The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTFinal Words
Bringing this video card review to a close, through the last 14 pages of benchmarks we have seen the same result time and time again. While on paper the GeForce GTX 980 Ti should trail the GeForce GTX Titan X by several percent, what we get in the real world is much, much closer. With an average performance deficit of just 3%, GeForce GTX 980 Ti is for all intents and purposes GTX Titan X with a different name.
Typically NVIDIA engineers a wider gap between their cards, and while there is plenty of room for speculation here as to why they’d let GTX 980 Ti get so close to GTX Titan X – and make no mistake, it is intentional – at the end of the day none of that changes the final result. With a launch price of $649, the GTX 980 Ti may as well be an unofficial price cut to GTX Titan X, delivering flagship GeForce performance for 35% less.
As it stands GTX Titan X does have one remaining advantage that precludes it from being rendered redundant: its 12GB of VRAM, versus GTX 980 Ti’s 6GB. However without any current games requiring more than 6GB of VRAM – and any realistic workload running out of GPU throughput before running out of VRAM – the GTX Titan X’s place in this world now hinges on an uncertain degree of future-proofness. For this reason GTX Titan X isn’t going anywhere, it will still be around for buyers who need the very best, or even compute users after a cheap 12GB card, but for everyone else the GTX 980 Ti is now going to be the card all other high-end video cards are measured against.
Meanwhile for prospective high-end buyers who haven’t already picked up a GTX Titan X, GTX 980 Ti comes at an interesting time for new buyers and upgrades alike. NVIDIA’s previous $649 card, the GTX 780, has just turned two years old, which is about the bare minimum for upgrading a video card these days. Gamers looking to replace the GTX 780 will find that the GTX 980 Ti offers around a 70% performance improvement, which compared to the gains we saw with GTX Titan X and NVIDIA’s other Titan cards is actually ahead of the curve. It’s still not enough to double GTX 780’s performance, nor are we going to get there until 16nm, but it’s a bright spot for those who may want to upgrade a bit sooner than 2016. On the other hand GTX 780 Ti owners will almost certainly want to hold off for the next generation, despite the name.
That said however, today’s launch is just the first part of a larger battle between NVIDIA and AMD. With AMD scheduled to launch their next-generation high-end card in June, the launch of the GTX 980 Ti is in many ways NVIDIA striking first and striking hard. By pushing GTX Titan X-like performance down to $650, NVIDIA has set the bar for AMD: AMD needs to either beat GTX 980 Ti/Titan X if they want to take back the performance crown, or they need to deliver their card for less than $650. It goes without saying that NVIDIA has given AMD a very high bar to beat, but AMD has proven to be quite resourceful in the past, so it shall be interesting to see just what AMD’s response is to the GTX 980 Ti.
As for this moment, the high-end video card market is essentially in a holding pattern. The GeForce GTX 980 Ti is a fine card for the price – a GTX Titan X for $649 – however with AMD’s new flagship card on the horizon buyers are likely better off waiting to see what AMD delivers before making such a purchase, if only to see if it further pushes down video card prices.
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douglord - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I need to know if the 980ti can output 10-bit color correctly? Is it ready for UHD Blueray?dragonsqrrl - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
To my knowledge only Quadro's and Firepro's output 10 bit color depth.johnpombrio - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Any card that can do true RGB color schemes are NOT MEANT for normal users. It brings a lot of drawbacks for games and normal tasks. These type of cards are for graphics professionals only. Google it to see why.mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Indeed, the way colourspaces interact with different types of monitor can result in some nasty issues for accurate colour presentation. For home users, it's really not suitable since so many normal apps & games aren't written to utilise such modes correctly. Besides, I doubt any 4K TVs could properly resolve 10bis/channel anyway. Funny though that people are still asking about 10bit colour when pro users were already using 12bit more than 20 years ago. :D Also 16bit greyscale for medical/GIS/etc.johnpombrio - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Yikes! That overclock ability! I always buy EVGA's superclocked NVidia cards as they as super stable and have great benchmarks (as well as playing games well, heh). I might buy into this even tho I have a GTX980.As for AMD, NVidia has 76% of the discrete GPU graphics card market (and still rising) while AMD has lost 12% market share in the last 12 months alone. Whatever AMD has up for new products, it better hurry and be a LOT better than NVidia cards. AMD has tried the " rebadge existing GPU family cards, reduce its price, and bundle games" for too long and IT IS NOT WORKING. C'mon AMD, get back into the fight.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
True, I kept finding EVGA's cards work really well. The ACX2 980 (1266MHz) is particularly good.Nfarce - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Well I recently upgraded with a second 970 for SLI for 1440p gaming and have them overclocked to 980 performance. It's roughly 15% faster than this single card solution for $700 vs. $650 (7.5% increase in cost). But one thing is for certain: we are still a long time away from realistic 4K gaming with a G-sync 120Hz monitor when those come out. I would much prefer 1440p gaming with max quality and high AA settings and faster FPS matched to screen Hz than detuned 4K settings (even if AA is less meaningful at 2160p).By the way: are you guys ever going to add Project Cars to your benchmarks? It has rapidly become THE racer to own. Grid Autosport is not really a good benchmark these days because it's just a rehash of the Grid 2 engine (EGO 3.0)...easy on GPUs. Many, including me, haven't touched Autosport since PCars was released and may never touch it again.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Project Cards is one game that runs badly in CF atm (driver issues), which would make the 295x2 look horrible. Might be better to wait until AMD has fixed the issue first.agentbb007 - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
A GTX Titan X for $649, DOH BART! Oh well I've enjoyed my SLI Titan X's for a few months so I guess that was worth the $700 premium. I keep falling for nVidia's Titan brand gimmick, I also bought the original Titan luckily just 1 of them and ended up selling it for about half what I paid.Lesson learned, AGAIN, don't buy the Titan brand wait for the regular GTX version instead.
mapesdhs - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
2019 calling! I wonder if he bought the 2080 Ti or RTX Titan... :}