What a few months it's been for AMD. Hope sprang eternal after AMD began to drop details on its latest GPU architecture update, named Fiji, which features an all-new, much-hyped technology called High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). After years of playing second-fiddle to Nvidia in raw performance and power consumption, the promised power savings and huge bandwidth of HBM was to be AMD's saving grace, and a turning point for a company in sore need of a win after a string of multi-million dollar losses.
Unfortunately for AMD, the GPU that emerged, the R9 Fury X, didn't quite cut the mustard. Nvidia's pre-emptive strike with the GTX 980 Ti, which was undoubtedly driven by the imminent launch of the Fury X, put a dampener on AMD's bleeding-edge tech. The Fury X cost the same as a 980 Ti, but it wasn't faster, had less memory, and consumed more power—even if its excellent watercooling system kept temperatures under control. Team Red, it seemed, was in trouble once again.
While the flagship R9 Fury X hogged the hardware headlines, however, the release of its little brother—the R9 Fury—a couple of weeks later was far more interesting. At £450 ($560), the R9 Fury is priced below the £550 ($650) of the Fury X and the GTX 980 Ti, but above the £400 ($520) of the GTX 980, and the £350 ($430) of the R9 390X. That puts it, and AMD, in a slightly odd position: if you can get the Fury (and that tasty HBM) for £450, is there any point in stepping up to the Fury X? And on the other hand, if the Fury is only a smidgen better than a 980 or 390X, why bother spending the extra cash?
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