The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTOverclocking
Finally, no review of a high-end video card would be complete without a look at overclocking performance.
From a design standpoint, GTX 980 Ti already ships close to its power limits. NVIDIA’s 250W TDP can only be raised another 10% – to 275W – meaning that in TDP limited scenarios there’s not much headroom to play with. On the other hand with the stock voltage being relatively low, in clockspeed limited scenarios there’s still some room for pushing the performance envelope through overvolting. And neither of these options addresses the most potent aspect of overclocking, which is pushing the entire clockspeed curve higher at the same voltages by increasing the clockspeed offsets.
GTX Titan X by comparison ended up being a good overclocker, and while we'd expect GTX 980 Tis to use slightly lower quality chips as part of the binning process, it should still overclock rather well.
| GeForce GTX 980 Ti Overclocking | ||||
| Stock | Overclocked | |||
| Core Clock | 1000MHz | 1250MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1075Mhz | 1326MHz | ||
| Max Boost Clock | 1202MHz | 1477MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 7GHz | 8GHz | ||
| Max Voltage | 1.187v | 1.23v | ||
Overall we're able to get another 250MHz (25%) out of the GTX 980 Ti's GPU, and another 1GHz (14%) out of its VRAM. This pushes the GTX 980 Ti's clockspeeds up to 1326MHz for the standard boost clock, and 1477MHz for the maximum boost clock. The card is heavily TDP limited at this point, so it's unlikely to sustain clockspeeds over 1400MHz, but working clockspeeds in the 1300MHz range are certainly sustainable. Meanwhile interestingly enough, this is actually a slightly better overclock than what we saw with the GTX Titan X; the Titan was only able to get another 200MHz out of its GPU and 800MHz out of its memory. So GTX 980 Ti ends up being the better overclocker by 50MHz.
The gains from this overclock are a very consistent across all 5 of our sample games at 4K, with the average performance increase being 20%. Though not quite enough to push the GTX 980 Ti above 60fps in Shadow of Mordor or Crysis 3, it is enough to crack 60fps on Battlefield 4 and The Talos Principle.
The cost of that 20% overclock in terms of power and noise is similarly straightforward. You're looking at an increased power cost of 30W or so at the wall – in-line with the 25W increase in the card’s TDP – while on the noise front the GTX 980 Ti is pushed out of its sweet spot. Card noise levels will increase by around 4.5dB(A).
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Kosiostin - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I beg to differ. 4K at monitor viewing distance is not overkill, it's actually quite pleasantly sharp. Phones, tablets and laptops are already pushing for 2K+ displays which is phenomenally sharp and out of the league for normal FHD monitors. Gaming at 4K is still not coming but when it comes it will blow our minds, I am sure.Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
People who care so much for immersion should be using 1440 with HDTV screen sizes, not sitting way up close with small monitors.Too bad HDTVs have so much input lag, though.
Kutark - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Basically at a 5' viewing distance, you would have to have a 40" monitor before 4k would start to become noticeable.Even at 30" monitor you would have to be sitting roughly 3.5' or closer to your monitor to be able to begin to tell the difference.
We also have to keep in mind we're talking about severely diminishing returns. 1440p is about perfect for normal seating distances with a computer on a 27" monitor. 30" some arguments can be made for 4k but its a minor. Its not like we're going from 480p to 1080p or something 1440p is still very good at "normal" computer seating distances.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Human vision varies as to who can discern what at a particular distance. There's no fixed cutoffs for this. Personally, when wandering around a TV store back in January (without knowing what type of screen I was looking at), for visual clarity the only displays that looked properly impressive turned out to be 4Ks. However, they're still a bit too pricey atm for a good one, with the cheaper models employing too many compromises such as reduced chroma sampling to bring down the pricing, or much lower refresh rates, etc. (notice how stores use lots of static imagery to advertise their cheaper 4K TVs?)Btw, here's a wonderfull irony for you: recent research, mentioned in New Scientist, suggests that long exposure by gamers to high-refresh displays makes them more able to tell the difference between standard displays and high-refresh models, ie. simply using a 144Hz monitor can make one less tolerant of standad 60Hz displays in the long term. :D It's like a self-reinforcing quality tolerance level. Quite funny IMO. No surprise to me though, years working in VR & suchlike resulted in my being able to tell the difference in refresh rates much more than I was able to beforehand.
Anyway, I'm leaving 4K until cheaper models are better quality, etc. In the meantime I bought a decent (but not high-end) 48" Samsung which works pretty well. Certainly looks good for Elite Dangerous running off a 980, and Crysis looks awesome.
Laststop311 - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Why would most people be using DVI? DVI is big and clunky and just sucks. Everyone that gets new stuff nowadays uses displayport it has the easiest to use plug.Crest - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Thank you for including the GTX580. I'm still living and working on a pair of 580's and it's nice to know where they stand in these new releases.TocaHack - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I upgraded from SLI'd 580s to a 980 at the start of April. Now I'm wishing I'd waited for the Ti! It wasn't meant to launch this soon! :-/mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Indeed, one of the few sites to include 580 numbers, though it's a shame it's missing in some of the graphs (people forget there are lots of 3GB 580s around now, I bought ten last month).If it's of any use, I've done a lot of 580 SLI vs. 980 (SLI) testing, PM for a link to the results. I tested with 832MHz 3GB 580s, though the reference 783MHz 3GB models I was already using I sold for a nice profit to a movie company (excellent cards for CUDA, two of them beat a Titan), reducing the initial 980 upgrade to a mere +150.
Overall, a 980 easily beats 580 SLI, and often comes very close to 3-way 580 SLI. The heavier the load, the bigger the difference, eg. for Firestrike Ultra, one 980 was between 50% and 80% faster than two 3GB 580s. I also tested 2/3-way 980 SLI, so if you'd like the numbers, just PM me or Google "SGI Ian" to find my site, contact page and Yahoo email adr.
I've been looking for a newer test. I gather GTA V has a built-in benchmark, so finally I may have found something suitable, need to look into that.
Only one complaint about the review though, why no CUDA test??? I'd really like to know how the range of NV cards stacks up now, and whether AE yet supports MW CUDA V2. I've tested 980s with Arion and Blender, it came close to two 580s, but not quite. Would be great to see how the 980 Ti compares to the 980 for this. Still plenty of people using CUDA with pro apps, especially AE.
Ian.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Btw Crest, which model 580s are you using? I do have some 1.5GB 580s aswell, but I've not really done much yet to expose where VRAM issues kick in, though it does show up in Unigine pretty well at 1440p.For reference, I do most testing with a 5GHz 2700K and a 4.8GHz 3930K, though I've also tested three 980s on a P55 with an i7 870 (currently the fastest P55 system on 3DMark for various tests).
Mikemk - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Since it has 2 SMM's disabled, does it have the memory issue of the 970? (Haven't read full article yet, sorry if answered in article)