NVIDIA Maxwell GPU - GeForce GTX 980 Video Card Review @ [H]

misterbobby said:
A 970 is a waste with an E8400 and 4GB of system ram. Not only is that a large bottleneck, it barely even meets minimum requirements for some games. In fact there are couple games where you will not even meet that. Get a modern setup before buying a card like the 970.
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I never said that I will use it with my current signature. I am saving money for a high end gaming rig to game at 2560 X 1600 resolution or maybe 4K if the prices of 4k displays goes down by end of this year or begenning of next year
 
NIVO said:
ok so i need a clarification here: I am on Win 7 64 ultimate. Buying one of these cards will do me no good in terms of enhancements from DX 11.1 forward? I HAVE to have Win 8.1 or better to see these features used?
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Unless MS decides to change it's mind about what OS gets what DX version.

Many of the features like the 4k down scaling are NV driver/software not DX.
 
I just ordered two of the EVGA GTX 970 ACX Superclocked. Looks like they are sold out now.
 
misterbobby said:
Overall Its closer to 50% faster than it is to being twice as fast.
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For the math aficionados among us I ran all of anandtech's numbers:

Format is:

Game Res Settings - 980 / 680 Increase%

Metro 2160p - 58.7 / 33.0 77%
Metro 1440p - 70.0 / 36.4 92%
Metro 1080p - 84.4 / 52.7 60%

COH2 2160p low - 42.8 / 23 86%
COH2 1440p max - 44.1 / 23.8 85%
COH2 1080p max min frame rate - 44.2 / 23.9 85%
COH2 1080p max - 68.4 / 37.4 83%
COH2 2160p max min frame frame - 28.7 / 14.6 97%
COH2 1600p max - 28.4 / 13.7 107%

bioshock 2160p high - 57.5 / 33.8 70%
1440p ultra - 85.1 / 51.6 65%
1080p ultra 130.4 / 81 61%

bf4 2160p med - 68.4 / 41 67%
1440p ultra 58.2 / 34.6 68%
1080p ultra 89.8 / 53.5 68%

crysis 3 2160p low - 49 / 31.7 55%
1440p high 60.7 / 42.1 44%
1080p 95.7 / 66.3 44%

crysis warhead 2160p gamer - 50.2 / 29.7 69%
1440p enthusiast 53.9 / 33.8 59%
1080p enthusiast 85.1 / 53.4 59%
2160p gamer min frame rate 38.9 / 19.5 99%
1440p enthusiast min frame 44.4 / 23.5 89%
1080p enthusiast min frame rate 63.7 / 37.2 71%

twr2 2160p very high 49.1 / 27.5 79%
twr2 1440p extreme 57.8 / 29.3 97%
twr2 1080p extreme 89 / 48.1 85%

thief 2160p very high 47.9 / 25.7 86%
thief 1440p very high 56.1 / 31.2 80%
thief 1080p very high 82.5 / 48 72%
thief 2160p very high min frame 34 / 9.6 254% (winner winner chicken dinner)
thief 1440p very high min frame 44.6 / 18.3 144%

grid 2 2160p max 53.3 / 31.6 69%
1440p max 101.2 / 58.7 72%
1080p max 141 / 82.9 70%


Average increase: 82% - I find this very impressive for the first driver set on a new product. The amazing tests are where they track minimum frame rate, which is probably the most important stat at high resolution where you are averaging less than 60 fps.
 
This hasn't generated quite the discussion and enthusiasm that previous launches have... in the past. Anyway, why didn't we get this sooner NVIDIA, and instead we all got over-sized and overpriced compute based "gaming cards" that were in fact not?! Obviously the GTX 970 and 980 are crap when it comes to double precision floating point, however they are better for gaming. Why didn't we get these a year ago?
 
There is not quite as much buzz imo because info has been leaking for a long time. I'm just glad that this real review is finally up. Ordered my 980SC thru the egg referral link. Thanks to Brent and Kyle.
 
Something I spotted in the graphs but didn't see picked up in the text is that 4 GB isn't really enough VRAM at 4K. There were several plunges to very low FPS. When are the 8 GB cards going to be released?
 
Greatly appreciating the 4K testing, pioneering what other sites will pick up once 4K becomes more of a thing, looking forward to a re-run once cards with larger VRAM arrive so they can really get trialled.

Just cannot get over how they Appleified SuperSampling :D
 
n=1 said:
In case anyone's interested, here's a Hexus review of EVGA's GTX 970 FTW Edition.

Matches and even beats 780 Ti in most benchmarks and games (except Tomb Raider) even at 4K! And still has OC headroom that doesn't require overvolting, and can even just edge out a reference GTX 980!

Holy fucking shit!
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Wow at the 970! First time I've been wow'd in a long long time!
 
Eriksrocks said:
When are these going on sale?
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They're on sale right now aren't they? People are talking about having already ordered and in the UK OCUK have some EVGA cards.

Cmdrmonkey said:
Hopefully some folks are foolish enough to dump their 780 Ti's over a few more frames and I can pick a second one up for cheap and do SLI.
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Looking at the charts there's very little reason for 780Ti owners to upgrade. However, you may be in luck as it's likely there will be some who want to simply because they can and for additional ePeen.

I'm confident that 780Ti owners can ride out this generation without too much stress at all and that's my plan.
 
wolfman3k5 said:
I have two GTX 780s 6GB (each) in SLI. I wonder if I should upgrade?

As far as what these cards are to the 780/780ti/Titan/Titan Black/Titan Z... well, the cards I just mentioned were derived or are rather based on NVIDIAs "compute" cards. They are actually all based on the same core (since the "B" chip revision) and are implementing according to yield. So as the review stated, it's only fair to compare this to the original Kepler, which was the GTX 680. Unless the performance jump over two 780 6GB cards is worth it, I'd rather wait for the next iteration of Maxwell on 20nm. Waiting for your opinions and advice :)
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I replaced twin reference 780 tis with evga 780 6gbs. At 4k the 6gb cards didn't seem to have the horsepower to take advantage of the extra memory even when sustaining boost clocks of 1190 mhz. My tis were able to sustain boost at 1150 mhz. Maybe if the 6gb cards could run at or near 1300 mhz under water then they would be faster than tis at 4k, but all I could manage was 100mhz offset core/mem. I personally will be swapping out my 6gb 780s for gtx 980s. Once you make the move to 4k every bit of additional performance matters. I'm betting the 980s are going to be huge overclockers.
 
@ Syphon Filter

Same can be said if you own 290 / 290X, even less if you own CF setup, atleast according to PCPer SLI Review where 290X CF is neck to neck with 980 SLI.

Now we need to have [H]ard 980 SLI vs 290X CF review to confirm these results, even though PCPer is one of the best sites when it comes to testing cards, with [H]ardOCP and TechReport.
 
Syphon Filter said:
They're on sale right now aren't they? People are talking about having already ordered and in the UK OCUK have some EVGA cards.



Looking at the charts there's very little reason for 780Ti owners to upgrade. However, you may be in luck as it's likely there will be some who want to simply because they can and for additional ePeen.

I'm confident that 780Ti owners can ride out this generation without too much stress at all and that's my plan.
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There are reasons other than performance to switch though, the lack of HDMI 2.0 on older cards is a big one for anyone getting a 4K TV that wants to game on it. That's mainly why I'm switching from my 290 CF setup.
 
I wonder if the Corsair HG10 will make an appearance now...
 
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I'll hold onto my tri 780's through this phase. I'm not playing anything it can't handle on surround at the moment. Seems for my case, letting Win 8.1 mature a bit more, or see what 9 brings to the table and wait for something impressive to be released on dx12 would be a wiser choice for me
 
Faster at what? It is subtly re-named as "Gaming" for nowt, surely. Therefore faster at Video Decoding that is "Gaming", that is. But what about the other componenets of "video manipulation"? Don't they matter and notice how those other "components" are missing from the tests upon tests with nary a mention? This shows that the entire "PC Testing" industry is driven by Whorism. Or as "Tiny Tim" was heard to have said, "Everyone of 'em".

Hiding something shows "deliberate intent" wheres hiding and burying that need to reveal is whorism. No wonder the wretched need to disarm the Fanged Toothed first via worship.

Hands up those who would like to disagree. For the stoned fanbois whose last drop of blood had been squeezed but lamenting that they could not give more, this is more than dissent or whatever it could be manipulated to be [Trolling is a good one], Truth is when you do not need to hide, obfuscate, etc, for the simple reason that yours is what it is - unless the aim is to present self as something other than what it is. Sump'fing like A Strange Bedfellow of Count de Money.

C'mon "HOCP", you can do better than the other "Me Toos".
 
Brent_Justice said:
*Lifts weights off shoulders*

Enjoy, there's a lot more than I thought there would be to talk about in regards to Maxwell. Definitely did not expect as many architecture changes as was implemented on 28nm.
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Indeed, a very nice surprise.

Interestingly, the GTX 980 solves the dilemma I had before choosing between a GTX 780 6GB with amble video ram and GTX 780 Ti with amble raw power.

The best of both worlds was a Titan Black before, now GTX 980 makes that much more affordable and 4 GB video ram seems just good enough.

Got a EVGA GTX 980 Superclocked ordered alright! :D
 
It's a nice card... but 970 is, in my opinion, the shining star of Maxwell. For just 300 euro, the card that costs as much as 290, is on par of 290X (and in some games wins), while usin 168W!!!!!... pair of those puppies will pull just a tiny bit wattage more than single 290X!

Just sold my 290X and ordered 970 STRIX... NVIDIA really showed, how to make efficient power designs, AMD should learn, that raw power is not all that matters.
 
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The GTX970 is a great move from Nvidia. Their highly inflated prices were getting quite annoying for a while there.
I'm glad they're putting more effort into value.

The 980 might be getting nearly all of the attention, but it's the 970 that is the real news here.
 
I think i'm getting old because i was like balhbalhbalhbalh performs better, balbhlabhalh omg.... wait... a top end gpu that wont wtfbbq me in the summer when it heats my whole house to just shy of melting temperature?
 
QuiteSufficient said:
For the math aficionados among us I ran all of anandtech's numbers:

Format is:

Game Res Settings - 980 / 680 Increase%

Metro 2160p - 58.7 / 33.0 77%
Metro 1440p - 70.0 / 36.4 92%
Metro 1080p - 84.4 / 52.7 60%

COH2 2160p low - 42.8 / 23 86%
COH2 1440p max - 44.1 / 23.8 85%
COH2 1080p max min frame rate - 44.2 / 23.9 85%
COH2 1080p max - 68.4 / 37.4 83%
COH2 2160p max min frame frame - 28.7 / 14.6 97%
COH2 1600p max - 28.4 / 13.7 107%

bioshock 2160p high - 57.5 / 33.8 70%
1440p ultra - 85.1 / 51.6 65%
1080p ultra 130.4 / 81 61%

bf4 2160p med - 68.4 / 41 67%
1440p ultra 58.2 / 34.6 68%
1080p ultra 89.8 / 53.5 68%

crysis 3 2160p low - 49 / 31.7 55%
1440p high 60.7 / 42.1 44%
1080p 95.7 / 66.3 44%

crysis warhead 2160p gamer - 50.2 / 29.7 69%
1440p enthusiast 53.9 / 33.8 59%
1080p enthusiast 85.1 / 53.4 59%
2160p gamer min frame rate 38.9 / 19.5 99%
1440p enthusiast min frame 44.4 / 23.5 89%
1080p enthusiast min frame rate 63.7 / 37.2 71%

twr2 2160p very high 49.1 / 27.5 79%
twr2 1440p extreme 57.8 / 29.3 97%
twr2 1080p extreme 89 / 48.1 85%

thief 2160p very high 47.9 / 25.7 86%
thief 1440p very high 56.1 / 31.2 80%
thief 1080p very high 82.5 / 48 72%
thief 2160p very high min frame 34 / 9.6 254% (winner winner chicken dinner)
thief 1440p very high min frame 44.6 / 18.3 144%

grid 2 2160p max 53.3 / 31.6 69%
1440p max 101.2 / 58.7 72%
1080p max 141 / 82.9 70%


Average increase: 82% - I find this very impressive for the first driver set on a new product. The amazing tests are where they track minimum frame rate, which is probably the most important stat at high resolution where you are averaging less than 60 fps.
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That is very misleading. The 980 is no where near being 80% faster overall than the 680. Using a single min or max framerate in your calculations throws everything off.
 
Interesting really, in the US the GTX980 seems 20% more expensive than the R9 290X which makes it pretty competitive. Here in the UK it's actually 90% more than I recently paid for a 290X, so at that price it's hopeless...
 
Thank you for the review! Great stuff! Very interesting to see Nvidia go for less TMU's and more ROP's. Looks like a winning combo to me. That 970 looks amazing at its price point. So I guess we can consider 2nd Maxwell to be Nvidia's "Tock"? That is - put a new Microarchitecture into a current process. Next Maxwell we see (20nm) should be their "Tick."
 
Sweet ordered the EVGA 980 SC model from newegg. That said, it looks like the 970 is the real winner.
 
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hmm still deciding on 2x 970 or 1 980 and then adding another later. I'm running at 1440p, but will eventually upgrade to 4k when those gysnc monitors come out.
 
boed said:
The article mentions DX12 for the 980. I didn't see any technical reason the 780 couldn't support DX12.
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Kepler maxes out at Feature Level 11_0

Maxwell maxes out at Feature Level 11_3 and 12_0

Read carefully, running under the API (supporting it) and being able to run the new features built into it, are 2 entirely separate things.
 
Romale23 said:
I think i'm getting old because i was like balhbalhbalhbalh performs better, balbhlabhalh omg.... wait... a top end gpu that wont wtfbbq me in the summer when it heats my whole house to just shy of melting temperature?
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Mostly this. I expected better frames and all that jazz, but the power and thermals are pretty impressive.

I didn't notice it here, but over on Anand they mentioned something about the 770, 780 and 780ti being discontinued as of this launch. If there's any merit to those claims, I would say hold off buying any of these cards for about a month. Clearing up that many price points in your portfolio suggests some serious players being released for the holiday season.
 
NIVO said:
ok so i need a clarification here: I am on Win 7 64 ultimate. Buying one of these cards will do me no good in terms of enhancements from DX 11.1 forward? I HAVE to have Win 8.1 or better to see these features used?
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Correct, blame MS.
 
Quartz-1 said:
Something I spotted in the graphs but didn't see picked up in the text is that 4 GB isn't really enough VRAM at 4K. There were several plunges to very low FPS. When are the 8 GB cards going to be released?
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That is only going to be apparent at 4K - how many folks have even ONE display, let alone multiple displays, capable of it?

For the vast majority, IPS at 120 fps above 1080p is the *ceiling* - if not 1080p itself - that is per display, and if you are running multiple displays at all.

If you are going to run multiple displays, you should have multiple GPUs - doing otherwise is asking to be bogged down. (That is merely to support 1080p, let alone taller.)

Because I don't have multiple displays (not enough desk space), and any single display I have (or will have) maxes at 1080p (single decent-quality 4K displays are still too pricey), the GTX970 hits the sweet spot as the affordable 1080p GPU for pretty much any game that is out for PCs now, or will be over the next year. (Fittingly, it replaces the GTX770 on my shortlist - which it will replace in nVIdia's lineup.)

Better performance than GTX770, uses less power than GTX770, and also costs less than GTX770. The bugbear - an admitted quibble - is the reference cooler design that is in use comes from GTX66x - not GTX77x.
 
spugm1r3 said:
I didn't notice it here, but over on Anand they mentioned something about the 770, 780 and 780ti being discontinued as of this launch. If there's any merit to those claims, I would say hold off buying any of these cards for about a month. Clearing up that many price points in your portfolio suggests some serious players being released for the holiday season.
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I would agree with this, either Q4'14 or Q1'15 is looking mighty, mighty interesting!!!
 
VonGriffin said:
does performance warrant the larger price difference between 980 and 970 ?
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Amusingly, I have to say NO there - the performance difference between the two cards is too small to warrant the $200USD price difference. If anything, that makes either the GTX980 look overpriced - and that is despite it undercutting the now-dead GTX780 - or it makes the GTX970 look like a steal.
 
So, I'm a little confused on the DSR feature.... how is it different than just forcing super sampling?
 
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