AMD r9 fury better than Titan black sli?

bakes0310 · 8 Mar 2016 at 19:02

As title looking at the AMD r9 fury to tide me over till next year's nvidias cards are out. Is this more of a side grade rather than an upgrade compared to my titan black sli?

Panos · 8 Mar 2016 at 19:39

You mean FuryX/Nano yes?

Rroff · 8 Mar 2016 at 19:43

Tricky one - the 6GB of VRAM will be helping the blacks but you are up against how well SLI is supported in any given title. In terms of playability assuming average level of multi GPU performance there probably isn't much in it.

rtho782 · 8 Mar 2016 at 19:45

I'd take SLI TBs over a single fury, or even a fury X.

Titan Black should give 980 a run for it's money, 980ti = 1.5x 980, 980 SLI > 980ti, 980ti > fury x.

bakes0310 · 8 Mar 2016 at 19:45

How about against a single 980ti?

Boomstick777 · 8 Mar 2016 at 19:54

Can't beat the Nano right now for price VS performance. The best card this gen imho. I've tried them all, and I would take 4GB HBM over GDDR5 anyday.

Radox-0 · 8 Mar 2016 at 19:59

I would just stick with the Titan blacks to be honest. They are equivalent to what a 970 / 980 and where sli is supported half decently there is no single card that would outperform it really.

David Bisset · 8 Mar 2016 at 20:23

if you were looking to buy either setup now I'd say Nano happily, but with already owning the blacks then stick with them, sidegrade. Yes, single GPU setups are better and it's faster than one, but when working properly the Blacks will be faster so that helps mitigate the loss of smoothness.

bakes0310 · 8 Mar 2016 at 20:56

Okay cheers guys ill hold on and wait for next years pascal titans or Ti.

Ian Evey · 8 Mar 2016 at 21:50

Boomstick777 said:
Can't beat the Nano right now for price VS performance. The best card this gen imho. I've tried them all, and I would take 4GB HBM over GDDR5 anyday.

You see, statements like this are a little confusing to me. How is hbm better than gddr5 this gen, when it really does not make much difference with comparable nvidia cards that dont have hbm.

I dont think the fury and nano cards would be any slower on gddr5.

drunkenmaster · 8 Mar 2016 at 23:48

Ian Evey said:
You see, statements like this are a little confusing to me. How is hbm better than gddr5 this gen, when it really does not make much difference with comparable nvidia cards that dont have hbm.

I dont think the fury and nano cards would be any slower on gddr5.

They would simply because the same bandwidth would take 40-50W more than achieved through HBM, meaning within the cards cooling and power limit that 40-50W can be used for the GPU instead. It's why Fiji is doing so exceptionally well in power and performance comparisons in general. Fury X seems to be beating the 980ti quite handily in The Division and multiple newer games, particularly at 4k.

Nano itself couldn't be on anywhere near as small a PCB or cooler without HBM being used instead of GDDR5. GDDR5 would literally require a much bigger PCB and the small cooler couldn't achieve the performance it does if the memory and vrm's were pumping out 60-70W extra in heat.

Geeman1979 · 9 Mar 2016 at 00:15

Ian Evey said:
You see, statements like this are a little confusing to me. How is hbm better than gddr5 this gen, when it really does not make much difference with comparable nvidia cards that dont have hbm.

I dont think the fury and nano cards would be any slower on gddr5.

That's Boom for ya! Every card he buys is the best thing since slice bread.

Kaapstad · 9 Mar 2016 at 00:49

Ian Evey said:
You see, statements like this are a little confusing to me. How is hbm better than gddr5 this gen, when it really does not make much difference with comparable nvidia cards that dont have hbm.

I dont think the fury and nano cards would be any slower on gddr5.

Probably faster on GDDR5.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 9 Mar 2016 at 00:59

In terms of value the Titan Black cards are already two generations old - once Pascal drops they will be three generations old and the price will crash.

If I were the OP I would ditch them now while they still have value - on the famous auction site you can still get around £280 to £380 each for them used.

Ian Evey · 9 Mar 2016 at 09:24

drunkenmaster said:
They would simply because the same bandwidth would take 40-50W more than achieved through HBM, meaning within the cards cooling and power limit that 40-50W can be used for the GPU instead. It's why Fiji is doing so exceptionally well in power and performance comparisons in general. Fury X seems to be beating the 980ti quite handily in The Division and multiple newer games, particularly at 4k.

Nano itself couldn't be on anywhere near as small a PCB or cooler without HBM being used instead of GDDR5. GDDR5 would literally require a much bigger PCB and the small cooler couldn't achieve the performance it does if the memory and vrm's were pumping out 60-70W extra in heat.

Totally understand your reasoning

does a fury need all that bandwidth though.

Seems to be doing good at higher res thats for sure.

I thought hbm would set a new performance benchmark but the alternative is just as fast give or take few fps.

nashathedog · 9 Mar 2016 at 09:45

Based on how my Fury Tri-x is super quiet and cool and the amount of reports I've seen saying the opposite for the Nano I wouldn't go that route but, based on the price of the Fury x and Fury pro I wouldn't go that route either, I wouldn't move from the Titan Blacks if I had them and if I had too I'd look to spend as little as possible to tide me over until later in the year.

David Bisset · 9 Mar 2016 at 10:24

Kaapstad said:
Probably faster on GDDR5.

I've seen you make this type of comment in a bunch of threads, predicated on 1080p performance not being as much higher as bigger resolutions and your assumption being that HBM is to blame.

There is nothing apart from cost & capacity that GDDR5 does better than HBM. Yes, the frequency numbers for the older tech are higher but in no scenario does that give it an advantage. HBM matches or beats it for latency and beats it on sustained throughput.

Yes, AMD scale better at higher resolutions but that is also true for their 390's which don't use HBM.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 9 Mar 2016 at 10:48

Like I said earlier - sell them while they still have value! For the price they are selling for you could probably not only get a Fury with money in hand probably but just about enough for a GTX980TI.

Kaapstad · 9 Mar 2016 at 10:54

David Bisset said:
I've seen you make this type of comment in a bunch of threads, predicated on 1080p performance not being as much higher as bigger resolutions and your assumption being that HBM is to blame.

There is nothing apart from cost & capacity that GDDR5 does better than HBM. Yes, the frequency numbers for the older tech are higher but in no scenario does that give it an advantage. HBM matches or beats it for latency and beats it on sustained throughput.

Yes, AMD scale better at higher resolutions but that is also true for their 390's which don't use HBM.

So why the awful 1080p performance on the Fury cards -

Answer HBM1 and low clock speeds.

AMD does not scale better at high resolution, it is the other way round and scales worse at low resolution compared to NVidia cards.

nashathedog · 9 Mar 2016 at 12:25

That's how it looks to me too, HBM cards do not perform well at low res's in relation to Hawaii/Grenada cards or the competition.

Grenada may have an advantage against the competiton at higher res's because of the 512 bit bus which fares well against the 256 bit 980.