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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Laststop311 - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
The performance difference between the 980ti and 980 is WAY larger than the performance difference between the 980 and 970 yet the price gap is larger between the 980 and 970. The 980 was stupidly overpriced at 550 and is still overpriced at 500. It needs to be at the 420-430 mark.I would be upset if I just paid 550 for a GTX 980 and now for only 100 more I could basically have titan x performance.
chizow - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
And what value do you place on the 9 months that 980 users have been enjoying that level of performance? Again, if you think the 970 is the better deal, it is there for you to buy at $300-330. The 980 was overpriced by maybe $50 at launch, but it still dropped the entire price and performance landscape at the time where 780Ti was still $650+, 290X was $550, 780 was $450 and 290 was $400. In that context, it wasn't so bad, was it?In reality, Nvidia has no reason to drop the 980 as there is no pressure at all from AMD. All these price cuts are self-induced as they are simply competing with themselves and pre-emptively firing a shot across the bow at $650 with 980Ti.
Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
"In reality, Nvidia has no reason to drop the 980 as there is no pressure at all from a card with 3.5 GB of VRAM that, in part, runs at 28 GB/s and has XOR contention."fify
chizow - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
"In reality, Nvidia has no reason to drop pricing on the 980, as there is no point in threatening the golden calf that may have single-handedly killed AMD graphics, 3.5GB VRAM and all."FTFY ;)
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 2.81%
AMD Radeon R9 200 Series 0.94%
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
I hope you're being paid for all this nonsense.Michael Bay - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Oh the pain.chizow - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Is it nonsense? I hope you are being paid for posting 3.5GB nonsense?darkfalz - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
I dunno. I can't really justify an upgrade from my 980 STRIX (which would then replace beloved 680 in my HTPC) - I was hoping for at least 40% improvement. Not really worth it for 20-30%. Better off getting another 980 and SLI it.darkfalz - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
I'm not sure why they aren't offering Witcher III as well as Batman. Why would a 970 get you two games? Not a great incentive to buy.SeanJ76 - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
Yeah this card barely surpasses my 770 Sli, and I mean BARELY! I think I'll pass and wait for another die.