The ultimate 4K showdown: Radeon R9 Fury X Quad Crossfire vs. Titan X Quad SLI

We’re only expecting 8K displays to arrive in 2018, so for the moment, 4K gaming is the single screen pinnacle.

More than that, games just look so much better at ultra-high resolutions, but 4K gaming, or UltraHD gaming as it’s otherwise called, comes at a hefty price.

But let’s for a moment imagine we have all the money in the world, and we want nothing but the best of the best. Just what sort of graphical grunt would one need?

Should we go for AMD’s latest Radeon R9 Fury X, or how about the slightly older NVIDIA brute, the GTX Titan X? You might even want to consider the GTX 980 Ti.

Let’s find out, shall we?

Which card(s) should you get?

Radeon R9 Fury X Quad Crossfire vs. Titan X Quad SLI. Image courtesy of DGLee IYD.KR

Thanks to DGLee over at the site IYD.KR, we have a comprehensive set of benchmarks for the three cards in their single, dual, tri and quad variations at 1080p, 2160p and 4K.

Quad R9 Fury X vs Quad TITAN X – 4K UltraHD – 3840 x 2160. Image courtesy of DGLee IYD.KR.

It’s no surprise that the Radeon R9 Fury X’s HBM memory and its incredible bandwidth gives it an advantage at resolutions as high as 3840 x 2160.

We know that the GTX Titan X is a faster card in general, so we imagine that the card’s lesser bandwidth is bottlenecking it, keeping it behind the R9 Fury X. That said, it’s a perfectly valid reason to opt for the R9 Fury X, 4k gaming that is.

It does seem, however, that the scaling is perhaps more important than the bandwidth because in single card configurations, the Titan X beats out the Fury X. So if you’re going to get one card, the Titan X is still the one to beat.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of AMD’s offering is how well four cards scale and work in unison. They seem to do a much better job of it than NVIDIA’s

Quad R9 Fury X vs Quad TITAN X – 2160p QuadHD – 2560 x 1440. Image courtesy of DGLee IYD.KR.

At QuadHD resolutions, that is 2560 x 1440, the Radeon R9 Fury X’s bandwidth advantages means a lot less, but its superior multiple card scaling is still enough to garner it the lead.

Just keep in mind that with a single card, and the factor of scaling eliminated, the GTX 980 Ti and GTX Titan X handily trounce the AMD upstart.

Quad R9 Fury X vs Quad TITAN X – 1080p FullHD – 1920 x 1080. Image courtesy of DGLee IYD.KR.

At 1080p, NVIDIA’s architecture is clearly on top. With scaling mattering far less at 1920 x 1080, the R9 Fury X falls behind both of NVIDIA’s cards.

And when it comes to single configurations, well R9 Fury X is at a pretty noticeable disadvantage.

The GTX 980 Ti is easily our favourite here, offering a similar performance to the GTX Titan X but at a considerably lower price point.

Speaking of prices.

So just how much is a Quad SLI/Crossfire setup going to cost? A lot.

We perused the interwebs in the search for the cheapest GTX Titan X and R9 Fury X we could find, without having to go through backchannels the normal everyday consumer wouldn’t have access to.

The cheapest R9 Fury X we could find was the Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury X, on offer at RebelTech for R11,402 and the dirt cheap, not really, PowerColor AX R9 Fury X from Wootware for a paltry R9, 999.

PowerColor AX R9 Fury X

As for the GTX Titan X. Wootware is offering the Galax GTX Titan X for R15, 499, and RebelTech has the very same card for R500 more at R15, 959.

Galax GTX Titan X

A quick number crunch puts the Quad Crossfire setup at around R40, 000 and the SLI setup at a mind-boggling R62, 000.

We’d honestly recommend that if you’re strapped enough to afford a 4-way GPU setup and insist on going NVIDIA, rather get a GTX 980 Ti. It’s very nearly as fast as the Titan X and a lot closer to the Fury X in price.

In fact, if you buy the Galax GTX 980 Ti HOF from Wootware, you’ll get it for the same price as PowerColor’s R9 Fury X, R9, 999.

Galax GTX 980 Ti HOF

And if you thought that all you needed was four excessively expensive graphics cards, then think again. You’re also going to need a capable motherboard, a CPU that won’t bottleneck all of that horsepower and a very expensive PSU.

Just to put that into context, the PSU alone will likely set you back another R3, 000+

At the very least, you’ll need a 1200w PSU, and a decent one at that. Take Seasonic’s X 1250W for example; it’s a cool R3, 114 at RebelTech.

That said, even a 1250w is cutting it pretty fine; you’re going to push your PSU at times, many of which will get loud and live shorter lives as a result.

So what you really want is something like Corsair’s AXi 1500w, a fantastic PSU, but one that will set you back R5, 531 at Wootware and R5, 463 at RebelTech.

Corsair AX1500i 1500w

You’re looking to pay over R100K, but you knew that already.

This is not the first time we’ve covered hardware on the scarier side of the R100, 000 line: remember Northwest Falcon’s Tiki or the rig you’d need to do 12K gaming – the PC we imaginatively called the Mega Super Ultra Omega Hyper Rig of Destiny.

Who’s feeling wealthy?

Source: WCCF Tech, Feature image courtesy of MAHSPOONIS2BIG

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