Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Review

[ern88]

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the start of this review, Tomshardware didn't bother re doing the test with the Titan X and used old results using an outdated driver, but the GTX 980ti was tested with the latest driver optimised for Maxwell.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

NOW YOU LOOK. I have checked other review sites. And the Titan X is only a frame or 2 faster then the 980 ti. And even lost to the ti in a few game. Straight from Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang""Titan X, with its 12 GB of memory, is important for 4K video editing, for deep learning, and as a platform for researchers and developers (including those who are building 4K games). In other words, it's for those who need its memory."" But for gamers, the 980 ti would be the choice to go with. So, there you have it. The Titan X isn not a lot faster then the GTX 980 ti.

 

[DDWill]

I think that's what DoDidDont already said ern88, that its the best choice for 4K surround gaming and productivity apps, but he's definitely right about the Anand benchmarks that bothered to use the same drivers on both cards, other sites like Hexus also tested the Titan X using older drivers!

 

[DoDidDont]

ern88,

At no point did I use the words "a lot faster"

I also checked a few benchmarks, and the only ones that show the 980ti as the faster card, are the same as Tom's in that they used old benchmark results or older drivers for the Titan X, but the latest driver for the 980ti.

DDWill is right in that I basically said the same thing you did, in that the Titan X is the best choice for productivity apps, or as you added development, or 4K surround gaming, and that if people don't need those things , the 980ti is the better choice.

What I was basically trying to say in my post is that people decide what card is best for them from the applications, games, and setup they use, and that people should not be lowering Titan X owners down, not knowing the reasons for their purchase.

Is that a bad comment really?

Maybe you should read the full post before giving a negative response as we basically said the same thing.

 

[mapesdhs]

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.

Wow, what an odd thing to say. I find your lack of faith... disturbing. Just check my posts elsewhere, on toms & other sites, and the data on my own site (not included yet are the several hundred 3DMark Vantage/11/Firestrike tests I've done, slowly sorting that out atm); I often focus on how newer CPU/GPU hardware behaves on older mbds as this is a frequently asked question on forums, eg. here's an i5 760 with two 7970s, and my record-holding i7 870 with three 980s (fastest P55 result). You can spot my 3DMark submissions easily as they always have a full description.

Here's my home-made reconfigurable GPU shelf shortly after I first built it about a year ago, though it's a lot more full now, and about another 2-dozen cards are on boards or in systems (some are Quadros though, all sorts up to a K5000 and a couple of 6000s):

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/gpushelves15.jpg

Also not shown are ten 3GB 580s I bought recently (for CUDA in pro rigs though, not gaming). If you want other pics, PM me and I'll email you some privately that are more up to date (or Google "SGI Ian" to find my site for my email address).

Ian.

PS. Anyone else noticed that 'Ti' isn't part of the URL for this review?

 

[ern88]

ern88,

At no point did I use the words "a lot faster"

I also checked a few benchmarks, and the only ones that show the 980ti as the faster card, are the same as Tom's in that they used old benchmark results or older drivers for the Titan X, but the latest driver for the 980ti.

DDWill is right in that I basically said the same thing you did, in that the Titan X is the best choice for productivity apps, or as you added development, or 4K surround gaming, and that if people don't need those things , the 980ti is the better choice.

What I was basically trying to say in my post is that people decide what card is best for them from the applications, games, and setup they use, and that people should not be lowering Titan X owners down, not knowing the reasons for their purchase.

Is that a bad comment really?

Maybe you should read the full post before giving a negative response as we basically said the same thing.

My bad. I just skimmed your comment. Your right. I should have read it all. We can still be friends though??? I did look at AnandTech. Both Titan X and 980 ti are neck and neck of eachother though. Anyways, have a good day my friend.

 

[ak47jar3d]

[
Why do people always complain when a new card comes out? I have a GTX 570,660, 750 TI, gtx 960, GTX 780. The GTX 750TI is my favorite card. The bang for the buck is outstanding. The 750 TI is on a 1200p Dell and the 780 is on a Crossover 1440p. The 750 TI plays BF4 on medium and the 780 on Ultra. There is no visual difference when playing the game. I am just as happy and satisfied on my i3-4130/750 TI as on my GTX 780/ i7 4790k.
This is all based on the human weakness of coveting and envy. All companies use that weakness in their marketing. Those are the real reasons for wanting to upgrade. How could someone with 2 GTX 980s in SLI be unhappy?
If you can play your favorite game on medium at over 60FPS then you should be satisfied. How do I know? Look at all the computers I have. Yes they are all mine. I have fallen for all this marketing stuff myself. I probably will again. But not for a while.

While I agree medium is fine for most people, it can't possible be compared to ultra. The more powerful cards are more meant for beyond 1080P gaming. I think being playable at higher resolutions is the biggest reason why I would by a new card.

 

[DoDidDont]

ern88,

My bad. I just skimmed your comment. Your right. I should have read it all. We can still be friends though??? I did look at AnandTech. Both Titan X and 980 ti are neck and neck of eachother though. Anyways, have a good day my friend.

There's no enemies in a discussion Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

If it were the other way around and Nvidia launched the 980ti first, and I rushed out to buy it, only for Nvidia to launch the Titan X a few months later. I would be the one gutted, as more cuda cores means faster render times, and more on-board memory means larger scenes and data sets, so would be asking the retailer for a swap and happily pay the extra cha-ching $£$£, even if the 980ti was a bit faster. So its all down to the individuals needs.

A few extra cuda cores isn't going to do much, but the Titan X is ahead just by a small margin, but without doubt both are amazing cards..

I am curious about Pascal more than anything out this year. Does this mean a new motherboard and new GPU interface next year?

 

[smilemoar88]

Is it worth upgrading from 2x GTX 780Ti in SLI to a GTX 980Ti?

 

[Vlad Rose]

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.

Stuck in the most dangerous city in the US, Saginaw. I'm guessing you're not stuck at contract level at the moment either; which is a HUGE pay difference.

BTW, with my debt level due to college loans, I could have either bought a nice car or a cheap house with it. For some people, their only option to be able to afford to go to college is via loans and scholarships. If you have minimal debt, either you had parents that helped pay for your education; or you went to a large enough high school to get one heck of a scholarship.

 

[MonsterCookie]

Would be good if you could add 970 SLI data though...

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.

When I started reading the article, first thing what I was searching for is the GTX 970 single card and 970 SLI results.
Considering that the 970 is the price/performance king right now, and those who bought the card can build a 970 SLI cheaper than getting a 980 Ti, it SHOULD have been obviously in the charts.

Also, you are the first commenter, who finally get the point why people are complaining about prices and salaries in this topic, because 3-5 years ago one could have gotten a top end card for half the price of these new releases, which actually always cost 100Euros more here in the EU than the MSRP.


I am glad that I am not the only old dude here who loved SGI Irix and the SGI era in general. Good old days, with funky looking hardware. I still got an O2 and an SGI Fuel

 

[ak47jar3d]

Is it worth upgrading from 2x GTX 780Ti in SLI to a GTX 980Ti?

780 ti sli should outperform 980ti by about 15-20 percent. So I would not changed them as you should see a performance hit

 

[bharathbigb]

Is it worth upgrading from 2x GTX 780Ti in SLI to a GTX 980Ti?

I would wait for the HBM Equipped Radeon R9 390X or the Fury.

 

[mapesdhs]

While I agree medium is fine for most people, it can't possible be compared to ultra. The more powerful cards are more meant for beyond 1080P gaming. I think being playable at higher resolutions is the biggest reason why I would by a new card.

Yup, but also because having a powerful GPU is one of way running at ~HD res (I'm using 1920x1200) while being able to max out all the settings with good AA at a high frame rate, eg. for Elite Dangerous using a 980 means totally smooth motion (vsync on) with very high detail, etc. Especially effective for older games; Crysis never looked so nice.

Is it worth upgrading from 2x GTX 780Ti in SLI to a GTX 980Ti?

On pure performance grounds, no. I suppose in some scenarios the extra RAM might help (eg. modded Skyrim), but you'd have to look into that on a game-by-game basis. Use Afterburner or something to see what your cards are doing.

BTW, with my debt level due to college loans, ...

Sidetracking somewhat, but reading these posts got me wondering, do you have to start paying back your edu loans no matter what your salary? In the UK, students do not have to start paying back their edu loans until their job salary goes above a certain level. I'd assumed that was the case in the US too, but presumably not from what people have been saying here. If so, major bummer...

Considering that the 970 is the price/performance king right now, and those who bought the card can build a 970 SLI cheaper than getting a 980 Ti, it SHOULD have been obviously in the charts.

Definitely! I've not checked other sites yet, will do that tonight.

Also, you are the first commenter, who finally get the point why people are complaining about prices and salaries in this topic, because 3-5 years ago one could have gotten a top end card for half the price of these new releases, which actually always cost 100Euros more here in the EU than the MSRP.

(markups are even more crazy in the UK)

I can only infer that what's happened is that NVIDIA's dabbling with the pseudo-pro market, etc., has convinvced them there's a market for the 'latest & greatest' at whacko prices, even if the gains are either not that huge over other SLI/CF options, or if the cards are superceded by something else not long after. I can understand the commercial pressure, normal tech stores make a lot of their profits from items like these as they carry way higher margins than things like disk drives, etc.

Alas though, it means those with lesser incomes are effectively shoved out, while the stretched price grading has pushed up mid-range costs to absurd levels. The 970 is clearly a mid-range card now, yet it's almost 2X more expensive than the GTX 460 when that was current. I remember being so happy when I bought two EVGA 460 FTWs (the 850MHz model that caused such a row when they were used in launch reviews) in order to have better-than-580 speed at a goodly lower cost, but doing that today with two 970s is a wallet-burner.

I am glad that I am not the only old dude here who loved SGI Irix and the SGI era in general. Good old days, with funky looking hardware. I still got an O2 and an SGI Fuel

Heh, ditto, and then some. You should see my garage, you'd have a stroke...

780 ti sli should outperform 980ti by about 15-20 percent. So I would not changed them as you should see a performance hit

Indeed. I suppose the only plus would be heat, noise & power reductions, though it'd take quite a while for the power saving to offset the upgrade cost. Only other benefit might be extra RAM capacity, though that's highly dependent on the game (stock or modded), res, detail, etc.

I would wait for the HBM Equipped Radeon R9 390X or the Fury.

Sure, if only to see how it affects pricing across the board. I notice the 980 has dropped a bit, but really it's only gone down by the same amount by which it went up since it launched. Kinda hoping the 970 will drop by a more significant degree though.

Ian.

 

[Arabian Knight]

not all people live in USA and have good salaries.

and those work 10 times harder than any one in USA ... but live in a Poor country.

you are selfish and rude people. very rude !

Here...let me fix this for you:

- not all (of the) people (that) live in USA have good salaries.

- and (we've never worked in America, but we believe) those work 10 times harder than any one in USA ( because this makes us feel better to hate people we don't know ) ... but live in a Poor country

- you are selfish and rude people (not that we know any of you, but this hate makes us feel better about ourselves ). very rude ! ( we've been told )

There you go. Me putting words in your ignorant mouth might be rude...but since you already don't like Americans...

heh where did I say I dont like Americans ?

when I see some Arrogant ignorant American or not , i just correct him and I correct him the hard way. day after day I discover that alot of Americans live in a cave when it comes to the outside world.

and you are one of them for sure ... how fast you accuse me of being a hater !

 

[Arabian Knight]

Is it worth upgrading from 2x GTX 780Ti in SLI to a GTX 980Ti?

yes it is worth it . you will have double the Memory and this is vert important in 3x 1440p Monitors , or 4K monitor.

Moving from 3GB to 6GB is worth it ALOT. but also consider GTX 980ti in SLI .

 

[mapesdhs]

... 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!

100% true in my experience (heh, I think we raged about this before. ) Again and again when doing CF tests, I found AMD's drivers do weird things that don't happen with NVIDIA's drivers, eg. GPU-Z & other tools can lock up, desktop gets scragged with odd overlays, CTDs during benchmark runs, etc. I've seen it over & over with 4870s, 5850s and 7970s, on various mbds. NVIDIA's drivers aren't perfect of course (eg. their screwup with 500 series support a while back was a real pain for many), but they don't do this sort of thing to anywhere near the same degree.

Searching just now, I found plenty of forum posts from users moaning about 15.5.

yes it is worth it . you will have double the Memory and this is vert important in 3x 1440p Monitors , or 4K monitor.

The OP did not say what monitor config he's using, so your reply is factually wrong if the tasks/games he's using for his particular current setup don't tax the RAM limit of his 780 Tis. Without knowing more, one cannot make a proper recommendation. One shouldn't make definite statements unless one has all the facts. If the way he uses his current GPUs is not taxing the RAM, then upgrading to a 980 Ti would be slower; from his point of view, how would that be better? At least initially, clearly not. Whether he might regard an upgrade as being worth it anyway for other reasons (power, noise, heat, future proofing, etc.) is another matter.

What you could have said is that even if he doesn't need the extra RAM now, having the larger amount for the future might be wise for future proofing (despite the speed drop), and in the meantime he ought to be able to recoup most (possibly all) of the upgrade cost by selling the two 780 Tis. But to say for definite that he should upgrade is just not correct without having more info, especially not when the costs involved are so high.

Ian.

 

[ern88]

Would this card be over kill for 1080p gaming?

 

[boju]

Would this card be over kill for 1080p gaming?

No. Maybe if you play doom or duke3d. Playing latest games demand a lot even at 1080p. 980Ti will do a good job right now, but you'll be needing it's power in a couple of years because it might just save you upgrading ;P

 

[mapesdhs]

Would this card be over kill for 1080p gaming?

In general, yes. (right now that is, for current titles)

Heavily-modded games like Skyrim can gobble up a lot of VRAM, but at 1080p I'd have thought that even 4GB is enough. I did manage to exceed 4GB on a 980 with Elite Dangerous at 1920x1200 by cranking everything up to the absolute max, but by pulling back on just one setting everything then ran very smoothly, for no useful visual difference.

boju may have a point about future proofing, but it depends how often you like to upgrade your hardware, and with DX12 looming we may see a reduction in how much RAM is needed anyway.

Ian.

 

[ak47jar3d]

Would this card be over kill for 1080p gaming?

Yes, anything better gtx 970 or 290x is kind of ridiculous at 1080p. Those cards max pretty much everything at 1080p. I would absolutely not recommend a 980ti for anything less than a 1440p monitor.

 

[Madmaxneo]

I think at this point the Titan X is probably more appealing to those that run high end graphics programs for 3d modeling and so on. That much more RAM can make a huge difference in rendering times....

 

[boju]

Would this card be over kill for 1080p gaming?

In general, yes. (right now that is, for current titles)

Heavily-modded games like Skyrim can gobble up a lot of VRAM, but at 1080p I'd have thought that even 4GB is enough. I did manage to exceed 4GB on a 980 with Elite Dangerous at 1920x1200 by cranking everything up to the absolute max, but by pulling back on just one setting everything then ran very smoothly, for no useful visual difference.

boju may have a point about future proofing, but it depends how often you like to upgrade your hardware, and with DX12 looming we may see a reduction in how much RAM is needed anyway.

Ian.

Directx12 will make a similar impact on the people the same way GTX8800 did i reckon. Interesting times ahead with the next iteration and acting hardware.

 

[boju]

Would this card be over kill for 1080p gaming?

Yes, anything better gtx 970 or 290x is kind of ridiculous at 1080p. Those cards max pretty much everything at 1080p. I would absolutely not recommend a 980ti for anything less than a 1440p monitor.

You wont be meaning that in a couple of years regarding the same GPU @ 1080p.

 

[Arabian Knight]

... 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!

100% true in my experience (heh, I think we raged about this before. ) Again and again when doing CF tests, I found AMD's drivers do weird things that don't happen with NVIDIA's drivers, eg. GPU-Z & other tools can lock up, desktop gets scragged with odd overlays, CTDs during benchmark runs, etc. I've seen it over & over with 4870s, 5850s and 7970s, on various mbds. NVIDIA's drivers aren't perfect of course (eg. their screwup with 500 series support a while back was a real pain for many), but they don't do this sort of thing to anywhere near the same degree.

Searching just now, I found plenty of forum posts from users moaning about 15.5.

yes it is worth it . you will have double the Memory and this is vert important in 3x 1440p Monitors , or 4K monitor.

The OP did not say what monitor config he's using, so your reply is factually wrong if the tasks/games he's using for his particular current setup don't tax the RAM limit of his 780 Tis. Without knowing more, one cannot make a proper recommendation. One shouldn't make definite statements unless one has all the facts. If the way he uses his current GPUs is not taxing the RAM, then upgrading to a 980 Ti would be slower; from his point of view, how would that be better? At least initially, clearly not. Whether he might regard an upgrade as being worth it anyway for other reasons (power, noise, heat, future proofing, etc.) is another matter.

What you could have said is that even if he doesn't need the extra RAM now, having the larger amount for the future might be wise for future proofing (despite the speed drop), and in the meantime he ought to be able to recoup most (possibly all) of the upgrade cost by selling the two 780 Tis. But to say for definite that he should upgrade is just not correct without having more info, especially not when the costs involved are so high.

Ian.

True , but If he is using SLI GTX 780 Ti , then there is a huge chance he is using high resolution setup . no one needs 2xSLI 780Ti for low resolution. thats why I replied in short to him . also I did mention it is for high resolution setup . I did not say ANY setup. I did explain !

and If he bought two GTX 780 ti , I guess he can Buy SLI 980 ti again after selling them , money is no issue to him . or at least buy one and add another after few months.

Besides , the new cards have HDMI 2.0 ... also a bonus.

 

[MetalSparks]

This is a great article for comparing Nvidia GPUs, but I thought that throwing in the 4GB R9 290x was fairly insulting when several 8GB non-reference models can be bought for $380 each. Seems fairly biased. Either leave out the competition from the article or include a fair comparison.

*sigh*, but if only AMD had Nvidia's user-interface...