wouldnt there be nothing for the backplate to dissipate heat from?

most of the time backplate has thermal pads for the RAM modules IINM

The cooler didn't cool the VRMs?

yeah but for Fury X, wouldnt the VRAM module be on the die itself? i mean, non HBM cards have their VRAM module soldered on back of PCB, which is why the backplate helps

but theres no back VRAM module from the pictures ive seen, so backplate isnt necessary

well they are metal after all, might be heat conductive

If the card is cool i dont see the issue of needing thermal pads or anything being stuck to the backplate..

Card hardly goes above 50 degrees. Pretty sure AMD that has the expertise to design such a complex chip would know whether or not to add thermal pads to the back plate

970 SLI would be faster than any single card 980.

I'm referring to both the 980 and 980 Ti.

The 980 Ti has speed improvements but it's not suprising that it's behind 970 SLI.

Very few article has such comparison, check out this one http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti-review/

The 970 SLI may lose out when games go beyond the 4GB RAM limitation.

I have the 980 and 980 Ti with me, the Ti does shine when game settings take up a lot of VRAM.

I'm in the same boat as you. Especially the bolded part. The problem is newer games are...boring. Apart from amazing graphics the gameplay/game mechanics/storyline are boring. My highly anticipated game this year is GTA V, because I'm enjoyed San Andreas very very much I never watch a single gameplay or anything related to it before it was released to PC. When it finally out, I find the game lackluster. Amazing graphics yes, but it lacks the fun San Andreas brings. Some mission is just a re-spin from it so there is nothing new regarding it. For the record I finished San Andreas six times, from start to finish, on GTA V I haven't finished the first one yet. The only amazing new games I find interesting these past few years is Metro series. I love the original 2033, the atmosphere, the story, the graphics, it's a rare mix of those three making the game amazing. Game mechanics are a bit wonky where stealth are literally broke in the game but they fixed it in new Redux. Looking ta E3 this year the upcoming games aren't that interesting. Doom 4 looks meh (I love Doom3 BTW despite a lot of hate), Fallout 4 looks exactly like older Fallout, might play this one.

I'm too waiting for next Zen APU to comes out. Hoping they will put the HBM on it. If they really do I can say goodbye to discrete graphics. Even with 500MHz 1024-bit bus first gen HBM netted 128GB/s, a massive improvement over 34GB/s bandwidth from dual channel 2133MHz DDR3 memory.

I just did, thanks. You have a good evening too. Im quite jelly that you got the Fury X but Im not really looking for an upgrade, 290X are fine for my needs. But the temperature improvement is great. Maybe I should bought those AIO adapter for my card.

yeah vapor x will certainly improve cooling to the max on air, damn fury x so tempting  . Id say air cooled fury will certainly give the 980ti a run for its money 

hurm..8gb vs 4gb..even though the difference is quite large..but framerate for 1080p game is not to much difference around 2-5fps..if u got money buy r9 390x(RM1650++)..if ur budget is tight get a r9 290x(RM1300++)

Nobody going to buy that if they price it higher than the Fury X.
Based on AMD 2x Performance/Watt and 175watt TDP claim, i expect the R9 Nano will perform similar or slightly better than the R9-290x.
Green camp have mini GTX 970 at that form factor and performance range.

Meanwhile.. Radeon Fury from Sapphire.

i've anticipated on the huge heatsink will defeat the purpose of short form-factor advantage.  Just because the fury TDP is high, the need of huge heatsink is inevitable.

Looking forward on how AMD managed to do the small heatsink to dissipates Fiji heat on the Nano.

But but.. i'm on the same if not slightly better driver.
Most website use reference 980 Ti.
In before 95c.
No doubt about that.

Very rare to have 980 Ti that can go over 1500Mhz boost
Most are 1400-1500, this isn't 970/980.

i think should be compatible with Fury EK wc, but i dunno about R9 Nano..  board for Fury/x seem to be small enough, just have to wait..

i forgot to ask

updating BIOS, will it void the warranty? 

guys need some insight here, just got a 2nd r9 290 for my cfx configuration, seems asus direct cu 2 cooling is worst than my tri x. any tips to improve it?