial gain is worth it.

---

this is not good because it looks like AMD knowingly shipped defective cards

[HalGameGuru]

I don't think we can really say defective. They work, the pumps work, the issue is sound levels. Unless and until the issue leads to failure or performance issues it is not really a defect, it is an issue of the final product not measuring up to what people expected. There have been plenty of loud cards in the past. And in this case, we can assume the noise levels were deemed within an allowable spec. The entire issue stems from no one checking to see if that spec jived with the end user's allowable sound threshold. Obviously there was no focus group, AMD decided the extra noise was worth the lower cost and I presume simpler build. End users disagree.

 

We can all justifiably take issue with the noise level just as we can take issue with any other random facet of card design. And if AMD is smart they will take this feedback and use it to improve the product. But the product still works just fine, produces a picture, and the sound level, while apparently louder than people wanted, is no louder than many other audible PC parts, although it is at a more noticeable pitch.

 

Let us not forget the AiO cooler is there for the cooling not for silence. While I didn't follow a lot of the lead up to the launch I never heard AMD make any mention of the card being silent, only cool, it was pundits and opinion from the peanut gallery and rumor mills that ran away with AiO and silence. Is this an issue of a card not keeping its promises? Or having to live up to an unfair ideal version of itself the community built up around it?

 

EDIT: I consider it a pretty big deal, and darn interesting, that when an AiO was first hinted at the assumption was "space heater" and "volcano" and the thing is gonna have to scream to keep it cool. Now when its out, its DARN COOL, darn fast, and not nearly as loud as was feared, but louder than we would like and that makes it a failure, when its head and shoulders above what was assumed when the first comparisons were made to the 295x2 and the 290x reference coolers.

[TorqueS]

Not that there isn't a place for people that don't overclock cards, but imho if you spend 650 dollars on a graphics card and are not willing to push it to the limit, I would recommend going with cheaper cards anyways.

I am not concerned with Jayz max oc reviews because he also has numerous 980 ti's listed and even in his original 980 to review he scaled everything back to 1400 which every single card can do basically without exception.

Personally I think it's idiotic in todays market to even look at the base clock fps because both amd and nvidia (but especially nvidia) hold back their chips at stock to give more "oc headroom".

But hey if you don't want to push cards to the limit then in general jayztwocents isn't really the channel for you.

No, no, no, you got it wrong...I OC everything in my PC, but I am also skeptical on max OC tests.

As I said. If it's a speed that all cards can do, then everything is okay.

[mr moose]

I don't think we can really say defective. They work, the pumps work, the issue is sound levels. Unless and until the issue leads to failure or performance issues it is not really a defect, it is an issue of the final product not measuring up to what people expected. There have been plenty of loud cards in the past. And in this case, we can assume the noise levels were deemed within an allowable spec. The entire issue stems from no one checking to see if that spec jived with the end user's allowable sound threshold. Obviously there was no focus group, AMD decided the extra noise was worth the lower cost and I presume simpler build. End users disagree.

 

We can all justifiably take issue with the noise level just as we can take issue with any other random facet of card design. And if AMD is smart they will take this feedback and use it to improve the product. But the product still works just fine, produces a picture, and the sound level, while apparently louder than people wanted, is no louder than many other audible PC parts, although it is at a more noticeable pitch.

 

Let us not forget the AiO cooler is there for the cooling not for silence. While I didn't follow a lot of the lead up to the launch I never heard AMD make any mention of the card being silent, only cool, it was pundits and opinion from the peanut gallery and rumor mills that ran away with AiO and silence. Is this an issue of a card not keeping its promises? Or having to live up to an unfair ideal version of itself the community built up around it?

 

EDIT: I consider it a pretty big deal, and darn interesting, that when an AiO was first hinted at the assumption was "space heater" and "volcano" and the thing is gonna have to scream to keep it cool. Now when its out, its DARN COOL, darn fast, and not nearly as loud as was feared, but louder than we would like and that makes it a failure, when its head and shoulders above what was assumed when the first comparisons were made to the 295x2 and the 290x reference coolers.

 

I agree, I wouldn't call it defective either, however the issue has little to nothing to do with whether the card sounds obnoxious or not, my 570 sounds obnoxious, it's wind/fan noise drowns out everything, however if Nvidia said it wasn't supposed to be that loud and strongly insinuated it was "fixed" before shipping the retail units, then we discover retail units that are just as bad if not worse then there is a problem, not with the card as such but with the way the company presented the product.

 

Having an AIO cooler will simply make the card more attractive to some while repulsing others.  Because some people like it and some don't. 

[HalGameGuru]

I agree, I wouldn't call it defective either, however the issue has little to nothing to do with whether the card sounds obnoxious or not, my 570 sounds obnoxious, it's wind/fan noise drowns out everything, however if Nvidia said it wasn't supposed to be that loud and strongly insinuated it was "fixed" before shipping the retail units, then we discover retail units that are just as bad if not worse then there is a problem, not with the card as such but with the way the company presented the product.

 

Having an AIO cooler will simply make the card more attractive to some while repulsing others.  Because some people like it and some don't. 

 

I get where you are coming from I just have an issue with taking random individuals' comments as Corporate policy. "AMD" made no official statement on this, all we have are anecdotal back channel communications between reviewers and, I assume, their contacts, or random personal connections with department members, I don't talk to my local Pizza Hut delivery driver or the assistant manager at McDonald's and say I have info representing the corporation.

 

Chief Officer level communication is needed for blanket assumption of corporate expression, or a publicly accepted and promoted mouthpiece. Anything else can be taken any way anyone wants it. I could have some random guy from AMD's shipping and receiving tell me all the issues are taken care of, that is not an official AMD communique.

 

I don't like the chain of events, and anyone who does not know should not say, but as it is it feels a lot less like an error in open communication and a lot more like someone speaking out of turn with incomplete information.

 

Not OK in either sense but not like Coca Cola claiming New Coke is just as good as Coke Classic.

[zMeul]

The Tech Report - AMD issues updated statement on Fury X noise problems

 

We have received feedback that during open bench testing a small number of Fury X cards emit a sound from the high speed liquid cooling pump that, while not loud, is bothersome to some users. While the vast majority of initial Fury X owners report remarkably quiet operation, we take this feedback seriously, as AMD’s mission is to always deliver the best possible experience to our Radeon customers.

 

AMD Radeon R9 Fury X customers demand and deserve the best, so adjustments in the sound baffling adhesive compound were applied in the assembly of the high speed cooling pump to address the specific sound a few end users experienced as problematic. This improved the acoustic profile of the pump, and repeat testing shows the specific pitch/sound in question was largely reduced through adjustments to the sound-baffling adhesive compound in the pump.

 

AMD will work with its graphic card partners to ensure the satisfaction of the small number of initial customers who observed this specific sound and experienced it as bothersome. AMD is confident that on-going production of Radeon R9 Fury X product reduces the specific sound in question, but this is also a highly subjective matter with wide differences in PC case builds and room acoustics.

 

The AMD Radeon™ R9 Fury X radiator fan is near silent, and this makes any sound from the high-speed pump more noticeable to some end users, especially during open bench testing. Thus although the overall sound levels are remarkably low for an enthusiast product, AMD has worked to reduce the specific sound that some customers report as bothersome.

Some of the text above is old ground, including the bits about the noise not being annoying and only affecting open test benches. As I noted before, I don't agree with the language in the statement meant to minimize this problem. Nobody paying $650 for a graphics card wants to inherit a false case of tinnitus, which is kind of the experience you're talking about here. If your shiny new Fury X card sounds like our review unit does, you're going to want a replacement.

...

Update 7/7/15: Since some of you have requested it, I just installed our Fury X in a case to see whether the high-pitched noise is still audible—and still annoying—inside of an enclosure.

---

still not fixed

[mr moose]

Chief Officer level communication is needed for blanket assumption of corporate expression, or a publicly accepted and promoted mouthpiece. Anything else can be taken any way anyone wants it. I could have some random guy from AMD's shipping and receiving tell me all the issues are taken care of, that is not an official AMD communique.

 

I think we'd be drawing some pretty long straws to assume PCper (a rather well respected independent journalist) have decided to just take anyone's word for it and not go through the normal channels with a manufacturer. 

[HalGameGuru]

I think we'd be drawing some pretty long straws to assume PCper (a rather well respected independent journalist) have decided to just take anyone's word for it and not go through the normal channels with a manufacturer. 

It's also a pretty big assumption to take one communication from a person unknown to us, on the outside, as holy writ. No disrespect to PCPer but they aren't official either. They claimed an email communique, but the history of communications leading up to the specific response, the context, and the relationship involved are unknown, and the individual is unknown to us.

 

At the very least the person on the AMD side spoke out of turn, or in ignorance, or, if we want to be generous, was dealing with a differing context of information, but without some idea of who this person is, and what his or her role is in the company we cannot take that communication as "AMD's" communication, as claimed, rather than merely the relation of that specific individual. Even if the person promoted themselves as more important than they were, who that person is in AMD is what matters to US on the outside. And we just do not know.

 

The best we can say, in the dark as we are, is they are a liaison, heck they could even be a contractor. Even if we assume whatever person had some kind of special privileged information, An aside or supposed privileged information from some source inside AMD is not an official release or response FROM AMD without knowing who the source is.

 

Before I lay anything at AMD's feet, as a corporate entity, I want to know who the person is, where their responsibility for the information derives from, and what capacity they operate under that "AMD" as an umbrella has that person as a mouthpiece for the corporation as a whole. I'm only concerned with our affixing this obfuscated exchange to AMD rather than the individual when we have no idea who this person is or under what onus they have claim to speak on the corporation's behalf.