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So now that we have the specification out of the way we can see more and more deillema's spawning. The reality is that the 295X2 we mentioned on the previous page isn't heaps slower (20~30%) compared to the Radeon Pro Duo, yet would be easily be two times cheaper. The Pro Duo 1500+ USD price-tag obviously is not something that appeals to consumers either as you can pick up three R9 Fury cards for the same money and place them in Triple Crossfire (not that we'd whatsoever recommend you to go beyond dual-GPU configuration though).
With that in mind the Radeon pro Duo really should have stuck to being a Professional grade graphics card, as from a consumer point of view the card and this launch just does not make a lot of sense. It is also late to the market. AMD has been fighting it's positioning as well, marketing the card as uber VR solution, while worldwide less (even a much MUCH smaller number) than 1% of the end-users actually own a VR headset. In AMDs defense on this release and their choices, it's not just AMD though. Nvidia had similar dilemma's and experiences with the GeForce Titan Z, which got released but not sampled to media for review. Here at Guru3D for example we had to revert to a 3rd party to get that unit actually reviewed (read review here).
In our believe, this dual-GPU Fury was improperly marketed. Having the AMDs CEO holding a Dual-GPU PCB in front of tech press and the world in a livestream creates expectations.For weeks now AMD has been teasing photo's over facebook, showing the product in a VR setup and then at launch date ... they have nothing available for review. All that teasing created excitement and then at the actual launch they do not want to show the product or have it tested makes everybody's eye-browses frown. AMD stated that its Pro Duo is “specifically designed for gamers who create and creators who game”. We can understand why some are baffled and disappointed about this product release, ourselves included.
In the end, even if people cannot purchase the stallion of the product series, they want benchmarks plain and simple to feast their eyes and look at the awesome stuff that two FIJI GPUs can do. Some numbers have leaked out today though (courtesy of expreview) however even these numbers might simply be two Fury X cards in Crossfire set at 1000 MHz:
The Radeon Pro Duo announcement and release feels like a big marketing miss, AMD created hype, they went viral and all media outlets posted about it. Then at launch AMD doesn't deliver for reasons mentioned in this editorial. For the reader-base, the end-users and the consumers this is beyond dissatisfying to see.
Concluding
For now all we can say is that consumers and end-users should be on the lookout the upcoming Polaris based products, and perhaps steer clear of the Radeon Pro Duo as pretty much that is the message that AMD seems to be relaying today. Perhaps AMD should have called this release the FirePro Pro Duo, and not Radeon (their gamers line of graphics cards) to dim the excitement for consumers and gamers. This release in the end I am afraid ended being a complete anti-climax, which is not good for AMD and their reputation, but certainly not something end-users expected. Most of you guys will be disappointed as to what happened with this release and announcement. It is what it is though. At the moment of writing (launch) the Radeon Pro Duo is not listed in any pricewatch engines and neither can it be found at any of the big e-tailers.
On the next page a photo overview.
