Back when we reviewed our first Radeon Fury card, the ASUS R9 Fury STRIX, we were quite impressed by how well it did in our testing. Today, we are reviewing another Radeon Fury, this time from Sapphire, and it is even better. Unlike ASUS, Sapphire has overclocked their card out of the box with an overclock of 40 MHz, and while not much, every bit helps. This results in a 4% increase in clocks or a slim 2% increase in overall performance at 1440p when compared to the ASUS Strix, which I've been using as baseline throughout this review because it runs at reference design clocks. Compared to the NVIDIA GTX 980, we see a 9% lead that does increase to 15% at 4K, but the Fury non-X is a bit weak for gaming beyond 1440p resolutions. However, it's a great card for 1440p, providing good framerates in all titles. Looking at lower resolutions, 1080p and below, I'm not sure if the Fury is the right pick because NVIDIA's cards deliver better FPS and, as such, better price/performance. Compared to the Radeon Fury X, the difference is only 5%, which is definitely not worth the price increase. NVIDIA's GTX 980 Ti is chugging ahead with a 14% performance advantage at 1440p that shrinks to 8% at 4K, but again, Fury is not a 4K card. Since AMD has declared memory overclocking Fiji 'impossible,' Sapphire couldn't increase the memory clocks on their card for additional performance. We tested that and voltage control and saw some small gains that exist but are barely worth the trouble.
Sapphire chose a very long (31 cm) triple-slot, triple-fan cooler that does an absolutely amazing job at cooling the card. The fan settings are perfectly tweaked around the cooler's capabilities and GPU heat output, which results in acceptable temperatures and outstanding noise results. With merely 32 dBA, the card is extremely quiet in gaming, matching the water-cooled Radeon R9 Fury X that comes with a very noticeable pump whine. In idle, the Tri-X OC turns off its fans completely, which makes for a perfect noise-free experience during desktop work, something the Fury X can't do because its pump is always running. While these noise levels are not quiet enough to beat the quietest custom GTX 980 cards, they are close enough, which suddenly puts AMD back on the map for low-noise gaming.
The Radeon Fury's power consumption is also improved over the Fury X because the water-cooling pump is gone. This helps in achieving efficiency levels similar to NVIDIA's Maxwell-powered cards, although the GTX 980 is still more efficient. Multi-monitor desktop power consumption is finally improved too, something we've been complaining about for years. I do wonder a bit about how ASUS managed to make their custom PCB design Fury Strix run with 15% less gaming power draw than the Sapphire Tri-X OC that uses the exact same PCB as the Fury X. It also makes we wonder why AMD didn't just use a good triple-slot cooler on the Fury X to save themselves the waterpump drama and reduced profit margin.
I'm a big fan of triple-slot coolers if they are well-balanced, like the one on Sapphire's Tri-X OC. The vast majority of users only use a single graphics card in their PC, so space won't be an issue. Things might get complicated if you plan on buying a second card further down the road because those cards do need their airflow, which is difficult to achieve with triple-slot cards. Sapphire's card might also not fit into a few small form factor cases due to the cooler's long design.
Sapphire includes a dual-BIOS on their card, which lets you toggle to a BIOS with an increased power limit. Out of the box, without a manual overclock, this does not provide a performance improvement due to the way AMD's Boost works. I've actually tested my whole bench suite with these BIOSes and saw no differences. The card also won't hit its power limit with just a manual clock increase, which makes the benefit negligible to most users. Only extreme users who play with the voltages or install custom cooling could see some improvement.
With an online price of $570, the Sapphire Tri-X OC is not cheap, roughly $90 more expensive than the cheapest GTX 980 that is about the same percentage slower in performance. So the Tri-X OC could be an option if you are playing at 1440p and want more performance than what the GTX 980 can offer. However, custom design GTX 980 cards come with quite big overclocks and significant additional overclocking potential, things Fury can not offer. What Fury definitely has going for it is the coolness factor. HBM and the fact that NVIDIA's GTX 980 Ti is all the hype now makes the GTX 980 feel obsolete to some gamers even though it is still a fantastic card. However, the GTX 980 Ti should definitely be on your list should you have more money to spend since it provides more performance for an additional $50. With that said, most 980 Ti custom-design cards are also nosier than the Sapphire Tri-X OC, so Sapphire definitely managed to carve out a nice little market segment where their card can absolutely compete with other offerings.