Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 And 980 Review: Maximum Maxwell

[cleeve]

Nvidia shows us what second-gen Maxwell architecture can do with its new GM204 chip and the GeForce GTX 970 and 980 graphics cards that wield it.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 And 980 Review: Maximum Maxwell : Read more

 

[Vivecss]

Wow.......

 

[lancear15]

I was waiting for Tom's review to make my final decision, the 980 is definitely going into my current 5960x build! I cant wait.

 

[HKILLER]

so how long before you do a round up?i mean this time i've seen some pretty crazy looking cards (Zotac's Extreme AMP! edition looks crazy and the Inno3D too)and EVGA has shown off ACX 2.0 which they claim to be the most efficient GPU air cooler in the world...so many to choose from also EVGA FTW has been nicely overclocked i've seen it performing almost on par with 980

 

[realibrad]

byt he way... Last page 2nd sentence after the graph of Avg game performance.

I was hoping for more performance but the efficiency is quite nice. They just put pressure on the top end and gave us a price reduction, instead of overall performance gains.

 

[balister]

Very nice, but I still want to see what the power consumption along with what might be possible with the drop to 20nm (since this is still 28nm).

Likely, we're going to see a Maxwell Titan equivalent come in the next year or so as these are a x04 much like Kepler with the 670/80s were and we're still going to be waiting to see what the x10 will be with the Maxwell architecture.

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

Why didn't you include an overclocking comparison? Why didn't you include the 780, but included the 770? Doesn't make much sense...

 

[vertexx]

970 is the real story until the 980ti comes out - what a value proposition with the 970!

Good stuff here - but you guys were a bit slow on this one. Tom's Hardware is the first site I visit every morning. But with the delay of this article, I've been all over the net this morning on other sites that got their stuff out sooner.

 

[daveys93]

Will there be a follow-up article about overclocking these cards? Other sites are showing results that both of the new cards are capable of 1500+ MHz on air (aftermarket coolers and even a few with stock coolers), which is a massive overclock. Looks like NVIDIA left the door open for some decent voltage increases, but many results have been in the 1450-1500 MHz range at stock voltage. I am a big fan of the thoroughness of Tom's articles so I am very interested in seeing overclocking results and analysis from this site.

 

[nikolajj]

I need this...

 

[tobalaz]

I want a 970, wow!
That's some flat out insane price / performance ratio right there!

 

[cleeve]

[quotemsg=14204988,0,671978]Why didn't you include an overclocking comparison? Why didn't you include the 780, but included the 770? Doesn't make much sense...[/quotemsg]

Same answer to both... no time.

We literally got the 970 for testing yesterday. The 980, we got the day before. We barely got the article out by this morning.

For those of you who want more info, we'll be spending more time with the GeForce GTX 980 and 970 in the weeks to come, don't you worry.

 

[BigMack70]

Since we know this is only the mid-size Maxwell chip (just like GK104 vs GK110), shouldn't this article title be "Medium Maxwell"?

I'm waiting for the real Maximum Maxwell myself. Unimpressed with these xxx04 launches from Nvidia.

 

[EnkiduW]

Wonder what dual 970's would look like, the price is not that bad...

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

Why didn't you include an overclocking comparison? Why didn't you include the 780, but included the 770? Doesn't make much sense...

 

[vertexx]

[quotemsg=14205062,0,1765452]Wonder what dual 970's would look like, the price is not that bad...[/quotemsg]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/

Depending on resolution, dual 970's are roughly equal to the 295x2 at only 2/3's the price.

 

[Novuake]

Performance aside, which OBVIOUSLY is stellar for current price/performance consideration.

The features that Nvidia has been rolling out constantly has been quite impressive, while many of them do not appeal to me at all, the sheer amount and in most cases quality of them is insane.

Well done Nvidia. Let's see what AMD responds with, my next main gaming machine purchase as of now are 2 x Nvidia GTX970.

EDIT : Im sure that its a good upgrade to my 2 x HD7950s

 

[Novuake]

[quotemsg=14205041,0,21257][quotemsg=14204988,0,671978]Why didn't you include an overclocking comparison? Why didn't you include the 780, but included the 770? Doesn't make much sense...[/quotemsg]

Same answer to both... no time.

We literally got the 970 for testing yesterday. The 980, we got the day before. We barely got the article out by this morning.

For those of you who want more info, we'll be spending more time with the GeForce GTX 980 and 970 in the weeks to come, don't you worry.
[/quotemsg]

Thank you! That answered a question I had in a previous GTX980/970 tease on the live news feed.

Do you guys have this problem often with Nvidia? You always seem to have fewer Nvidia board partner variaty and slower review releases on Nvidia GPUs.
More so than other websites.

 

[vertexx]

[quotemsg=14205119,0,554342][quotemsg=14205041,0,21257][quotemsg=14204988,0,671978]Why didn't you include an overclocking comparison? Why didn't you include the 780, but included the 770? Doesn't make much sense...[/quotemsg]

Same answer to both... no time.

We literally got the 970 for testing yesterday. The 980, we got the day before. We barely got the article out by this morning.

For those of you who want more info, we'll be spending more time with the GeForce GTX 980 and 970 in the weeks to come, don't you worry.
[/quotemsg]

Thank you! That answered a question I had in a previous GTX980/970 tease on the live news feed.

Do you guys have this problem often with Nvidia? You always seem to have fewer Nvidia board partner variaty and slower review releases on Nvidia GPUs.
More so than other websites.[/quotemsg]

My bets are that no NVidia GPUs on the best GPU's for the $$ for the past several months earned Tom's a slight delay in the delivery of these GPUs.

 

[Novuake]

[quotemsg=14205132,0,1293856]
My bets are that no NVidia GPUs on the best GPU's for the $$ for the past several months earned Tom's a slight delay in the delivery of these GPUs. [/quotemsg]

Nah, doubt Nvidia is that petty.

More publicity is exactly that, more publicity.

Tom's has been around a long time and is trusted by A LOT of people.
Doubt Nvidia would compromise the user base.

 

[Nossy]

Nvidia and Intel are so way ahead of AMD...

 

[oxiide]

[quotemsg=14204988,0,671978]Why didn't you include an overclocking comparison? Why didn't you include the 780, but included the 770? Doesn't make much sense...[/quotemsg]

Agreed that overclocking would have been interesting to see. But would including the 780 have added anything to this? The GTX 970 is already faster than an R9 290X.

The 770, at least, allows us to see the direct improvement from one x70 card to its replacement. Especially when they're approximately the same price.

 

[Novuake]

Just read some of the benches again, dear lord those number at that price. Can not get over it...

Now lets see if they can satisfy my overclocking needs.

Hurry up with that portion Cleeve!
When can we expect it?

 

[legokill101]

and just to add on while I am very excited about the better price/performance and performance per watt I would honestly say that while the increased efficiency is great, most enthusiast run a single gpu in a full atx case with ample airflow and because of that, I feel like features and price/performance, tend to dictate most purchases of gpu, not performance for watt (which isn't to say its not a good thing)

 

[Novuake]

[quotemsg=14205156,0,118801]Nvidia and Intel are so way ahead of AMD...
[/quotemsg]

Don't count AMD out of the GPU world yet, they still need to respond with their release.

As for AMD CPUs, I have given up in the enthusiast market, but still have high hopes for low cost and low power APUs bringing affordable gaming to mobile devices.