Sapphire Tri-X R9 Fury 4GB Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Price

HBM still is a limiting factor when buying a Fury graphics card, however, stock levels are improving. The Sapphire R9 Fury is currently available from OverclockersUK for just £449.99. In the US, it is currently not stocked at one of our recommended stockists, however, prices are expected to be around $549.99.

Overview

So today I had the pleasure of testing Sapphire’s Tri-X version of the R9 Fury. I’m pleased to say that it didn’t disappoint. We already knew that it was a cut back version of the R9 Fury X, so we could estimate the performance and it fell straight in line with our expectations. With the launch of this card, AMD has cemented it’s place at almost all places in the graphics card market, scoring top end performance with the R9 Fury X, high-end with R9 Fury and mid to low end with the R9 300 series. The R9 Fury in particular, was aimed to directly take on the GTX 980 at a similar price point, which it has happily done in most of our tests.

Aesthetically speaking, the card is gorgeous; sharp lines with tasteful splashes of colour AND a backplate. It took a good step with the Tri-X design on the R9 390X and made it even better on this card, the subtle circuit style detailing around the fans ties in with the back plate and the small splashes of colour would now allow the card to fit in with more computer themes.

Performance wise, it was as predicted. It sat just below the R9 Fury X and just above the GTX 980 in most of our tests. It is more than capable of dominating 1080p and 1440p, however, it lacks the grunt to perform well at 4K. Although that could be changed with a few simple quality changes in the games settings. Once the price drops below £400 per card, this would make a brilliant Crossfire option.

With this graphics card, we saw the introduction of HBM. This has proven that the quantity of VRAM isn’t a limiting factor, more of the quality (or bandwidth) of the connection. It has been proven that just 4GB can more than compete on the same level as the 6GB GTX 980Ti and 12GB Titan X. In the next version of HBM, we are keen to see a much higher quantity of VRAM to 6/8/12GB capacities to see what it can really do. The card carries an early adopter premium, but in the next generation of cards, HBM could be introduced within the more mainstream market.

Sadly all cards have a downside and with this it is just the sheer size of it; measuring in at just under 31cm, it is enough to put some buyers off. Maybe they could design a new Tri-X cooler with two conventional mounted fans and one on the end to draw cooler air from inside the case? Something like that would really make the R9 Fury nano pop.

Choosing an award for this card was difficult, it’s obviously not the most powerful nor the cheapest, but then I remembered that for the price it is the most powerful option available.

Pros

• Tri-X cooler keeps everything cool and quiet
• Sapphire build quality
• Bundles of features thanks to Catalyst 15.7 drivers
• Advancement in VRAM technology with HBM
• More competition at the <£500 market segment

Cons

• Large cooling shroud can limit potential customers

“The Sapphire Tri-X R9 Fury is an absolutely storming card, something else to give NVIDIA a real run“