Thief

Our latest addition to our benchmark suite is Eidos Monreal’s stealth action game, Thief. Set amidst a Victorian-era fantasy environment, Thief is an Unreal Engine 3 based title which makes use of a number of supplementary Direct3D 11 effects, including tessellation and advanced lighting. Adding further quality to the game on its highest settings is support for SSAA, which can eliminate most forms of aliasing while bringing even the most powerful video cards to their knees.

Thief - 3840x2160 - Very High Quality, No SSAA

Thief - 2560x1440 - Very High QualityThief - 1920x1080 - Very High Quality

Thief is another solid win for the GTX 980. The closest anyone gets to it is within 10%, and the lead only widens from there. Against the GTX 780 Ti, this is a lead of anywhere between 10% and 16%, and against the R9 290 XU it’s 15-22%; Mantle doing the card no favors for average framerates above 1080p.

The performance advantage over the GTX 780 and GTX 680 is also above average. GTX 980 can outrun the previous x80 card by 33% or more, and the GTX 680 by at least 80%.

On an absolute basis the GTX 980 won’t quite crack 60fps at 1440p, but it does come very close at 56fps. And since thief is running an internal form of SSAA, turning up the resolution to 4K and dropping the SSAA still yields playable framerates, though at 48fps it’s closer to 45 than 60. 60fps is going to require a bit more horsepower than what a single GTX 980 can deliver today.

Thief - Min. Frame Rate - 3840x2160 - Very High Quality, No SSAAThief - Min. Frame Rate - 2560x1440 - Very High QualityThief - Min. Frame Rate - 1920x1080 - Very High Quality

The GTX 980’s performance advantage generally holds up when it comes to minimum framerates as well. Though it is interesting to note that until we get to 4K, the GTX 980 holds a larger minimum framerate advantage over the GTX 780 Ti than it does an average framerate advantage – 20% verus about 10%. On the other hand the use of Mantle begins to close the gap for the R9 290XU a bit, but it’s still not enough to make up for the GTX 980’s strong overall performance advantage, especially at 1080p.

Thief - Delta PercentagesThief - Surround/4K - Delta Percentages

Our delta percentages are once more unremarkable. All cards are consistently below 3% here.

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  • squngy - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    It is explained in the article.

    Because GTX980 makes so many more frames the CPU is worked a lot harder. The W in those charts are for the whole system so when the CPU uses more power it makes it harder to directly compare GPUs
  • galta - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link

    The simple fact is that a GPU more powerful than a GTX 980 does not make sense right now, no matter how much we would love to see it.
    See, most folks are still gaming @ 1080, some of us are moving up to 1440. Under this scenarios, a GTX 980 is more than enough, even if quality settings are maxed out. Early reviews show that it can even handle 4K with moderate settings, and we should expect further performance gains as drivers improve.
    Maybe in a year or two, when 4K monitors become more relevant, a more powerful GPU would make sense. Now they simply don't.
    For the moment, nVidia's movement is smart and commendable: power efficiency!
    I mean, such a powerful card at only 165W! If you are crazy/wealthy enough to have two of them in SLI, you can cut your power demand by 170W, with following gains in temps and/or noise, and and less expensive PSU, if you're building from scratch.
    In the end, are these new cards great? Of course they are!
    Does it make sense to up-grade right now? Only if you running a 5xx or 6xx series card, or if your demands have increased dramatically (multi-monitor set-up, higher res. etc.).
  • Margalus - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link

    A more powerful gpu does make sense. Some people like to play their games with triple monitors, or more. A single gpu that could play at 7680x1440 with all settings maxed out would be nice.
  • galta - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link

    How many of us demand such power? The ones who really do can go SLI and OC the cards.
    nVidia would be spending billions for a card that would sell thousands. As I said: we would love the card, but still no sense
    Again, I would love to see it, but in the forseeable future, I won't need it. Happier with noise, power and heat efficiency.
  • Da W - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link

    Here's one that demands such power. I play 3600*1920 using 3 screens, almost 4k, 1/3 the budget, and still useful for, you know, working.
    Don't want sli/crossfire. Don't want a space heater either.
  • bebimbap - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link

    gaming at 1080@144 or 1080 with min fps of 120 for ulmb is no joke when it comes to gpu requirement. Most modern games max at 80-90fps on a OC'd gtx670 you need at least an OC'd gtx770-780. I'd recommend 780ti. and though a 24" 1080 might seem "small" you only have so much focus. You can't focus on periphery vision you'd have to move your eyes to focus on another piece of the screen. the 24"-27" size seems perfect so you don't have to move your eyes/head much or at all.

    the next step is 1440@144 or min fps of 120 which requires more gpu than @ 4k60. as 1440 is about 2x 1080 you'd need a gpu 2x as powerful. so you can see why nvidia must put out a powerful card at a moderate price point. They need it for their 144hz gsync tech and 3dvision

    imo the ppi race isn't as beneficial as higher refresh rate. For TVs manufacturers are playing this game of misinformation so consumers get the short end of the stick, but having a monitor running at 144hz is a world of difference compared to 60hz for me. you can tell just from the mouse cursor moving across the screen. As I age I realize every day that my eyes will never be as good as yesterday, and knowing that I'd take a 27" 1440p @ 144hz any day over a 28" 5k @ 60hz.
  • Laststop311 - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link

    Well it all depends on viewing distance. I use a 30" 2560x1600 dell u3014 to game on currently since it's larger i can sit further away and still have just as good of an experience as a 24 or 27 thats closer. So you can't just say larger monitors mean you can;t focus on it all cause you can just at a further distance.
  • theuglyman0war - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link

    The power of the newest technology is and has always been an illusion because the creation of games will always be an exercise in "compromise". Even a game like WOW that isn't crippled by console consideration is created by the lowest common denominator demographic in the PC hardware population. In other words... ( if u buy it they will make it vs. if they make it I will upgrade ). Besides the unlimited reach of an openworld's "possible" textures and vtx counts.
    "Some" artists are of the opinion that more hardware power would result in a less aggressive graphic budget! ( when the time spent wrangling a synced normal mapped representation of a high resolution sculpt or tracking seam problems in lightmapped approximations of complex illumination with long bake times can take longer than simply using that original complexity ). The compromise can take more time then if we had hardware that could keep up with an artists imagination.
    In which case I gotta wonder about the imagination of the end user that really believes his hardware is the end to any graphics progress?
  • ppi - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link

    On desktop, all AMD needs to do is to lower price and perhaps release OC'd 290X to match 980 performance. It will reduce their margins, but they won't be irrelevant on the market, like in CPUs vs Intel (where AMD's most powerful beasts barely touch Intel's low-end, apart from some specific multi-threaded cases)

    Why so simple? On desktop:
    - Performance is still #1 factor - if you offer more per your $, you win
    - Noise can be easily resolved via open air coolers
    - Power consumption is not such a big deal

    So ... if AMD card at a given price is as fast as Maxwell, then they are clearly worse choice. But if they are faster?

    In mobile, however, they are screwed big way, unless they have something REAL good in their sleeve (looking at Tonga, I do not think they do, as I am convinced AMD intends to pull off another HD5870 (i.e. be on the new process node first), but it apparently did not work this time around.)
  • Friendly0Fire - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link

    The 290X already is effectively an overclocked 290 though. I'm not sure they'd be able to crank up power consumption reliably without running into heat dissipation or power draw limits.

    Also, they'd have to invest in making a good reference cooler.

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