The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTCrysis 3
Still one of our most punishing benchmarks, Crysis 3 needs no introduction. With Crysis 3, Crytek has gone back to trying to kill computers and still holds “most punishing shooter” title in our benchmark suite. Only in a handful of setups can we even run Crysis 3 at its highest (Very High) settings, and that’s still without AA. Crysis 1 was an excellent template for the kind of performance required to drive games for the next few years, and Crysis 3 looks to be much the same for 2015.
Once more we find the GTX 980 Ti and GTX Titan X virtually tied. Across all settings and resolutions the GTX 980 Ti stays within 97-98% of the Titan’s performance. Consequently GTX Titan X is ever so marginally better, but not enough to make any real difference.
This also means that GTX 980 Ti continues with its very strong lead over the GTX 980. Once more we’re looking at a 26-31% performance advantage for the latest member of the GTX 900 series, in-line with its price premium.
Meanwhile on an absolute basis, as one of our most punishing games this is also a good reminder of why even GM200 cards can’t quite pull off high quality 4K gaming with a single GPU today. Even without MSAA and one step below Crysis 3’s Very High quality settings, the GTX 980 Ti can only muster 40.9fps. If you want to get to 60fps you will need to drop to Low quality, or drop the resolution to 1440p. The latter will get you 83.2fps at the same quality settings, which again highlights GTX 980 Ti’s second strength as a good card for driving high refresh rate 1440p displays.
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Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I'm sure you posted that from your 65nm processor and 80nm GPU.godrilla - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
Because next shrink is in the 3d chips plus hbm category and that should be amazing performance leap.Gastec - Sunday, September 4, 2016 - link
Oh yeah, that's "1337 5p34k" for ya! :PWreckage - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Wait until AMD tries to sell you a rebadge for that much.Rezurecta - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
I don't understand the rage about rebadge all of a sudden. GPU has been doing this for YEARS!Anyway, nice card from Nvidia for a decent price.
dragonsqrrl - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Don't mix up traditional rebadging and what AMD is doing with their upcoming lineup, it's unprecedented. It's also worrisome, and it's clearly a big problem for AMD. What does it say about the state of the company and their R&D budget that they'll only have 1 new GPU this coming generation? One of the big problems AMD is currently facing, amongst many other things, are their profit margins. In order to compete they're selling larger, more expensive GPU's attached to more complex memory interfaces relative to the competition, and that won't change much this coming generation as a result of these top to bottom rebadges. The situation is really becoming quite analogous to their CPU's, which should raise alarms for any informed enthusiast. It's a less than ideal situation, to put it lightly.Azix - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
If you post this after their launch then maybe I'd understand. As it is their Chips are almost certainly not rebadged because they aren't on TSMC and will include hardware improvements. They maybe be based on hawaii or w/e but not even nvidia managed to put out more than 2 new cards during their major launch last year. Considering this is likely the last year of 28nm launches, it may make sense for them to put out an entire line of modified chips and be done with the 300 series. Keeping it fresh till next year when they can do 2-3 on a smaller process.dragonsqrrl - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
"If you post this after their launch then maybe I'd understand."You realize I could just give the exact same response to the rest of your comment. But I won't.
"As it is their Chips are almost certainly not rebadged because they aren't on TSMC and will include hardware improvements.",
That's interesting, I haven't heard anything about AMD switching fabs for the 300 series. Source?
"They maybe be based on hawaii or w/e but not even nvidia managed to put out more than 2 new cards during their major launch last year."
Not quite a straight comparison there, since Nvidia also launched a new architecture with the 750Ti. Thus far we've gotten 4 new GPU's (not just cards) based on Maxwell. And we're not just talking launch here. All indications point to Fiji as the only new GPU of the coming generation for AMD. And what's more, it might not even be an updated architecture. The rest of the lineup will likely be refreshes of Hawaii, Tonga, Pitcairn, and Bonaire, ranging from GCN 1.2-1.0, with at most manufacturing revisions to improve efficiency. Again it's very important to put this in perspective, in the context of what these GPU's will be competing against. They range in feature set, and in power efficiency, none of which is anywhere close to par with Maxwell, and it's going to be very difficult for AMD to compete with this lineup for another generation. It's not a good situation for AMD. "Keeping it fresh"? How you came to spin your conclusion the way you did is beyond me.
ImSpartacus - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Be nice. The guy is basically telling you at this point.ImSpartacus - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
trolling***