The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTOverclocking
Finally, no review of a high-end video card would be complete without a look at overclocking performance.
From a design standpoint, GTX 980 Ti already ships close to its power limits. NVIDIA’s 250W TDP can only be raised another 10% – to 275W – meaning that in TDP limited scenarios there’s not much headroom to play with. On the other hand with the stock voltage being relatively low, in clockspeed limited scenarios there’s still some room for pushing the performance envelope through overvolting. And neither of these options addresses the most potent aspect of overclocking, which is pushing the entire clockspeed curve higher at the same voltages by increasing the clockspeed offsets.
GTX Titan X by comparison ended up being a good overclocker, and while we'd expect GTX 980 Tis to use slightly lower quality chips as part of the binning process, it should still overclock rather well.
| GeForce GTX 980 Ti Overclocking | ||||
| Stock | Overclocked | |||
| Core Clock | 1000MHz | 1250MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1075Mhz | 1326MHz | ||
| Max Boost Clock | 1202MHz | 1477MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 7GHz | 8GHz | ||
| Max Voltage | 1.187v | 1.23v | ||
Overall we're able to get another 250MHz (25%) out of the GTX 980 Ti's GPU, and another 1GHz (14%) out of its VRAM. This pushes the GTX 980 Ti's clockspeeds up to 1326MHz for the standard boost clock, and 1477MHz for the maximum boost clock. The card is heavily TDP limited at this point, so it's unlikely to sustain clockspeeds over 1400MHz, but working clockspeeds in the 1300MHz range are certainly sustainable. Meanwhile interestingly enough, this is actually a slightly better overclock than what we saw with the GTX Titan X; the Titan was only able to get another 200MHz out of its GPU and 800MHz out of its memory. So GTX 980 Ti ends up being the better overclocker by 50MHz.
The gains from this overclock are a very consistent across all 5 of our sample games at 4K, with the average performance increase being 20%. Though not quite enough to push the GTX 980 Ti above 60fps in Shadow of Mordor or Crysis 3, it is enough to crack 60fps on Battlefield 4 and The Talos Principle.
The cost of that 20% overclock in terms of power and noise is similarly straightforward. You're looking at an increased power cost of 30W or so at the wall – in-line with the 25W increase in the card’s TDP – while on the noise front the GTX 980 Ti is pushed out of its sweet spot. Card noise levels will increase by around 4.5dB(A).
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IUU - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link
Wow ,Crysis 3 and Battlefield 4 hitting 80 fps at very high 2560x1440.Clearly there's much room for better graphics at lower resolutions.
I would buy this card , but not if I knew the only benefit would be to
run games at higher resolutions, that is, graphics has some way to go still
and this card could accommodate such a prospect.
FlushedBubblyJock - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
the R9 295X2 has completely lost it's luster and value, forget itlooper - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
This 980 Ti.... Is it the same physical size as my current 780?bullie - Monday, June 15, 2015 - link
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I'll wait to see what this 980GTX "METAL" is all about before I order a new gpu. With 770 Sli I'm in no real rush, as the 980Ti just barley surpassed my Firestrike Score(less than 100 graphic points)johnpombrio - Thursday, June 25, 2015 - link
I am just going through the AMD Fury X's reviews as it came out today with a ton of reviews (June 24th, 2015). It is excellent card and would have absolutely dominated the price point if this pesky GTX 980Ti just had not come along a month before AMD's much hyped launch. It cannot be such a coincidence that NVidia's card just happened to be so close in its benchmarks to the AMD's card. It is also such a coincidence that AMD set the price of their card at exactly the same price as NVidia. So my theory is that NVidia managed to get their hands on a reference Fury X and dialed in their 980Ti to match it. In the meantime, AMD was planning on charging a LOT more for their extremely well designed card (with its own built in water cooler and HBM) expecting the Ti to be launched much later this year but was forced to chop the price. If the price was cut, I don't expect the AIB manufacturers for the Fury X to be very pleased to have a lot less profit margin on the card. Three things may hold back the Fury X as well. One is that the Ti overclocks much better. Next is that the water cooler may or may not be welcomed by all considering its size and possible installation issues. Finally, AMD has been getting complaints by many folks over drivers (or lack thereof). Otherwise, a successful launch for both companies.deteugma - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
It is extremely frustrating that none of the charts include the 970.Loretta946 - Wednesday, August 1, 2018 - link
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