The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTBattlefield 4
Kicking off our benchmark suite is Battlefield 4, DICE’s 2013 multiplayer military shooter. After a rocky start, Battlefield 4 has since become a challenging game in its own right and a showcase title for low-level graphics APIs. As these benchmarks are from single player mode, based on our experiences our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, which means a card needs to be able to average at least 60fps if it’s to be able to hold up in multiplayer.
Battlefield 4 is going to set the pace for the rest of this review. In our introduction we talked about how the GTX 980 Ti may as well be the GTX Titan X, and this is one such example why. With a framerate deficit of no more than 3% in this benchmark, the difference between the two cards is just outside the range of standard run-to-run experimental variation that we see in our benchmarking process. So yes, it really is that fast.
In any case, after stripping away the Frostbite engine’s expensive (and not wholly effective) MSAA, what we’re left with for BF4 at 4K with Ultra quality puts the 980 Ti in a pretty good light. At 56.5fps it’s not quite up to the 60fps mark, but it comes very close, close enough that the GTX 980 Ti should be able to stay above 30fps virtually the entire time, and never drop too far below 30fps in even the worst case scenario. Alternatively, dropping to Medium quality should give the card plenty of headroom, with an average framerate of 91.8fps meaning even the lowest framerate never drops below 45fps.
Meanwhile our other significant comparison here is the GTX 980, which just saw its price cut by $50 to $499 to make room for the GTX 980 Ti. At $649 the GTX 980 Ti ideally should be 30% faster to justify its 30% higher price tag; here it’s almost exactly on that mark, fluctuating between a 28% and 32% lead depending on the resolution and settings.
Finally, shifting gears for a moment, gamers looking for the ultimate 1440p card will not be disappointed. GTX 980 Ti will not get to 120fps here (it won’t even come close), but at 77.7fps it’s well suited for driving 1440p144 displays. In fact and GTX Titan X are the single-GPU cards to do better than 60fps at this resolution.
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Kosiostin - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I beg to differ. 4K at monitor viewing distance is not overkill, it's actually quite pleasantly sharp. Phones, tablets and laptops are already pushing for 2K+ displays which is phenomenally sharp and out of the league for normal FHD monitors. Gaming at 4K is still not coming but when it comes it will blow our minds, I am sure.Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
People who care so much for immersion should be using 1440 with HDTV screen sizes, not sitting way up close with small monitors.Too bad HDTVs have so much input lag, though.
Kutark - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Basically at a 5' viewing distance, you would have to have a 40" monitor before 4k would start to become noticeable.Even at 30" monitor you would have to be sitting roughly 3.5' or closer to your monitor to be able to begin to tell the difference.
We also have to keep in mind we're talking about severely diminishing returns. 1440p is about perfect for normal seating distances with a computer on a 27" monitor. 30" some arguments can be made for 4k but its a minor. Its not like we're going from 480p to 1080p or something 1440p is still very good at "normal" computer seating distances.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Human vision varies as to who can discern what at a particular distance. There's no fixed cutoffs for this. Personally, when wandering around a TV store back in January (without knowing what type of screen I was looking at), for visual clarity the only displays that looked properly impressive turned out to be 4Ks. However, they're still a bit too pricey atm for a good one, with the cheaper models employing too many compromises such as reduced chroma sampling to bring down the pricing, or much lower refresh rates, etc. (notice how stores use lots of static imagery to advertise their cheaper 4K TVs?)Btw, here's a wonderfull irony for you: recent research, mentioned in New Scientist, suggests that long exposure by gamers to high-refresh displays makes them more able to tell the difference between standard displays and high-refresh models, ie. simply using a 144Hz monitor can make one less tolerant of standad 60Hz displays in the long term. :D It's like a self-reinforcing quality tolerance level. Quite funny IMO. No surprise to me though, years working in VR & suchlike resulted in my being able to tell the difference in refresh rates much more than I was able to beforehand.
Anyway, I'm leaving 4K until cheaper models are better quality, etc. In the meantime I bought a decent (but not high-end) 48" Samsung which works pretty well. Certainly looks good for Elite Dangerous running off a 980, and Crysis looks awesome.
Laststop311 - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Why would most people be using DVI? DVI is big and clunky and just sucks. Everyone that gets new stuff nowadays uses displayport it has the easiest to use plug.Crest - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Thank you for including the GTX580. I'm still living and working on a pair of 580's and it's nice to know where they stand in these new releases.TocaHack - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I upgraded from SLI'd 580s to a 980 at the start of April. Now I'm wishing I'd waited for the Ti! It wasn't meant to launch this soon! :-/mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Indeed, one of the few sites to include 580 numbers, though it's a shame it's missing in some of the graphs (people forget there are lots of 3GB 580s around now, I bought ten last month).If it's of any use, I've done a lot of 580 SLI vs. 980 (SLI) testing, PM for a link to the results. I tested with 832MHz 3GB 580s, though the reference 783MHz 3GB models I was already using I sold for a nice profit to a movie company (excellent cards for CUDA, two of them beat a Titan), reducing the initial 980 upgrade to a mere +150.
Overall, a 980 easily beats 580 SLI, and often comes very close to 3-way 580 SLI. The heavier the load, the bigger the difference, eg. for Firestrike Ultra, one 980 was between 50% and 80% faster than two 3GB 580s. I also tested 2/3-way 980 SLI, so if you'd like the numbers, just PM me or Google "SGI Ian" to find my site, contact page and Yahoo email adr.
I've been looking for a newer test. I gather GTA V has a built-in benchmark, so finally I may have found something suitable, need to look into that.
Only one complaint about the review though, why no CUDA test??? I'd really like to know how the range of NV cards stacks up now, and whether AE yet supports MW CUDA V2. I've tested 980s with Arion and Blender, it came close to two 580s, but not quite. Would be great to see how the 980 Ti compares to the 980 for this. Still plenty of people using CUDA with pro apps, especially AE.
Ian.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Btw Crest, which model 580s are you using? I do have some 1.5GB 580s aswell, but I've not really done much yet to expose where VRAM issues kick in, though it does show up in Unigine pretty well at 1440p.For reference, I do most testing with a 5GHz 2700K and a 4.8GHz 3930K, though I've also tested three 980s on a P55 with an i7 870 (currently the fastest P55 system on 3DMark for various tests).
Mikemk - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Since it has 2 SMM's disabled, does it have the memory issue of the 970? (Haven't read full article yet, sorry if answered in article)