Conclusion

Having a quick look at the results shows, the advantages towards the R9 390X CrossFire configuration are overall significant. At FullHD the R9 390X CrossFire is on average 13% quicker than the FuryX and at 1440p and 2160p (UHD) the difference is 24% and 35%, respectively. Averaging the three resolution values results in a 23.6% advantage towards the R9 390X CrossFire. It's interesting to observe that at FullHD the gap between the R9 390X CrossFire and the FuryX is the smallest and it gradually increases to UHD. Apparently this has something to do with the fact, that the two R9 390X cards feature 8GB of VRAM each, whereas the FuryX only comes with 4GB of graphics memory. Especially at UHD and the settings we use, we see that almost every game requires more than 4GB of VRAM, which in the end bottlenecks the FuryX's performance.

Comparing the power consumption of these two cards shows what was to be expected. The two R9 390X burn quite a lot of power especially under load. In idle the system with the two R9 390X pulls 8 Watt less from the wall than the FuryX (70W vs. 78W), which was a surprise to us. Comparing the load values, then is a significant difference, since the system with R9 390X CrossFire configuration pulls 635W compared to 405W looking at the figures with FuryX. Bottom line: two R9 390X CrossFire really do need a lot of energy especially under load, which means that such a system is anything but energy efficient.

For now we've had a look at the performance and power consumption, which means it's about time to consider the price. These days two AMD Radeon R9 390X sell for 632 Euro and one AMD Radeon R9 FuryX costs 588 Euro. In other words this means, that the R9 390X CrossFire is 7% more expensive, while at the same time performing on average 23.6% better. Apparently you'll quickly be paying that price difference with your electricity bill if you decide to buy two R9 390X cards over one R9 FuryX. Apart from that the only real benefit you'll see is with UHD resolution, since most of the games become playable at even higher levels of details than with the FuryX. In all other cases the single FuryX is very well capable of pumping out enough frames per second for a smooth gaming experience.