The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTCivilization: Beyond Earth
Shifting gears from action to strategy, we have Civilization: Beyond Earth, the latest in the Civilization series of strategy games. Civilization is not quite as GPU-demanding as some of our action games, but at Ultra quality it can still pose a challenge for even high-end video cards. Meanwhile as the first Mantle-enabled strategy title Civilization gives us an interesting look into low-level API performance on larger scale games, along with a look at developer Firaxis’s interesting use of split frame rendering with Mantle to reduce latency rather than improving framerates.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the GTX 980 Ti and GTX Titan perform within a few percent of each other. Under Civilization the gap between the two is a hair larger than in other games, at 3-4%, but this is also as large of a gap as you’ll see for average framerates. Even here the two are for all meaningful purposes tied.
Meanwhile on an absolute basis, the GM200 twin remain the only single-GPU cards to crack 60fps, with GTX 980 Ti delivering 70.5fps at the game’s most extreme setting. This is once again well ahead of the GTX 980 – beating it by 34% at 4K, though by less at lower resolutions where we start to get CPU-bottlenecked.
I also want to quickly touch upon how the GTX 980 Ti compares to the last-generation high-end GK110 Kepler cards, the GTX 780 and GTX 780 Ti. Against GTX 780 in particular, in this test we see the GTX 980 Ti deliver 70-80% better performance. With this being the 2 year anniversary of the GTX 780’s release, this is especially notable since it’s such a good example of how performance has improved specifically at this $649 price point in the last 2 years. GM200 in general is not this fast versus GK110 – there’s only so much to be done at 28nm – but against GTX 780 in particular NVIDIA’s latest card looks quite good. Even GTX 780 Ti is not entirely immune, with GTX 980 Ti beating it by around 45% at 4K.
When it comes to minimum framerates the same story continues; the two GM200 cards are very close to each other, staying within 5%. At worst, you can say that the 7-17% performance advantage over the GTX 980 isn’t very impressive, though this is admittedly a game that’s not too far off from being CPU-bottlenecked.
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chizow - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
780 was $650 at launch actually, and stayed there for some 6 months until AMD launched the 290X. The only way Nvidia will drop price on the 980Ti is if Fiji is both faster than it and priced similar, and even then Nvidia may not touch a thing.I think Nvidia knows what AMD has and they've already set the price points for AMD so that they won't have to change their pricing no matter what.
fingerbob69 - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
"The only way Nvidia will drop price on the 980Ti is if Fiji is both faster than it and priced similar" ...and given themselves a month's head start ...and AMD a whole month too look at this Ti and adjust accordingly (if even necessary).I think it's nVidia who's looking weak here. In the UK Scan/Overclockers are really low on AMD stock 290 thru to 290x ...big launch coming?
chizow - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Yes, I'm sure it was AMD taking a position of strength to allow Nvidia to completely dominate the dGPU landscape for the last 9 months, unopposed, unchallenged since the GTX 970/980 launch, followed by the GTX 960, GTX Titan X, and GTX 980Ti. Makes perfect sense.Everyone expects a big launch from AMD sure, but I guess they are just waiting for Nvidia to tire themselves out first. I mean a quick scan in the US shows you can't find the GTX 980Ti anywhere, sold out instantly in a single day. AMD is just biding their time though for something big to pop out of a hole in the ground! :)
HeavyHemi - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
'Hole in the ground' if someone was buried a55 up. Ha...theuglyman0war - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
that would be a shame. It's been a long time since I pulled the trigger on my upgrade itches. Never thought it would be this long. ( gtx 480 tri sli at $399 with the starcraft release discount coupon )I think I assumed that the rise in pricing after gtx 580 was just going to be a short term fluke and that the world would return to sanity with resumption of the $499 pricing.
I imagine I would have probably have upgraded twice otherwise. I wonder if my demographic adds up to a significant lost market at the end of the day?
On the bright side...
Having waited this long, If I start buying used in two years the performance gain will be worth the loss of warranty considering the high cost.
NvidiaWins - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Agreed. Nvidia has no worries when it comes to AMD next series gpu. AMD will not be able to compete with the 980Ti price point.n13L5 - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
"Just wait for AMD's release and the price will have to drop."Exactly why all those Nvidia fanboys should shut their mouths:
If they were to succeed in maligning AMD to death, handing Nvidia a monopoly, Nvidia will have not only lost any reason to ever drop prices, they'll also loose any reason to rush new gaming cards out. They'd put consumer cards at the very back of the queue, to be released at Nvidia's convenience - because Nvidia gets better margins from HPC sales.
Frenetic Pony - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Sir! You're trolling is commendable, the people biting, so serious. I salute you.StevoLincolnite - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
You're = You are.In this instance it is "your".
Leyawiin - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Their, they're, there - no call for typo nitpicking. He who is free of guilt and all. As far as the 28nm bit, its probably ore of a well-poisoning comment by someone who leans towards the other camp.