The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Review: Maxwell Mark 2
by Ryan Smith on September 18, 2014 10:30 PM ESTBattlefield 4
Our latest addition to our benchmark suite and our current major multiplayer action game of our benchmark suite is Battlefield 4, DICE’s 2013 multiplayer military shooter. After a rocky start, Battlefield 4 has finally reached a point where it’s stable enough for benchmark use, giving us the ability to profile one of the most popular and strenuous shooters out there. As these benchmarks are from single player mode, based on our experiences our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, which means a card needs to be able to average at least 60fps if it’s to be able to hold up in multiplayer.
Battlefield 4 is one of our tougher games, especially with the bar set at 60fps to give us enough headroom for multiplayer performance. To that end the GTX 980 turns in another solid performance, though the dream of averaging 60fps at 1440p Ultra is going to have to wait just a bit longer to be answered.
Overall on a competitive basis the GTX 980 looks very strong. Against the GTX 780 Ti it further improves on performance by 8-13%, 30%+ against GTX 780, and 66% against GTX 680. Similarly it fares well against AMD’s cards – even with their Mantle performance advantage – with the exception of one case: 4K at Medium quality. With maximum quality settings, at all resolutions the GTX 980 can outperform AMD’s best by around 15%. But in the case of 4K Medium, with the lesser shader overhead in particular the R9 290XU gets to pull ahead thanks to Mantle. At this point NVIDIA is losing by just 4%, but it goes to show how close the race between these two cards is going to be at times and why AMD is never too far behind NVIDIA in several of these games.
In any case for Ultra quality you’re looking at the GTX 980 being enough for 1080p and even 1440p if you flex the 60fps rule a bit. 4K at these settings though is going to be the domain of multi-GPU setups.
Meanwhile delta percentage performance is extremely strong here. Everyone, incuding the GTX 980, is well below 3%.
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rennya - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
Any info what HDMI 2.0 level and HDCP version this nVidia GPU has? It can only be between these ywo; HDMI 2.0 level B HDCP 2.2 or HDMI 2.0 level A HDCP 2.0.If it was the former, gaming performance in 4K displays that use HDMI 2.0. If it was the latter, this card is DOA when Bluray 4K videos comes out.
khanov - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
Ideally, we consumers want a full HDMI 2.0 spec transceiver with 20+Gbps bandwidth AND HDCP 2.2. But these are not yet available and that is why we see these stop-gap measures that manufacturers are calling HDMI 2.0 A and B. This should *hopefully* be resolved by next year.In the meantime, I'd also like to know what exactly Nvidia is offering in the 970 and 980 cards. Without HDCP 2.2 the compatibility of these cards with future TV and AV gear is questionable.
Ryan, are you able to clarify please?
Ryan Smith - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
I don't have any more information available. But I will look into it.AnnonymousCoward - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
If the stupid TV industry had went with the existing and mature DisplayPort interface for 4K, we wouldn't have these stupid HDMI 2.0 problems.warisz00r - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
So is it viable to drop a 970 or 980 in a sub-600W setup?dishayu - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
The whole system peaks at 300W. Even a cheap, non 80+ certified 500W power supply should be able to deliver that much with complete safety.Alexvrb - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
I would NEVER buy a PSU that isn't at least a somewhat halfway decent 80+ certified unit. Especially if you're going to then combine it with expensive components. At this point anything that falls under the category of "Cheap non 80+" is as likely to explode and catch fire as it is to run with complete safety. :P$30 gets you a 500W 80+ certified unit anyway.
nandnandnand - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
"GM204 ends up weighing in at 5.2 billion transistors, with a die size of 398mm2. This compares to 3.54B transistors and a die size of 294mm2 for GK104, and 7.1B transistors for 551mm2 for GK110."Does this mean there will be a 10 billion transistor GM210
extide - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
Probably, yes, but not @ 28nm ;)Laststop311 - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
I think you are right. Unless there is another huge delay big maxwell will not see the light of day till 20nm. At 28nm the die size would be astronomical and thats too expensive.