The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTGrand Theft Auto V
The final game in our review of the GTX 980 Ti is our most recent addition, Grand Theft Auto V. The latest edition of Rockstar’s venerable series of open world action games, Grand Theft Auto V was originally released to the last-gen consoles back in 2013. However thanks to a rather significant facelift for the current-gen consoles and PCs, along with the ability to greatly turn up rendering distances and add other features like MSAA and more realistic shadows, the end result is a game that is still among the most stressful of our benchmarks when all of its features are turned up. Furthermore, in a move rather uncharacteristic of most open world action games, Grand Theft Auto also includes a very comprehensive benchmark mode, giving us a great chance to look into the performance of an open world action game.
On a quick note about settings, as Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have pre-defined settings tiers, I want to quickly note what settings we're using. For "Very High" quality we have all of the primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, with the exception of grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced redering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but it not increasing the view distance any further.
Otherwise for "High" quality we take the same basic settings but turn off all MSAA, which significantly reduces the GPU rendering and VRAM requirements.
After initially expecting Grand Theft Auto to be a walk in the park performance wise, the PC version of the game has instead turned out to be a very demanding games for our GPUs. Even at 1440p we can’t have very high quality with MSAA and still crack 60fps, though we can get very close.
Ultimately GTA doesn’t do any better than any other game in setting apart our GM200 cards. GTX 980 Ti trails GTX Titan by 4% or less, essentially the average outcome at this point. Also average is the GTX 980 Ti’s lead over the GTX 980, with the newest card beating the older GTX 980 by 29-31% across our three settings. Finally, against the GTX 780 the GTX 980 Ti has another strong showing, with a 69-79% lead.
On an absolute basis we can see that at 4K we can’t have 4x MSAA and even crack 30fps on a single-GPU card, with GTX 980 Ti topping out at 27.8 fps. Taking out MSAA brings us up to 46.2fps, which is still well off 60fps, but also well over the 30fps cap that this game was originally designed against on the last-generation consoles.
Along with an all-around solid benchmark scene, the other interesting benchmarking feature of GTA is that it also generates frame percentiles on its own, allowing us to see the percentiles without going back and recording the game with FRAPS. Taking a look at the 99th percentile in this case, what we find is that at each setting GTA crushes some group of cards due to a lack of VRAM.
At 4K very high quality, 4GB cards have just enough VRAM to stay alive, with the multi-GPU R9 295X2 getting crushed due to the additional VRAM requirements of AFR pushing it over the edge. Not plotted here are the 3GB cards, which saw their framerates plummet to the low single-digits, essentially struggling to complete this benchmark. Meanwhile 1440p at high quality crushes our 2GB cards, with less VRAM than a Radeon HD 7970 falling off of the cliff.
As for what this means for the GTX 980 Ti, the situation finds the GTX 980 Ti trailing the GTX Titan X in 99th percentile framerates by anywhere between 3% and 10%. This test is not designed to push more than 6GB of VRAM, so I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t a wider than normal variance (especially at the low framerates for 4K), though the significant and rapid asset streaming this benchmark requires may be taking its toll on the GTX 980 Ti, which has less VRAM for additional caching.
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Laststop311 - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
how is 6GB the minimum ram needed till finfet gpus? Even at 1440p with max settings no game requires 6GB of ram. Even if a game can use 6GB of ram the way some games are programmed they just use up extra ram if it is available but that used ram isn't crucial to the operation of the game. So it will show a high ram usage when in reality it can use way less and be fine.You are overly paranoid. 4GB of ram should be just fine to hold u off a year or 2 till finfet gpus comes out for 1440p res. If you are smart you will skip these and just wait for 2h 2016 where 14/16nm finfet gpu's are going to make a large leap in performance. That generation of gpu's should be able to be kept long term with good results. This is when you would want an 8GB card to keep it running smooth for a good 3-4 years, since you should get good lifespan with the first finfet gpu's.
chizow - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Again, spoken from the perspective of someone who doesn't have the requisite hardware to test or know the difference. I've had both a 980 and a Titan X, and there are without a doubt, games that run sluggishly as if you are moving through molasses as soon as you turn up bandwidth intensive settings, like MSAA, texture quality and stereo 3D and hit your VRAM limits even with the FRAPs meter saying you should be getting smooth frame rates.With Titan X, none of these problems and of course, VRAM shoots over the 4GB celing I was hitting before.
And why would I bother to keep running old cards that aren't good enough now and wait for FinFET cards that MIGHT be able to run for 3-4 years after that? I'll just upgrade to 14/16nm next year if the difference is big enough, it'll be a similar 18-24 month timeframe when I usually make my upgrades anyways. What am I supposed to do in this year while I wait for good enough GPUs? Not play any games? Deal with 2-3GB slow cards at 1440p? No thanks.
Refuge - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
So you are saying I shouldn't be asking questions about something I'm spending my hard earned money on? Not a small sum of which at that?You sir should buy my car, it is a great deal, just don't ask me about it. Because that would be stupid!
Yojimbo - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
He's not questioning your concern, he's questioning your criteria.Peichen - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Why is the most popular mid-high card: GTX 970, not on the comparison list? It is exactly half the price as 980 Ti and it would be great to see if it is exactly 50% the speed and uses half the power as well.dragonsqrrl - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
It's definitely more than 50% the performance and power consumption, but yes it would've been nice to include in the charts.PEJUman - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Ryan's selection is not random. it seems he selects the likely upgrade candidates & nearest competitors. it's the same reasoning why there is no R9 290 here. most 970 and R9 290 owners probably know how to infer their card performance from the un-harversted versions (980 and 290x).Granted, it's odd to see 580 here and 970 will be more valuable technically.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Plus, most requests I've seen on forums have been for 970 SLI results rather than a 970 on its own, as 970 SLI is the more likely config to come anywhere a 980 Ti, assuming VRAM isn't an issue. Data for 970 SLI would thus show where in the various resolution/detail space one sees performance tail off because it needs more than 4GB.bloodypulp - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
The 295X2 still crushes it. But blind Nvidia fanboys will claim it doesn't matter because it is either a) not a single GPU or b)AMD (and therefore sucks).PEJUman - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I owns 290 crossfire currently, previously a single 780 TI. Witcher 3 still sucks for my 290 CF, as well as the 295X2. so... depends on your game selections. I also have to spend more time customizing most of my games to get the optimal settings on my 290 CF than my 780TI.