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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ppi - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
AMD will not beat 980 (they probably could put some fight, but nVidia could always defend it easily, so why do that - it would just dilute prices). What is more important for them, that *on desktop*, AMD can still stay relevant in lower price buckets by offering more performance per $ (while relying on partners for custom open-air cooling and ignoring the power draw disadvantage).Kjella - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
You do realize what you said pretty much exactly mirrors what people said about AMD and CPUs a few years back? Just trying to offer value while your competitor is making more efficient chips is a dead end where you're soon so far behind in technology that it's not enough. Nobody wants a 220W CPU (FX-9370/9590) and if AMD needs to pull a 300+W GPU to compete with GTX 980 it'll be equally dead on arrival.ppi - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
Not really. When Core2 was released, pretty much entire AMD's lineup was made irrelevant (I still use my 7 years old mid-range Core2Duo and I know that AMD chips were not even for consideration back then). Now the fastest AMD's card is faster than 2nd fastest nVidia offering. Look at TR 2014 HW survey where 80% clearly enthusiasts buy stuff for less than $400. Die sizes are similar. Both companies are fabless and thus have access to the same processes (unlike competition with Intel).AMD of course HAS TO come up with something better than what they have now. And soon. My point was mainly that they should be able to survive this holiday season sort of okayish.
I expect that AMD is focusing their limited resources on 20nm part, but it apparently did not work as well as it did in times of HD-5000 and 7000 series. And Maxwell improvements are greater than what is achievable just with die shrink. So there's some hard work for AMD ahead. Given necessary lead time for such products, I doubt 300-series will be good enough (unless they were going nuts with efficiency after seeing 680).
I admire nVidia for a long time always covering weak spots in their products. It could be seen from times when they went against 3dfx, though FX-5000 and now of course they show how they learned from 480 era.
Silma - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
I fully agree.As long as Intel does not succeed better in smartphones & tablets, it probably doesn't fully utilize its manufacturing capacities.
It could begin with opening 22 nm to NVIDIA and 14nm in 2015.
Seriously though, I'm not sure why Intel still hasn't bought NVIDIA, except if it foresees troubles getting the deal accepted with regulators.
This would not Mirror the AMD's ATI acquisition. crap + crap = crap.
Outstanding + outstanding = awesome.
Notmyusualid - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
+1SanX - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
Intel should buy NVIDIA long ago but they are in lethargy all last dacadeRyan Smith - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
BTW, before anyone asks: we're still working to get images and charts in. 4 days is very little time for a 20K word article. So please hold on for a bit.boot318 - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
Where is the Overclocking results? Not done yet? I see the page but it is blank.RaistlinZ - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
Ditto. I can't see the overclocking page.chizow - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
And no 970 results?