The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTTotal War: Attila
The second strategy game in our benchmark suite, Total War: Attila is the latest game in the Total War franchise. Total War games have traditionally been a mix of CPU and GPU bottlenecks, so it takes a good system on both ends of the equation to do well here. In this case the game comes with a built-in benchmark that plays out over a large area with a fortress in the middle, making it a good GPU stress test.
Switching out to another strategy game, even given Attila’s significant GPU requirements at higher settings, GTX 980 Ti still doesn’t falter. It trails GTX Titan X by just 2% at all settings.
That said, on an absolute basis even GTX Titan X couldn't get past 30fps here at 4K with max quality settings, so the GTX 980 Ti is going to fare no better.. To get single card performance above 30fps we have to drop a notch to the “Quality” setting, which gets the GTX 980 Ti up to 44.2fps. In any case, at these settings the GTX 980 Ti makes easy work of the single-GPU competition, beating the GTX 980 once again by 28%+.
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Casecutter - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Nvidia places the TitanX in play just so that logic works... But when you pull TitanX from the equation, and work from the 980 (GM204) a 20% increase in FpS for, almost 20% more money, and use 28% more power. It look really humdrum.Kutark - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
You felt the need to post basically the same comment in 2 different places?Regardless you're cherry picking data. Overall its about a 30% increase in perf, for about a 30% increase in price. Its still a "good" deal if you want a powerful single GPU.
uglyduckling81 - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
I'm still shocked at how much the 295x2 kills it. It's so much more powerful that even a Titan X. Newegg had the 295x2 on a sale for $550 2 weekends ago as well. Crossfire driver issues aside if your in the market for the high end I just don't see how you could go past the much more powerful and cheaper 295x2. If I had been in the USA with that $550 sale going I would of snapped that up so fast. Hell I would of bought several and sold a couple when I got home. Those cards are still $1600 in Australia.mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Really? CF issues aside?? It's a freakin' CF card! What the heck is the point in buying the thing if CF support just doesn't work properly for so many games? And did AMD ever fix DX9/CF issues? Still sucks the last time I tested 7970 CF. Feel free to whack your power bill with the 295x2, spew out heat, etc. Every time I see a crazy extended power usage graph just so the enormous line for the 295x2 can be included, it blows my mind that people ever bother buying it. One person from OZ here commented that heat output is of primary concern where he lives, so chucking out so much heat from a 295x2 would be a real problem. I noticed the same thing with 580 SLI, sooo glad I eventually switched to a single 980.CiccioB - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
The fact that a supposedly more powerful card is sold at a lower price should automatically raise you some questions... it is not that because 290x2 is a single card that all crossfire problems magically go away.Drive issue apart is not an option. Crossfire and SLI performances depend heavily on driver quality. And, sorry, but AMD dual GPUs cards have always been the worst choice since they were created.
See what is the support for 7990 cards. 690 cards are still supported as you can see in these very benchmarks.
Moreover, if you want a better dual configuration with support done as one would expect for the spent money, you can just buy 2x GTX970 and live much more happily. Consuming much more less. Dual GPU comparison here is not even to take into account. The simplicity, scaling and smoothness of a single GPU like Titan X or this GTX980TI simply crush the dual GPU competition without any doubt, even though they do some FPS less as average.
If you cannot understand that, it is right that you continue buying crappy cards and be happy with those.
NvidiaWins - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Compared to my Evga 770 SuperClocked Sli, it only generates a few extra fps, scored just over 100 points higher in Firestrike(770 Sli graphic score- 16,837/ 980Ti graphic score- 16,900), its a great single card at a cheap price point, but little improvement over what I currently use.Zak - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Compare your dual 770 against dual 980ti and then we'll talk...godrilla - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
It seems that nvidia created the titan x just to make the 980ti seem like a bargain so that gamers will jump at it pretty clever.nadia28 - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Yeah, that what I thought too. They keep thinking of new marketing strategies to boost the sales and this one works like a charm.CHRAHL - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link
Ryan! We never saw a review from GTX 960, will it be published. And there is no data in bench from it hence. Could you at least upload performance to bench section..