The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Review: Maxwell Mark 2
by Ryan Smith on September 18, 2014 10:30 PM ESTThief
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 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.
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.
Our delta percentages are once more unremarkable. All cards are consistently below 3% here.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
274 Comments
View All Comments
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?