Air-cooled little brother to the Fury X could be getting ASUS’s high-end triple-fan DirectCU III cooler according to early retailer listings.
A launch is imminent, and technical specs have been leaked, but so far little is known about partner versions of AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury. Each are expected to launch with their own bespoke cooler rather than an AMD reference solution, and each will have to deal with the conflicting aims of cooling a high TDP GPU whilst still taking advantage of the Fiji PRO’s small package.
Image via Guru3D
Today however the picture has become just a little clearer thanks to a (somewhat premature) listing on German retailer site Compute PC Shop. Up for a pre-order price of €625 inc. VAT is the ASUS-STRIX R9FURY-DC3-4G-GAMING, and the SKU formation tells us a little about this card ahead of their official reveal.
First off, it’s a member of the STRIX family, ASUS gaming brand. ASUS appears to be pitching STRIX products more to mainstream and enthusiast gamers over the veteran Republic Of Gamers (ROG) label, which currently seems to be reserved to high-end overclocking parts. As such, it’ll share a livery with the latest STRIX graphics cards – the STRIX R9 390X and STRIX GTX 980 TI.
Secondly: it’s an R9 Fury card, not R9 Fury X, and includes 4GB VRAM. Somewhat elementary, but needed to be said.
Third, it makes use of the latest DirectCU III cooler, currently only present on the ASUS STRIX R9 390X and GTX 980 TI. An evolution of the DirectCU II, this new revision appears in default configuration as a triple-fan cooler with 10mm ‘mega heatpipes’, backplate, and illuminated STRIX LED. Be aware though that there were many different variants to the DirectCU II, so don’t be surprised if the final cooler is a little different that those previously shown off.
Although it’s probably wise not to give too much credence to pre-order pricing this leak would put the R9 Fury ~€100 cheaper than the Fury X and ~€30 more expensive than the ASUS STRIX GTX 980 (with older DC2 cooler). Performance therefore will be key to the card’s success, which we’ll discover in the coming weeks.
SOURCE: GURU3D
