Introduction
AMD tried something daring with the Fury X, HBM, heavily compacted PCB design and an AIO cooler. The card is pretty cutting edge and the first of a new generation of designs and technologies centered on shaking off old news such as GDDR5. The launch of the Radeon Fury X caused a lot of stir across the internet, not only because of AMDs balls to push innovation, but because the cards are also in short supply, with some review samples, including our own, having some issues.
If you watched AMDs launch show, you will see they brief the public on several new products, basically aimed at size, performance and 4K resolutions. With the launch of the Fury X out of the way, the next milestone is the AMD Radeon Fury, a card which is a little cut down in specifications, but supporting a traditional air cooler, allowing vendors a little more freedom to introduce their branding to the Radeon flagship range.
Enter Sapphire, a brand all enthusiasts will know and most desire to own. Sapphire have been delivering excellent cooling solutions for graphics cards for some time now, and with the launch of the Radeon Fury, they can get back to delivering this specialty.
We have the Sapphire Radeon R9 FURY Tri-X OC for review today, and we have beefed up our testing rig so it gets the processing power it deserves.
| Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury Tri-X OC | AMD Radeon R9 Fury | AMD Radeon R9 Fury X | AMD Radeon R9 390X | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stream Processors | 3584 | 3584 | 4096 | 2816 |
| Core Clock | 1050MHz | 1000MHz | 1050MHz | 1050MHz |
| Texture Units | 224 | 224 | 256 | 176 |
| ROPs | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 |
| Video RAM | 4GB HBM | 4GB HBM | 4GB HBM | 8GB GDDR5 |
| Memory Clock | 1GHz | 1GHz | 1GHz | 6GHz |
| Memory Bus Width | 4096-bit HBM | 4096-bit HBM | 4096-bit HBM | 512-bit |
| Transistor Count | 8.9B | 8.9B | 8.9B | 6.2B |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm |
| GPU | Fiji | Fiji | Fiji | Hawaii |
| Launch Date | 14/07/15 | 14/07/15 | 24/06/15 | 18/06/15 |
Sapphire tend to pack their products with features that usually do benefit the gamer and overclocker. In line with Sapphire’s usual Tri-X offering, three 90mm fans, lots of nice heatpipes and other cooling additions can be found.
- 3x 90mm Aerofoil fans with dual-ball bearing hubs for long reliable life
- Multi-Heatpipe array with 1x 10mm, 2x 8mm & 4x 6mm heatpipes
- High density stacked cooler fins
- Solid Copper transfer plate
- Diecast mounting frame for PCB and cooler assembly provides rigidity
- Thick Aluminium backplate reduces PCB component temperatures
- Intelligent Fan Control (IFCII) stops fans under light load
- Advanced Fan Control sets temperature by arbitrating multiple sensors
Sapphire enthusiasts will not be surprised at this, but if this is your first taste have a look at our product shots.
Product Shots
The card comes in our favourite packaging, this stuff will protect the card in most shipping hiccups.
It’s a good looking card, and with all that heatsink, if feels like it is made from granite. Out of the box, this feels like a quality component and so far worthy of your hard earned cash.
Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury Tri-X OC Graphics Card Review
Package and Bundle - 8.5
Performance - 9.5
Price - 9
Consumer Experience - 9.6
9.2
Finally, the Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury Tri-X OC is something the Fury X is not, and that's - available to buy right now. The GTX 980 does have the slight advantage in most results, but the Fury should be on everyone's shopping list based on the price to performance ratio.
