The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTSynthetics
As always we’ll also take a quick look at synthetic performance. Being a virtual copy of the GTX Titan X, GTX 980 Ti should perform very similarly here, just as we've seen in our gaming tests.
Compared to GTX Titan X, GTX 980 Ti does technically lose 2 Polymorph Engines as a result of losing 2 SMMs. However as with our games, this doesn’t really hinder GTX 980 Ti, leading it being within a few percent of GTX Titan X on tessellation performance.
As for texel and pixel fillrates, the results are both as-expected and a bit surprising. On the expected side, we see the GTX 980 Ti trail GTX Titan X by a bit, again taking a hit from the SMM loss. On the other hand we’re seeing a larger than expected drop in the pixel fill rates. GTX 980 Ti loses some rasterization throughput from the SMM loss, but a 15% drop in this test is much larger than 2 SMMs. Just to be sure we checked to make sure the ROP/MC configuration of GTX 980 Ti was unchanged at 96 ROPs, so while we can explain 10% or so (GTX 980 Ti doesn't have its clockspeed advantage in such a short test), we're at a loss to fully explain the last 5%. The short run time of the test also makes it more varaible than other tests, so that may be the last 5%.
Though in either case, despite what 3DMark is telling us, we aren’t seeing any signs of GTX 980 Ti struggling at 4K versus GTX Titan X. So if there is a meaningful difference in pixel fillrates, it’s not impacting game performance.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
290 Comments
View All Comments
Daroller - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I had a GTX690, and I run SLI TITAN X. I've been running dual GPU setups for as long as they've been available. Dual GPU IS a hindrance. You'd have to be blind, stupid, or a rabid fanboy to claim otherwise. The 295x2 isn't exempt from that just because you dislike NV and harbor a not so secret love for AMD.Laststop311 - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Yea cause using dual GPU's just sucks. Just adds a bunch more complexities and problems to everything. Always get 1 of the largest, fastest single gpu's you can get.Kutark - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I guess if by crush you mean thermally crush. Then yes, you're absolutely correct. I mean, why not have a portable nuclear reactor nearby to power your video card!mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Hope you enjoy your power bill, heat, worse stuttering, etc., and the numerous CF fails for all sorts of scenarios. I checked some forums, lots of moans about 15.5 for CF support.poohbear - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Why didn't u include witcher 3 in the benchmarks? It's the latest graphics intensive game for sure & looks gorgeous!kyuu - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
It JUST came out. A significant portion of this review was probably carried out before it was even released. Not to mention its already had two patches that affect performance substantially.Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
It looks horribly watered-down compared with the earlier demo, probably because they wanted so much to keep the VRAM requirements really low.chizow - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
@Ryan Any word on when we might see some SLI results? I know this is generally dependent on limited review samples, but vendors will probably start sending you cards soon yeah?Ryan Smith - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Not any time soon.NA1NSXR - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Those revised 970/980 prices are stingy.