AMD Radeon Fury X2 Reference Air Cooled?

[btarunr]

AMD, which has been timing its upcoming dual-GPU "Fiji" graphics card to launch sometime this year, may have demoed a production version of the card in one of its launch partners, Falcon Northwest's, Tiki high-end gaming desktop, as a "VR developer box." AMD's Roy Taylor, in a recent tweet, captions a picture of this dev box as being "the world's best DirectX 12 VR developer box," leading the press to speculate that it's running the company's dual-GPU "Fiji" card.

A close look at AMD's VR dev box, through its windowed graphics card compartment, reveals an air-cooled AMD reference graphics card, which VideoCardz' trigonometry pins as being shorter than a Radeon R9 390X reference board. It could be a reference R9 380X, but then a reference dual-GPU "Fiji" PCB is roughly of the same length, and a R9 380X wouldn't earn the title of being the "world's best" from a senior AMD exec while there are faster AMD cards, such as the R9 Fury. The ability of the full-spec "Fiji" silicon to cope well with a rather simple air-cooler in the R9 Nano fans even more speculation that a dual-GPU "Fiji" board could make do with a powerful air-channel cooler.



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[mcraygsx]

I was impressed by 295X2 but this seems amazing for its size.

 

[Azumay]

Could be Hybrid Cooling.

Kind of like this http://www.evga.com/articles/00935/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-TITAN-X-HYBRID/

 

[OolongGoat]

If they can truly keep it cooled on air alone and it doesn't throttle like the Nano does, I am in. I will gladly jump back to AMD for that.

 

[Kanan]

I don't think its the Fury X2 (2x Fiji). Looks like a 390X to me, the picture isn't comparable as the PC is not completely horizontal on the picture, but the 390X on the picture is. In other words: they are equally long, the picture comparison don't works.

But if it's the Fury X2, it's strictly throttled and would run at 700-800 MHz maximum, if on air only. If it's a hybrid, it would run on maximum of 1000 or 1050 MHz, but then again, only 2x 8 pin plugs? That's little, compared to a Fury X with only 1 Fiji GPU that also has 2x 8 pin plugs then, which makes it somewhat unlikely again.

Also don't forget, AMD moved away from that single radial fan construction for dual GPU graphics cards with the 7990. And the 6990 had the fan in the middle, not at the end of the card (because that way both GPUs get fresh air, not only the right one). Thats also a reason why I don't think it's the Fury X2, because it would be a odd move to go back to the cooler construction of HD 5970 all those years ago, basically a flawed/old design compared to the design of the 6990 / 7990 / 295X2.

The last idea I have for it, would be that it's a prototype design of the Fury X2 and the final consumer version will be something with more fans or hybrid air/water, so that the graphics card is better cooled and faster.

PS. "Best" doesn't mean "the fastest". Also another reason why it's most likely not the Fury X2. I think "best" does refer to the size and style of this PC, combined with the hardware in it, not especially the performance of it.

 

[HumanSmoke]

I don't think its the Fury X2 (2x Fiji). Looks like a 390X to me, the picture isn't comparable as the PC is not completely horizontal on the picture, but the 390X on the picture is. In other words: they are equally long, the picture comparison don't works.
But if it's the Fury X2, it's strictly throttled and would run at 700-800 MHz maximum, if on air only.

If Roy Taylor is to be believed ...he quoted 12 TFLOPS performance from the Fury X2. That equates to a clock of 732MHz
732 core speed * (2 * 4096 cores) * 2 ops/clock = 12 TFLOPS

If it's a hybrid, it would run on maximum of 1000 or 1050 MHz, but then again, only 2x 8 pin plugs? That's little, compared to a Fury X with only 1 Fiji GPU that also has 2x 8 pin plugs then, which makes it somewhat unlikely again.

The Fury Nano gets by OK with a single 8-pin, so further downclocking and two 8-pin power should be more than enough.

Also don't forget, AMD moved away from that single radial fan construction for dual GPU graphics cards with the 7990. And the 6990 had the fan in the middle, not at the end of the card (because that way both GPUs get fresh air, not only the right one). Thats also a reason why I don't think it's the Fury X2, because it would be a odd move to go back to the cooler construction of HD 5970 all those years ago, basically a flawed/old design compared to the design of the 6990 / 7990 / 295X2.

True that. A central fan would seem to be a more sensible cooling arrangement. The Falcon Northwest Tiki VR promo doesn't show any air intake that would benefit a conventional blower shroud so it is a little difficult to see why the design would be chosen given (as you say) that air cooling will mean less thermal headroom if only because one of the GPUs would appear to be getting "secondhand" air coming off the first GPU and the power circuitry.

The last idea I have for it, would be that it's a prototype design of the Fury X2 and the final consumer version will be something with more fans or hybrid air/water, so that the graphics card is better cooled and faster.

Possibly more than one cooling solution will be available. A conventional blower shroud might be advantageous for a chassis with through-and-through cooling. AMD could release this as an OEM/reference design, and let AIB's have more leeway with cooling options.

 

[esrever]

Maybe it was because the water cooler didn't work and they had to cancel that so it got delayed. It would also explain the only 12TF rumor.

 

[Devon68]

This cant be the fury x2. There is no way it will be made in the reference design. It's just common sense that a dual gpu cant be cooled by any reference cooler alone.

 

[Ubersonic]

This cant be the fury x2. There is no way it will be made in the reference design. It's just common sense that a dual gpu cant be cooled by any reference cooler alone.

You would be surprised, until fairly recently dual GPU cards always used reference coolers. Technically speaking it's normal for a dual GPU card to have ~1.5x the TDP of the single cards, which means the Fury X2 should (assuming it's two nanos) have ~260w tdp. That's only 10w more than a reference GTX980ti, Titan X, HD7970, etc.

 

[Musaab]

Maybe there are two water blocks for the GPUs and memory and blower fan to cool the other components.

 

[Absolution]

Maybe there are two water blocks for the GPUs and memory and blower fan to cool the other components.

GTX Titan X is 375W TDP
R9 Fury x2 is also estimated at 350-375W

Could work with an air cooler? They seem to be sacrificing core clock for that purpose.

 

[Musaab]

GTX Titan X is 375W TDP
R9 Fury x2 is also estimated at 350-375W

Could work with an air cooler? They seem to be sacrificing core clock for that purpose.

Sir your argument has alot of power. And for any thing less than 400 watts there is an air cooling solution, the only problem is the fan.

 

[PP Mguire]

Titan X is 250W TDP.

 

[64K]

Titan X is 250W TDP.

He probably meant to type Titan Z with 375 watt TDP.

 

[Musaab]

He probably meant to type Titan Z with 375 watt TDP.

Probably

 

[PP Mguire]

He probably meant to type Titan Z with 375 watt TDP.

Yea I'm assuming the same thing, but the pic shows an OG Titan so little confused on that

Titan Z was really underclocked and 3 slots. Air cooling wasn't the best choice for that card.

 

[GhostRyder]

That seems like a step into the past if they are really doing a blower design going from one end to the other similar to how cards like the HD 4870X2 were. If they really don't have a hybrid cooler under there or that is the design I am going to be a little bit confused at this choice because it would seem like a step backwards in design (Unless there is some magic under the hood).

I believe this is just a place holder video card and they are just advertising it as being the dual GPU Fiji saying it will be there eventually (Or its a temporary cooler). They probably are hiding their actual dual GPU Fiji card until they are more ready to release information on it.

The Fury Nano gets by OK with a single 8-pin, so further downclocking and two 8-pin power should be more than enough.

The R9 295X2 gave the middle finger to the power specifications before so I would not find it hard to believe they would be unwilling to do it again.

 

[Absolution]

Whoops my bad, where I got the 375W was referring to total system consumption. It is 250W indeed.

 

[RejZoR]

2x R9 Nano on one PCB seems fiesible.

 

[Musaab]

There's a big possibility that you are right

That seems like a step into the past if they are really doing a blower design going from one end to the other similar to how cards like the HD 4870X2 were. If they really don't have a hybrid cooler under there or that is the design I am going to be a little bit confused at this choice because it would seem like a step backwards in design (Unless there is some magic under the hood).

I believe this is just a place holder video card and they are just advertising it as being the dual GPU Fiji saying it will be there eventually (Or its a temporary cooler). They probably are hiding their actual dual GPU Fiji card until they are more ready to release information on it.


The R9 295X2 gave the middle finger to the power specifications before so I would not find it hard to believe they would be unwilling to do it again.

 

[Steevo]

Considering the size of the Nano, it itsn't hard to imagine this is a Tiki or whatever the name for a dual Fury card is, and considering how easily the water cooling cooled the Fury and the few complaints about the nano with air cooling they may be using one core to run each eye and only require 1Ghz core speed on binned chips.

The binned chip is probably how and why its feasible.

 

[nickbaldwin86]

so this is great for small form factor...

When is the Titan X2 coming out?

 

[PP Mguire]

so this is great for small form factor...

When is the Titan X2 coming out?

Probably never at this point because they're moving to Pascal. Unless you mean Pascal Titan, then looking like this time 2017.

 

[nickbaldwin86]

pfft I am sure they have it engineered they just need to sell it... but yeah was honestly more of a joke then a real question because it will likely never happen. NVidia rarely releases 2xGPU cards... and I really never thought any of them were worth it.

 

[64K]

pfft I am sure they have it engineered they just need to sell it... but yeah was honestly more of a joke then a real question because it will likely never happen. NVidia rarely releases 2xGPU cards... and I really never thought any of them were worth it.

Nvidia releases dual GPU cards on a petty regular basis. 9800 GX2, GTX 295, GTX 590, GTX 690 and Titan Z. Frankly I'm a bit surprised that they haven't released a dual Titan X but they may not believe it will sell well especially if they already have a Pascal Titan lined up to release this summer. They may do it anyway. I have no idea how well the Titan Z sold but there is only one member here that I know of that bought one at $3,000 I think they are going for around $1,500 new right now.