AMD Radeon R9 Fury X against Nvidia Geforce GTX 980 Ti – three years later

Fliten’s light is on over the test lab. Or, to be honest, over the office dining room. Traces of this summer’s moisture disaster have not yet been removed, so SweClocker’s regular editorial room is more or less unusable.

In which case! On the menu is a juicy load of graphics cards, which will be tormented and hugged on numbers before the autumn launches. Rather than sitting on all the values ​​for The Big Day ™, we want to try to get some quick articles with new angles during the work.

The battle of the giants, as if it were 2015

One of these is about going back three years, to the time when the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X was compared to the Nvidia Geforce GTX 980 Ti. That battle lacked a clear winner on the performance front – the Geforce model pulled away in lower resolution, but AMD’s HBM-equipped worsting caught up when the pixels became more numerous.

So the question is – what does it look like in 2018, with fresh drivers and modern games in the mix? Is it still chopped as stuck, or has one card proved to be the best choice in the long run?

Components of the test systems

As a basis, the editors are rolling out the autumn’s new test system – more about these in a separate article. In short, however, these are really great gaming machines with overclocked Intel Core i7-8700K in the center, plenty of DDR4 memory and fast storage in the M.2 connections.

This is how we carry out the tests

For the actual testing, SweClocker’s fresh gaming suite is used. These are a total of 11 different titles that run in three different resolutions. A total of 10 of these are tested with DirectX 11, and 6 with DirectX 12. In addition, the usual power measurements and other goodies.

At the time of writing, the drivers used are the newest from AMD and Nvidia, respectively. These are Geforce 398.82 WHQL and Radeon Adrenaline Edition 18.8.1. The frame rate is captured with the OCAT software for all titles.

Tests with DirectX 11

First out are the game tests for the DirectX 11 interface. Despite much talk about modern DirectX 12, it is still the aging that dominates, even in new titles. For that reason, the performance here is of course highly interesting.

The FPS values ​​in the table represent the mean value and the lowest value, respectively, where the latter is picked out by the 99th percentile. Best results for each row are highlighted in yellow.

With northern Europe’s longest table completed – really exciting numbers! In the end, the Geforce GTX 980 Ti is the winner in slightly more scenarios, much thanks to the Radeon R9 Fury X having great difficulty at the lowest resolution.

Faced with the situation in 2015, however, things have happened. There, the GTX 980 Ti took home a total of 20 victories against 9 for Fury X in a total of 30 tested scenarios (with a similar result). In other words, a pickup for team AMD.

A quick performance index shows that these are two very equivalent graphics cards, even with today’s games and drivers. Radeon R9 Fury X does not keep up with the lowest resolution, but catches up when the load increases.

Compared to 2015, there are no major differences. Although the distribution between the number of victories has changed somewhat in favor of AMD, the average performance is comparatively more or less the same. Even three years ago, it was about the upper hand for the GTX 980 Ti at the lowest resolution, and pickup for the Radeon R9 Fury X with more pixels.

Tests with DirectX 12

Despite a slow start, DirectX 12 is looking into more and more games. Putting more responsibility on the developers, however, has its downsides – the result is sometimes excellent with nice performance gains, but at least as often half-broken and most annoying.

The FPS values ​​in the table represent the mean value and the lowest value, respectively, where the latter is picked out by the 99th percentile. Best results for each row are highlighted in yellow.

DirectX 12 means revenge for the Radeon R9 Fury X, which takes home by far the most scenarios against the Geforce GTX 980 Ti. As many as 13 of a total of 18, or 72 percent of the tests.

However, not everything is quite as crystal clear as a first glance may point to. Individual games give worse numbers in DirectX 12 compared to DirectX 11, for both AMD and Nvidia. A few more titles give the Radeon R9 Fury X a boost, but let the Geforce GTX 980 Ti lose frame rate compared to the older interface.

Some games also suffer from noticeably more notches and jerks, longer loading times and more crashes when DirectX 12 is enabled. This is especially true of the Radeon R9 Fury X at the two higher resolutions, where 4K UHD is particularly bad – perhaps an effect of the limited amount of graphics memory.

A quick performance index shows what the superior victory in the subtests already suggests – the Radeon R9 Fury X is the winner in two of three resolutions. At 4K UHD, however, the card drops considerably, especially lowered by Tom Clancy’s The Division, which actively collapses with DirectX 12 in total.

Summary – what has changed since 2015?

It is often said that AMD and Nvidia change location and position over time, where above all Radeon is highlighted as the best choice for those who will be sitting on their graphics card for a long time. Therefore, it is fun to sometimes focus on just that – how older competitors stand with modern games, something that often drowns in the tables.

No revolutionary differences

When it comes to the Radeon R9 Fury X and Geforce GTX 980 Ti, most things are the same, with your hand on your heart. There were already two very equivalent cards in terms of pure performance in 2015, and 2018 is about the same. The AMD card picks slightly more victories in the new test suite, but on average the models are still at the same level.

Happily, this means enough performance for 1,920 × 1,080 pixels in most games, even with the settings turned up. Also 2,560 × 1,440 pixels are without a doubt walkable, especially for those who can imagine compromising with the controls.

DirectX 12 has arrived at the party

The big “news” set for 2015 is otherwise DirectX 12, where AMD undoubtedly has more to gain than Nvidia. To stay there and start waving a red flag from the balcony, however, is to take the victory a little in advance.

The new interface gives slightly worse performance than DirectX 11, and offers noticeably more headaches. The problems apply not only to the Radeon R9 Fury X and Geforce GTX 980 Ti, but also significantly more modern graphics cards – more about that in a future article.

Not everything is FPS that shines

The performance aside, even if the figures from the game tests point to continued largely draw, there are also other – more or less flattering – features that survive. The Geforce GTX 980 Ti overclockes significantly better, and was unlike the R9 Fury X in lavish third-party models.

The latter model, on the other hand, was delivered with pre-assembled water cooling, which with a little luck could keep down both temperature and sound level. If it was not an early copy, of course – then the pump howled like a stung pig, something the editors get to experience again … and again … and again.

To tie the knot, we can at least state that no world change has happened in the last three years. At least not when it comes to the performance balance between the previous generation’s big player Radeon R9 Fury X and Geforce GTX 980 Ti.

We already have another special in progress – how about the Radeon R9 290X against the Geforce GTX 780 Ti? Suggestions for more spreads to take a closer look at when we still collect thousands of test values ​​from all possible graphics cards? Tell us in the comments!