The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTMiddle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Our next benchmark is Monolith’s popular open-world action game, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. One of our current-gen console multiplatform titles, Shadow of Mordor is plenty punishing on its own, and at Ultra settings it absolutely devours VRAM, showcasing the knock-on effect of current-gen consoles have on VRAM requirements.
Another game, another set of benchmarks where the GTX 980 Ti and GTX Titan X are more or less tied. In this case the latest GM200 card closes the tiny gap even more, bringing the difference between the two down to 1-2% in favor of the GTX Titan X. Meanwhile the GTX 980 Ti’s advantage over the GTX 980 is as strong as ever, beating the most powerful of the GM204 cards by 30% or more.
On an absolute basis, as with Crysis 3 GTX 980 Ti won’t be enough for 60fps at 4K, but at 47.9fps it’s closer to 60fps than 30fps, representing a significant improvement in 4K performance in only a generation. Turning down the game’s quality settings to Very High does improve performance a bit, but at 53.7fps it’s still not quite enough for 60fps. The biggest advantage of Very High quality is alleviating some of the high VRAM requirements, not that the GTX 980 Ti seems to mind even at 6GB. Otherwise dropping to 1440p will give us a significant bump in performance, pushing framerates over 80fps once again.
Looking at minimum framerates, we find the one and only place under which the GTX 980 Ti may be struggling to keep up with its Titan sibling. While it held very close to the GTX Titan X in average framerates, the minimum framerate finds a larger, distinct gap between the two, with the GTX 980 Ti trailing by 8%. That said, minimum framerates are inherently more unreliable than averages, and other than a momentary dip the GTX 980 Ti is doing quite well here, so while it’s a less-than-perfect showing, I don’t believe we’re seeing any kind of real impact from VRAM differences. Note that the 4GB cards don’t seem to be worse off despite being short a further 2GB of VRAM.
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mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
He was highlighting incorrect grammar, not a typo. Btw, that should have been "it's", not "its", for the same reason. ;D My old English teacher would have used bullets for such errors if such as allowed...mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
...and of course my own typo of 'as' instead of 'was' once again shows how annoying it is that in 2015 we still can't edit our posts on AT. :\FlushedBubblyJock - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
thank you so much this is english class after allblastlike - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
LOL you are so retarded. You try being a bitch and correcting others and at the end you fall into your own pit.Pathetic, lol keep it up.Gothmoth - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Toll, du beherrscht deine Mutterprache.. welch gewaltige Geistesleistung...... Amis.....Gothmoth - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
2015 and on Anandtech we are still unable to edit comments.... here is the missing "s",freedom4556 - Friday, June 12, 2015 - link
...and you typo in yours? Or so Google translate suggests.shaolin95 - Friday, October 23, 2015 - link
Yes but the 980ti is still untouchable basically so 28nm or not...ComputerGuy2006...show me something better ;)Flunk - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
lower nm = more transistors in the same space = more performance, and possibly reductions in heat and power usage. There is only so much they can do on the 28nm node, which is why the next generation will likely utterly massacre the current one. 4K will be feasible at a reasonable price point.Refuge - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Depending on yields, lets not get too excited yet.I'll be excited when I get the email from Amazon saying my GTX1000TI is going to be here in two days and says I only spent $500 after rebate. :)