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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
290 Comments
View All Comments
Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I'm sure you posted that from your 65nm processor and 80nm GPU.godrilla - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
Because next shrink is in the 3d chips plus hbm category and that should be amazing performance leap.Gastec - Sunday, September 4, 2016 - link
Oh yeah, that's "1337 5p34k" for ya! :PWreckage - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Wait until AMD tries to sell you a rebadge for that much.Rezurecta - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
I don't understand the rage about rebadge all of a sudden. GPU has been doing this for YEARS!Anyway, nice card from Nvidia for a decent price.
dragonsqrrl - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Don't mix up traditional rebadging and what AMD is doing with their upcoming lineup, it's unprecedented. It's also worrisome, and it's clearly a big problem for AMD. What does it say about the state of the company and their R&D budget that they'll only have 1 new GPU this coming generation? One of the big problems AMD is currently facing, amongst many other things, are their profit margins. In order to compete they're selling larger, more expensive GPU's attached to more complex memory interfaces relative to the competition, and that won't change much this coming generation as a result of these top to bottom rebadges. The situation is really becoming quite analogous to their CPU's, which should raise alarms for any informed enthusiast. It's a less than ideal situation, to put it lightly.Azix - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
If you post this after their launch then maybe I'd understand. As it is their Chips are almost certainly not rebadged because they aren't on TSMC and will include hardware improvements. They maybe be based on hawaii or w/e but not even nvidia managed to put out more than 2 new cards during their major launch last year. Considering this is likely the last year of 28nm launches, it may make sense for them to put out an entire line of modified chips and be done with the 300 series. Keeping it fresh till next year when they can do 2-3 on a smaller process.dragonsqrrl - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
"If you post this after their launch then maybe I'd understand."You realize I could just give the exact same response to the rest of your comment. But I won't.
"As it is their Chips are almost certainly not rebadged because they aren't on TSMC and will include hardware improvements.",
That's interesting, I haven't heard anything about AMD switching fabs for the 300 series. Source?
"They maybe be based on hawaii or w/e but not even nvidia managed to put out more than 2 new cards during their major launch last year."
Not quite a straight comparison there, since Nvidia also launched a new architecture with the 750Ti. Thus far we've gotten 4 new GPU's (not just cards) based on Maxwell. And we're not just talking launch here. All indications point to Fiji as the only new GPU of the coming generation for AMD. And what's more, it might not even be an updated architecture. The rest of the lineup will likely be refreshes of Hawaii, Tonga, Pitcairn, and Bonaire, ranging from GCN 1.2-1.0, with at most manufacturing revisions to improve efficiency. Again it's very important to put this in perspective, in the context of what these GPU's will be competing against. They range in feature set, and in power efficiency, none of which is anywhere close to par with Maxwell, and it's going to be very difficult for AMD to compete with this lineup for another generation. It's not a good situation for AMD. "Keeping it fresh"? How you came to spin your conclusion the way you did is beyond me.
ImSpartacus - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Be nice. The guy is basically telling you at this point.ImSpartacus - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
trolling***