AMD’s HBM Flagship Fury X Launches Today

After an excruciating wait, AMD is finally poised to officially release the mini-behemoth, Fury X, across retail channels today. The embargo lifts at 13.30 GMT for both reviews and availability in stores. However, consumers will face a hefty premium for the initial batch due to a limited supply of units. While the MSRP is $649/£550, retailers have already started price gouging with cards ranging from $670 to a colossal $999. This price hike will come into effect throughout the UK according to Overclockers UK’s Head who predicts “NVIDIA will not move price when AMD has such limited stocks and all resellers are price gouging and sell way over £600 due to such limited stocks.”

AMD has received some criticism of late as the Fury X utilizes HDMI 1.4 instead of 2.0 and cannot display a 60hz refresh rate on 4K Televisions through this interface. I want to reiterate that the Sapphire retail box with a HDMI 2.0 logo circulating around the internet has been photoshopped and AMD currently recommends DisplayPort 1.2a for 4K 60Hz content.

In terms of raw performance, the Fury X is a mysterious beast and priced to compete against the 980 Ti. Given that factory overclocked models such as the G1 Gaming can outperform the Titan X, expectations are high. It’s uncertain if the 4GB HBM will become a bottleneck at 4K in games such as GTA V, Watch Dogs and others which already teeter on exceeding this figure. Arguably, HBM’s bandwidth should assist in tackling higher resolutions and AMD seems to market the Fury X as a 4K capable card.

Will you be picking up the Fury X on launch? If not, what could convince you to upgrade?

Image Courtesy of Hardware Zone Singapore