Fury X vs GTX 1070 in Battlefield 1 (DX11 and DX12)

We're doing some new benchmarks here in the GPU labs, and now we have finally got some results to share - after weeks of setting up new procedures, and banking some data.

Battlefield 1 is one of the best-looking games on the market, so we've tested two graphics cards for a new GPU showdown. I've tested the HBM1-based AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, against NVIDIA's newer GeForce GTX 1070. This gives us a good look at the best from AMD in their previous generation, while we have the third-best current-gen Pascal-based card from NVIDIA.

The cards we used:

AMD Radeon R9 Fury X (4GB HBM1) - $369 for the XFX version.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5) - $399 for ZOTAC version of Founders Edition.

What we've tested:

Battlefield 1 runs the latest version of the Frostbite engine, and it is one of the best-looking games I've ever seen - and better yet, it scales incredibly well. You don't need an expensive gaming machine to run it at high resolutions, details, and frame rate.

Benchmarks - DX11

Benchmarks - DX12

Performance Analysis - DX11

The two graphics cards that we've compared here today are the $350-$400 range, representing higher-end cards without going to the only other solutions now - the GeForce GTX 1080 and new Titan X. AMD has nothing faster than the Radeon R9 Fury X, except for the Radeon Pro Duo - which isn't a consumer-oriented graphics card.

The performance we're seeing from these cards is way more than enough for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but things are different when you look at 120/144/165/180Hz displays. The higher-end enthusiast panels that I personally recommend for gamers who want more out of their setup, as 60FPS is so yesterday.

At 1080p, we're looking at an average of 100FPS for the Fury X on Ultra settings, while we see 129FPS at Medium. This means that with a few adjustments to the in-game visual settings, you could hit 144FPS on the Fury X at 1080p. But the GTX 1070 just blows those results away (while being cheaper, and there are more variants of the card from various AIB partners) with 137FPS at Medium, and 163FPS on Ultra.

Sitting on 1440p, we see the performance numbers begin to slide down, first with the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X dropping to 52FPS minimum and 72FPS average on Ultra settings. The results are much better on the Medium preset, with 103FPS average. But the GTX 1070 continues to pounce and rip flesh from AMD, with 105FPS average on Ultra details, and a massive 128FPS on Medium.

The real fight is at 4K, with the Radeon R9 Fury X not hitting 60FPS on Ultra settings, achieving 48FPS average while the Medium settings increased that to 64FPS. NVIDIA continues to dominate at 4K, with the GTX 1070 reaching 62FPS average on the Ultra preset making it more than playable at 60FPS+ at 4K while Medium settings jumped to 81FPS average.

Performance Analysis - DX12

AMD swings back in an absolutely massive way with DX12, with the results climbing up much more - and getting very close to the GTX 1070s performance. At 1080p, the Fury X is only 3FPS behind the GTX 1070 at Ultra settings, and 10FPS away on Medium.

At 1440p, the same results are found. AMD swings back into favor with 96FPS on Ultra on the R9 Fury X, while the GTX 1070 is capable of just 3FPS more at 99FPS average. On the Medium settings, the Radeon R9 Fury X is capable of 118FPS average, while the GTX 1070 still beats it easily with 131FPS average.

The 4GB of HBM1 is a limitation for the R9 Fury X at 4K, but thanks to DX12 it's used much more efficiently - beating the GTX 1070. The Radeon R9 Fury X reaches 59FPS, while the GTX 1070 manages just 50FPS - but if you look at the minimum FPS, the Radeon R9 Fury X loses out in a huge way (15FPS versus 39FPS). But dropping to the Medium preset, the R9 Fury X pushes 77FPS at 4K average - a much better result than the DX11 tests, where the R9 Fury X was only capable of 64FPS.

Final Thoughts

There you have it, the GeForce GTX 1070 can pump away at 4K 60FPS+ average on the Ultra preset in Battlefield 1 without a problem. AMD doesn't fare so well, but we are talking about a graphics card that is over a year old, on the 28nm process and only 4GB of VRAM.

Still, AMD keeps up without a problem - so if you have a FreeSync-capable monitor and didn't want to sidegrade to a G-Sync display - the R9 Fury X can handle BF1 quite well. It's obviously not as good as the GTX 1070, but AMD will have next-generation Vega GPU-based graphics card out in the New Year... and we're excited.

As it stands, this article is a showdown between two graphics cards in the $350-$400 range in Battlefield 1 at Medium/Ultra details. We have been testing graphics cards out so much lately that we are building new articles for smaller articles like this that are more 'quick showdowns'. Let us know if you like this content with a comment below!

Last updated: Nov 3, 2020 at 07:12 pm CST