The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Review: Maxwell Mark 2
by Ryan Smith on September 18, 2014 10:30 PM ESTBioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite is Irrational Games’ latest entry in the Bioshock franchise. Though it’s based on Unreal Engine 3 – making it our obligatory UE3 game – Irrational had added a number of effects that make the game rather GPU-intensive on its highest settings. As an added bonus it includes a built-in benchmark composed of several scenes, a rarity for UE3 engine games, so we can easily get a good representation of what Bioshock’s performance is like.
Even with advanced depth of field effects, our highest end video cards are starting to run away with Bioshock: Infinite. That is particularly true for the GTX 980, which in a game that NVIDIA frequently does well in further props up the GTX 980’s advantage. Only at 4K are the R9 290XU and GTX 980 anywhere near close, otherwise at 1440p it’s a 37% performance advantage. GTX 780 Ti on the other hand holds much closer, still falling behind the GTX 980 but only by around 5% at sub-4K resolutions. This does make for a good moment for showcasing the GTX 980’s greater ROP throughput though; as we crank up the resolution to 4K, the 780 Ti falls further behind, especially when we’re at lower quality settings that leave us less shader-bound.
On an absolute basis 120Hz/144Hz gamer should have a blast even with a single GTX 980 at 1080p, while purists will need more performance for 1440p than the 85fps the card can offer. And at 4K the GTX 980 is doing very well for itself, almost cracking 60fps at High quality, and becoming the only card to crack 40fps with Ultra quality.
This will be one of the weaker showings for the GTX 980 over the GTX 680 though; at sub-4K resolutions it’s only a 60-65% performance improvement.
Meanwhile Bioshock is the first of 5 games we can reliably measure with the FCAT tools to check for frame pacing consistency. Bioshock is a bit more erratic than most games in this respect, and while our general rule of thumb for an excellent performance from a single card is 3%, our recording for GTX 980 is a bit higher at 3.5%. On the other hand at 4K it measures in at just 2.3%. So while frame pacing is going to be a bit of a rubber stamping process overall, we can confirm that GTX 980 is delivering a good frame pacing experience in Bioshock.
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hojnikb - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
7950 (which was then rebranded to 280) had 200W. With 280, they obviously upped the TDP for longer turbo speeds.ArtForz - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
Wasn't the 280 more of a rebranded 7950 boost (925 turbo), and not a 7950 (825, no turbo at all)?Mr Perfect - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
True, but the 285 didn't live up to the 180 watt claim. Later in the article they showed it saving only 13 watts under load when compared to the 280. So more like 237 watts?http://www.anandtech.com/show/8460/amd-radeon-r9-2...
Which was really quite disappointing. I need something to cram in my mITX rig, and it has to be close to the 150 watts of the 6870 in there now.
Samus - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
On a per-watt scale, AMD's GPU's are now as inefficient as their CPU's when compared to the competition. It's good they got those console contracts, because they probably won't be getting the next round if this keeps up.Absolutely amazing Maxwell is twice as efficient per watt as GCN 1.2
Laststop311 - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
well looks like the gtx 970 is calling your name thenAlexvrb - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
That seems to depend on the design reviewed. THG tested a similarly clocked card by a different manufacturer and there was a much larger gap between the 280 and 285 in terms of power consumption.With that being said the 980 and 970 are both extremely fast and power efficient. Especially the 970 - if it really hits the market at around that pricing wow! Incredible value.
Strange that the 980 throttles so much at stock settings even outside of Furmark, first thing I'd do is go into the settings and fiddle a bit until it boosts consistently. But given its performance and it's not really a problem, and it can be remedied. Still, something to keep in mind especially when overclocking. I wonder how the 980 would have done with the beefier cooler from its higher-TDP predecessors, and some mild overvolting?
Laststop311 - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
If you look in the gaming benchmarks the gpu is hitting 80C. Nvidia's design does not allow the gpu to exceed 80C so it has to lower frequencies to stay at 80C. This is the consequence of using the titan blower cooler but removing the vapor chamber lowering its cooling capability. That's why I don't get why all these people are rushing to buy the reference design gtx 980's as they are all sold out. They are throttling by hundreds of mhz because the titan blower cooler without a vapor chamber sucks. Custom cooling options are going to make the gtx 980 able to reliably hit 1300-1400 mhz some probably even 1500 mhz under full load and still stay under the 80C limit. Keep an eye out for MSI's twin frozr V design. It's going to have a beefy radiator with 2x 100mm fans in an open air design allowing WAY more cooling potential then the reference design. The twin frozr V design should allow the card to OC and actually keep those OC frequencies under heavy load unlike the reference card which cant even keep up with its stock setting under intense gaming. We should see a pretty big performance jump going to custom coolers and the reference performance is already staggeringAlexvrb - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
Reviewers and "tech enthusiasts" alike jumped all over AMD when they didn't adequately cool their 290 cards. So while I don't disagree with what you're saying, I am just surprised that they would let it ship with such heavy throttling on ordinary games. Especially given that in this case it isn't because Nvidia shipped with a cooler that isn't sufficient - rather it's because by default the fan is running too slowly. Even without the vapor chamber, I bet it would be fine if they just turned up the fan just a hair. Not enough to make it loud, but enough to bring it in line with some of the other high-end cards here (under a load).Anyway I suspect the vapor chamber will return in a higher-end "980 Ti" type configuration. In the meantime, yeah I'd keep an eye out for high-end aftermarket designs with a more aggressive power delivery system and wicked cooling. There's no doubt these chips have serious potential! I'd bet an aggressive 970 could hit the market for under $400 with 980-like performance and a factory warranty. :D
I'd say "poor AMD" but this kind of leapfrogging is nothing new. Even if AMD can't come out with something really impressive in the next several months, they can always remain competitive by dropping prices. My GPU is idle outside of gaming so the actual difference in power consumption in terms of dollars is tiny. Now, for number-crunching rigs that run their GPUs 24/7... that's a different story altogether. But then again, AMD's professional cards have good DP numbers so it's kind of a wash.
Hixbot - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
I'm very disappointed they got rid of the vapor chamber. I'm not a fan of the 3rd party coolers as they exhaust the air into the case (big deal for small form factor PCs). I prefer the blower cooler even though they are noisier, the loss of the vapor chamber is a big deal.Viewgamer - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
LOL people screaming at the 285. It actually consumes less power than the 980 and 970 not more.Nvidia greatly understated the TDP of the 980 and 970 to put it lightly.
Both cards consume more power than the 250W TDP 7970 Ghz yet they're somehow rated at 165W and 145W how laughable !
http://i.imgur.com/nfueVP7.png