Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Review

[ak47jar3d]

Since I have only a 1080p monitor I don't need this unless I play on multiple monitors which I don't. AMD needs to get their act together. They are basically letting their competition take all of their market share by leaving a giant vacuum with nothing to compete against the GTX 900 series. Also, they have been absent with driver support and encouraging more game developers to use mantle which shouldn't be a big deal since the PS4 and Xbone both use GCN gpu. AMD has run ATI into the ground.

Yes, it wasn't the brightest idea to let the 900 nvidia based uncontested for 8 months without amd releasing a new line of gpus. Lack of drivers support hasn't help starting with watch dogs. Amd basically gave up on mantle and accepted that dx is superior. If rumors are true, most of the 300 series will be rebrands which is silly since nvidia released new card for every card about the 750 ti in their lineup.

 

[mapesdhs]

Chris/Igor, just curious, has AMD fixed the CF/DX9 issue yet? This was talked about a lot last year and earlier, but review sites seem to have forgotten about it.

Thanks for the article! Would be good if you could add 970 SLI data though, and I agree with others that the Titan X should be updated with newer drivers for a fair comparison.

Even if the 390X is quicker/cheaper, I'd still get a 980 Ti given the choice. Every time I bench with AMD cards, the drivers keep doing stupid things, especially when switching CF on/off.

Oh, as usual, I have to laugh at the suggested 980 Ti launch price. $650 eh? Not in the UK, it's the equivalent of $850 here (the 1190MHz EVGA is $940), while the 980 still hovers at over $600. Titan X is $1300+.

Someone mentioned they missed the days of generally cheaper top-end GPUs, and I agree. Seems like we've all forgotten how the 580 launched at $500 RRP (though there was initial price gouging back then too). Now a top-end GPU is 2.5X more.

And in 2010, for those who couldn't afford a 580, two 460s were quicker, much cheaper and nicely affordable. Feels like that era has totally gone. Looking at what's available right now, it irks me that there's nothing between a 960 and a 970, and there's quite a price gap aswell. The 960 is too slow and not enough RAM, while the 970 is too expensive (I'm looking for something to upgrade a friend's 460 SLI). Hopefully prices will fall after AMD's new launch, or maybe we'll see a 960 Ti.

Not buying AMD though, the drivers just aren't good enough. If AMD wants to gain back market share, before performance, noise & power, they need reliable/stable drivers. Without that stability, no amount of funky performance can make up for CTDs, glitches & bugs.

Ian.

 

[uglyduckling81]

Chris/Igor, just curious, has AMD fixed the CF/DX9 issue yet? This was talked about a lot last year and earlier, but review sites seem to have forgotten about it.

Thanks for the article! Would be good if you could add 970 SLI data though, and I agree with others that the Titan X should be updated with newer drivers for a fair comparison.

Even if the 390X is quicker/cheaper, I'd still get a 980 Ti given the choice. Every time I bench with AMD cards, the drivers keep doing stupid things, especially when switching CF on/off.

Oh, as usual, I have to laugh at the suggested 980 Ti launch price. $650 eh? Not in the UK, it's the equivalent of $850 here (the 1190MHz EVGA is $940), while the 980 still hovers at over $600. Titan X is $1300+.

Someone mentioned they missed the days of generally cheaper top-end GPUs, and I agree. Seems like we've all forgotten how the 580 launched at $500 RRP (though there was initial price gouging back then too). Now a top-end GPU is 2.5X more.

And in 2010, for those who couldn't afford a 580, two 460s were quicker, much cheaper and nicely affordable. Feels like that era has totally gone. Looking at what's available right now, it irks me that there's nothing between a 960 and a 970, and there's quite a price gap aswell. The 960 is too slow and not enough RAM, while the 970 is too expensive (I'm looking for something to upgrade a friend's 460 SLI). Hopefully prices will fall after AMD's new launch, or maybe we'll see a 960 Ti.

Not buying AMD though, the drivers just aren't good enough. If AMD wants to gain back market share, before performance, noise & power, they need reliable/stable drivers. Without that stability, no amount of funky performance can make up for CTDs, glitches & bugs.

Ian.

Nvidia drivers are far from perfect. They release them a lot more regularly but often I'm having to roll back to older drivers due to bugs. The new TW3 driver for instance causes my PC to crash every 2-5 minutes whilst playing TW3. Had roll back to the GTA5 driver, set up a game profile to enable max power performance instead of the default adaptive and uninstall Geforce Experience to be able to play. It's an annoyance that happens so often I'm tempted to change to Red Team for my next card. I have no brand loyalty though and will simply buy which ever card is best in my price range at the time. If it's an even pick I'm going Red this time though to get away from these shitty Nvidia drivers.

 

[alextheblue]

Of course, if you activate HairScam, then of course the AMD card crumble...

The worst is that it is not even good looking.

As someone else mentioned you can tweak it in your drivers if you're using AMD and you still want to use it. Go in the drivers and override max tessellation factor. The highest I'd put it is 16x, it looks indistinguishable. If you've got a slightly older Nvidia card that doesn't have mega-tessellation performance you may simply have to disable it if it doesn't run well - you can't adjust anything in Nvidia's drivers. It's on 100% 64x or it's off.

Quit your fanboy antic's AMD did the same thing in Tomb Raider with Tress FX this time they got caught with their pants down.

Not quite! Tress FX is open source - anyone can optimize for it easily. Nvidia included! Nvidia's proprietary code is closed to AMD. Also as I mentioned before Hair Wreck destroys performance on a lot of last-gen Nvidia cards (I knew a couple of people who were unhappy about that) and there's no adjustment in the game or in Nvidia's drivers. So you have to disable it in many cases even on Nvidia cards.

 

[f-14]

was looking good until i saw the 384 bit and 256 bit memory bus, that's the bottle neck a flag ship like this should be 512/448 bit memory bus, 384 is for the X70 series 256 bit for the x60's and 192 bit for the X50's and everything below that 128bit.

it's like the intel core i-7 series but handicapped to the 32bit because at that speed it still runs a few circles around amd's flagship stuff so incase amd makes any big athlon 256/512 bit break out again nvidia can just bump that bit lane interface and either be back on top for catch up.

 

[ShawnT007]

Great review TH keep it up!

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I believe your drivers were wrongly installed since your 295x is running worst then your 290x. You see 70-80% difference when CF is enabled. I know there was 2 sets of drivers circulating as 15.5. One of them was leaked and missing the CF profile of the game. The real ones had only been released on the 31 of May.

Looks like everybody installing wrong ... there's be a fix issued soon Im sure.

 

[Pokemonking81]

Does anyone know if the 980ti is can run games on on ultra and get above 60 fps on triple 1080p??

 

[randomizer]

Who the hell use AA at 4k...? That should be removed from your future 4k benchmarks.

I would if I had cash to burn on a 4k monitor and flagship cards. I remember people asking basically the same question about 2560x1440 not long ago. AA is valuable at any resolution if you don't downsample. I only accept aliasing when I can't afford the drop in performance from AA (which is unfortunately quite often).

Looking at what's available right now, it irks me that there's nothing between a 960 and a 970, and there's quite a price gap aswell. The 960 is too slow and not enough RAM, while the 970 is too expensive (I'm looking for something to upgrade a friend's 460 SLI).

I'm in the same boat. I have a GTX 560 Ti 448 and am looking for something to tide me over for another 12-18 months. The 960 would be fine if I played at 1920x1080 but for 2560x1440 it just isn't quite up to scratch. At $440+shipping a 970 is a pricey stopgap though.

 

[steve4king]

And still no dp1.3?

The 980ti can't max out demanding games at uhd. The display port 1.2 is enough for a card that calibar.

Some of these benchmarks are breaking 60fps,(Even without SLI) those frames are thrown away. But it only really frustrates me because it's a potential and unnecessary bottleneck, and until a major player like NVidia starts pushing the 1.3 standard, we're going to be stuck with a bunch of needlessly limited cards and monitors.

 

[palladin9479]

Well looks like EVGA is making a Hydro copper version of the 980 Ti, and I might replace my dual 780 Hydro's with a pair of these.

 

[94_xj]

I feel your pain. USA isn't the answer though; Michigan at least where I live. 2 degrees, EE and CS, stuck as a contract engineer for an automotive company with my college loans taking out enough to were my take home pay is just above minimum wage. What is really sad is that my wife is Chinese and I'm actually considering moving there just to find a better job because there just isn't one here.

Not sure where you're stuck but I, too, am in MI. Went to college for 6 years (messed around for 2), graduated with minimal debt. I now have none and am making plenty working for an automotive company. Not sure how you got in such a hole.

 

[mapesdhs]

Nvidia drivers are far from perfect. They release them a lot more regularly but often I'm having to roll back to older drivers due to bugs. ...

Of course, but they're a heck of a lot better than AMD's. You're talking about bugs that occur with new game releases, but that always happens. I'm talking about long term issues that just never seem to go away. With AMD's drivers, switching CF on/off keeps making weird things happening, like applications hang, long pauses, I have to restart some apps, visual desktop glitches, etc. during benchmark runs I've also seen a lot more CTDs with AMD's drivers. This sort of thing is far less of a problem with NV's drivers. I've dealt with a lot of different GPUs from both sides, it's a clear difference in my experience.

was looking good until i saw the 384 bit and 256 bit memory bus, that's the bottle neck a flag ship like this should be 512/448 bit memory bus, ...

Nonsense, benchmarks have shown quite clearly that with newer data compression methods and other changes, Maxwell does not need a wider bus. I suppose you think MIPS is a good benchmark too eh?

I'm in the same boat. I have a GTX 560 Ti 448 and am looking for something to tide me over for another 12-18 months. The 960 would be fine if I played at 1920x1080 but for 2560x1440 it just isn't quite up to scratch. At $440+shipping a 970 is a pricey stopgap though.

I agree. The 970 would give a very decent speed bump (easily more than 2X faster than a 560 Ti; I have two of that model, 900MHz EVGAs), but at current pricing it just feels a tad steep.

Ian.

 

[bharathbigb]

HA HA R9 295X2 KILLS THAT

 

[GObonzo]

I'm writing this as seriously as I can, not being a fanboy: What is the purpose of the Titan X at this point?

6GB of memory is not going to work with 4K across multiple monitors and barely work with 1 4K monitor with demanding games. that's the difference.
Shadow of Mordor with ultra textures already uses 6GB @ 1080p and >6GB @ 1440p+. and many of the extra-large texture mods for games also demand more than that. that's about the only reason except maybe bragging rights or inflating a diminished ego.

 

[deuce_23]

Hi,

I am a fan of the red team for now. I am getting pissed of with team red because they held off releasing the new HBM card and any benchmarks. They also held off releasing the re branded products to clear out old inventory.

I have a HD 7950 and it runs everything for now at at 1080p.
My next upgrade will be to 4k.
Unless AMD pull a rabbit out of the hat i will be going with Nvidia 980ti.
Tax return time is around the corner for all of us.
HBM better live up to all the hype or team green for me.
please tell me why AMD haven't released any benchmarks???

 

[GObonzo]

Of course, but they're a heck of a lot better than AMD's.
This sort of thing is far less of a problem with NV's drivers. I've dealt with a lot of different GPUs from both sides, it's a clear difference in my experience

been using both camps for over 10 years. have had 6 ATI\AMDs and 3 Nvidias. have had almost no problems with Catalyst or AMD's drivers with single cards and no problem with a CF 4890 setup through the whole process. While i've had 2 of the 3 Nvidia cards with multiple driver and hardware issues.
While I've been using the latest 8GB 290X AMD has released 1 final release driver and 3 beta drivers that work flawlessly. Pretty much the same amount of releases i had through my previous 4GB 770.
Just because you have had a different experience doesn't mean that it's the standard for all users.
There is no common hardware or software fault with either company, just occasional for both sides.

 

[GObonzo]

Tax return time is around the corner for all of us.
HBM better live up to all the hype or team green for me.
please tell me why AMD haven't released any benchmarks???

tax time was months ago. did you miss it?

-

why did Tom's post a 4GB 290X to compare that's $329 when you can get an 8GB 290X for ~$360? favoritism anyone?

 

[mapesdhs]

HA HA R9 295X2 KILLS THAT

If you're happy with lots of noise, heat and a crazy power bill, feel free.

been using both camps for over 10 years. have had 6 ATI\AMDs and 3 Nvidias. ...

You're right that it's much less of an issue with single cards, but having collected over 50 GPUs now, I definitely have way more issues with AMD's cards in CF than NV's in SLI. And have AMD fixed the DX9/CF issue yet?

Point being I get glitches with AMD's drivers that are not related to specific game releases, ie. these are longer term general issues I see every time I do benching sessions. I have about two dozen mbds, lots of CPUs and a range of GPUs so I can test combos (though I've not bought any AMDs newer than the 7970 yet, been waiting for the DX9/CF bug to be fixed).

On a separate point though, am I the only one who will be surprised if the 390X has less than 8GB RAM?
Even though AMD has at times been behind on power/noise/heat and performance, in recent years they have at least had a VRAM advantage. That's certainly one area where NV screwede us, ie. not releasing a 6GB 780 Ti (because they didn't have to in the end); pity, it would have been an ideal pseudo-pro CUDA card, probably another reason why they ditched the idea. Some apps don't yet support Maxwell CUDA V2, so the 900 series aren't always an option.

Ian.

 

[DoDidDont]

Duplicate post*

 

[DoDidDont]

Duplicate post*

 

[CaptainTom]

Chris/Igor, just curious, has AMD fixed the CF/DX9 issue yet? This was talked about a lot last year and earlier, but review sites seem to have forgotten about it.

Thanks for the article! Would be good if you could add 970 SLI data though, and I agree with others that the Titan X should be updated with newer drivers for a fair comparison.

Even if the 390X is quicker/cheaper, I'd still get a 980 Ti given the choice. Every time I bench with AMD cards, the drivers keep doing stupid things, especially when switching CF on/off.

Nvidia drivers are far from perfect. They release them a lot more regularly but often I'm having to roll back to older drivers due to bugs. The new TW3 driver for instance causes my PC to crash every 2-5 minutes whilst playing TW3. Had roll back to the GTA5 driver, set up a game profile to enable max power performance instead of the default adaptive and uninstall Geforce Experience to be able to play. It's an annoyance that happens so often I'm tempted to change to Red Team for my next card. I have no brand loyalty though and will simply buy which ever card is best in my price range at the time. If it's an even pick I'm going Red this time though to get away from these shitty Nvidia drivers.

Chris/Igor, just curious, has AMD fixed the CF/DX9 issue yet? This was talked about a lot last year and earlier, but review sites seem to have forgotten about it.

Thanks for the article! Would be good if you could add 970 SLI data though, and I agree with others that the Titan X should be updated with newer drivers for a fair comparison.

Even if the 390X is quicker/cheaper, I'd still get a 980 Ti given the choice. Every time I bench with AMD cards, the drivers keep doing stupid things, especially when switching CF on/off.

Oh, as usual, I have to laugh at the suggested 980 Ti launch price. $650 eh? Not in the UK, it's the equivalent of $850 here (the 1190MHz EVGA is $940), while the 980 still hovers at over $600. Titan X is $1300+.

Someone mentioned they missed the days of generally cheaper top-end GPUs, and I agree. Seems like we've all forgotten how the 580 launched at $500 RRP (though there was initial price gouging back then too). Now a top-end GPU is 2.5X more.

And in 2010, for those who couldn't afford a 580, two 460s were quicker, much cheaper and nicely affordable. Feels like that era has totally gone. Looking at what's available right now, it irks me that there's nothing between a 960 and a 970, and there's quite a price gap aswell. The 960 is too slow and not enough RAM, while the 970 is too expensive (I'm looking for something to upgrade a friend's 460 SLI). Hopefully prices will fall after AMD's new launch, or maybe we'll see a 960 Ti.

Not buying AMD though, the drivers just aren't good enough. If AMD wants to gain back market share, before performance, noise & power, they need reliable/stable drivers. Without that stability, no amount of funky performance can make up for CTDs, glitches & bugs.

Ian.

Nvidia drivers are far from perfect. They release them a lot more regularly but often I'm having to roll back to older drivers due to bugs. The new TW3 driver for instance causes my PC to crash every 2-5 minutes whilst playing TW3. Had roll back to the GTA5 driver, set up a game profile to enable max power performance instead of the default adaptive and uninstall Geforce Experience to be able to play. It's an annoyance that happens so often I'm tempted to change to Red Team for my next card. I have no brand loyalty though and will simply buy which ever card is best in my price range at the time. If it's an even pick I'm going Red this time though to get away from these shitty Nvidia drivers.

EXACTLY! I switched to AMD for the same reasons. I am so tired of this narrative that keeps getting perpetuated about AMD's drivers. It just hasn't been true for the past 5 years at least!

 

[DoDidDont]

!!!!LOOK!!!!!

For people that didn't read the start of this review, Tomshardware didn't bother re doing the test with the Titan X and used old results using an outdated driver, but the GTX 980ti was tested with the latest driver optimised for Maxwell.

If you look at benchmarks for the GTX 980Ti over on another website that actually bothered to test both cards on the same driver, the Titan X is still faster than the 980Ti on all benchmarks!

Take a look at the benchmarks on Anandtech that used the same drivers!

Why are people presuming that a cards with less cuda cores, and the same clock speeds is somehow going to miraculously be faster ?

Come on people logic time! Toms don't always get their reviews right! And the majority of posts have been about slagging off Titan X owners and how they have more money than sense and how gutted they must be.

The Titan X cards are priced exactly right. You get twice the Vram, and more cores.

The Titan X is definitely not for everyone, but is definitely suited for some people.

I for instance need the extra cores and extra memory for production rendering using 3ds max and iray, so would choose a Titan X over a 980ti even if it was slightly faster at gaming, which it is not! And there are those that have surround 4K setups that will also benefit fro choosing a Titan X over a 980Ti. PLus Iray and most other applications do not take advantage of double precision compute, very few do!

So those that rushed out and brought Titan X's are not in any way short changed, disappointed, or have more money then sense. People just need to look a website that does their benchmarks correctly.

For those that do not want to use the card in production applications or 4k surround set ups, sure go for the 980ti its the better choice, but stop slagging off Titan X owners over badly done benchmarks.

The Titan X using the same drivers, on the same test setup is the faster card!

I am waiting for the stock shortage to settle and for AMD to launch teir new crds, so prices drop, but if I decide to upgrade it will definitely be the Titan X, not the 980ti, for iray production rendering and occasional gaming in surround,

 

[GObonzo]

!!!!LOOK!!!

For people that didn't read the start of this review, Tomshardware didn't bothe...

so, can we get Doodoodont banned?

 

[GObonzo]

HA HA R9 295X2 KILLS THAT

If you're happy with lots of noise, heat and a crazy power bill, feel free.

been using both camps for over 10 years. have had 6 ATI\AMDs and 3 Nvidias. ...

You're right that it's much less of an issue with single cards, but having collected over 50 GPUs now, I definitely have way more issues with AMD's cards in CF than NV's in SLI. And have AMD fixed the DX9/CF issue yet?

Point being I get glitches with AMD's drivers that are not related to specific game releases, ie. these are longer term general issues I see every time I do benching sessions. I have about two dozen mbds, lots of CPUs and a range of GPUs so I can test combos (though I've not bought any AMDs newer than the 7970 yet, been waiting for the DX9/CF bug to be fixed).

On a separate point though, am I the only one who will be surprised if the 390X has less than 8GB RAM?
Even though AMD has at times been behind on power/noise/heat and performance, in recent years they have at least had a VRAM advantage. That's certainly one area where NV screwede us, ie. not releasing a 6GB 780 Ti (because they didn't have to in the end); pity, it would have been an ideal pseudo-pro CUDA card, probably another reason why they ditched the idea. Some apps don't yet support Maxwell CUDA V2, so the 900 series aren't always an option.

Ian.

you may be telling all truth about your own experience but unless you got a picture to post with all your supposed hundreds of pieces of PC hardware that you do all these tests on lying around, i call BS.