GTX 980Ti finally launched - MSRP $649 - Reviews

[moonbogg]

What do you mean, less ?
Less performance, less overclocking ?
Or lower temperatures ?


I know. The TitanX and gtx980ti use the same waterblock.


So did you buy 2 reference cards ? EVGA ? And you can overclock and overvolt them without special tricks ? What overclock are you running ? (Just curious. TIA).

Less cost (assuming you got a loop already). Temps are the same as hydro copper I'm sure. Temps are better than even the EVGA hybrid models by about 8-10c from my early testing. Water blocks cool the VRMs and RAM as well while the hybrid only cools the GPU from what I understand.
Regarding overclocking, I'm just not sure if aftermarket cards OC better. All the numbers appear to be similar, somewhere in the 1400-1500 range regardless of what card you got. My reference cards had no issue at 1380. I'll push them more later.
Some of those after market cards will net you a great OC and keep the card cool while not being too loud. Plenty of good options if you don't want to fuss with water cooling. Its an absolute TON of work which I just found out, lol.

 

[jackstar7]

Quick rundown on the ASUS Strix: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?291632-Asus-GTX-980-Ti-Strix-Gaming-review

 

[RaulF]

Quick rundown on the ASUS Strix: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?291632-Asus-GTX-980-Ti-Strix-Gaming-review

Wow.

That might be the highest boosting card if true. I think the Zotac AMP Extreme might be the other one that boost this high.

Looks like the G1 might have some competition.

 

[Subyman]

No price yet. $699?

 

[MrK6]

Still waiting on MSI Gaming variant
EDIT: Nevermind, Newegg delivers!

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Just pulled the trigger on the MSI Gaming G6 overclocked 980 ti. As soon as I got the order through at Newegg, the stock updated to "Out of Stock," but they did charge my card, so hopefully I got in the window of availability. I would be a touch pissed if they charged me and then made me wait 4 weeks for stock to come in.

Card arrived today and I didn't delay getting it installed (with the exception of taking the time to blow about 47 pounds of accumulated dust and cat hair out of the computer; I really should do that more frequently). I've barely spent any time with it, but I have some brief benchmarks comparing my GTX 680 (stock):

GTA V: 1080p, Very High settings, FXAA:
GTX 680: 60 FPS Average
GTX 980 ti: 124.8 FPS Average

GTA V: 1080p, Ultra settings, all sliders maxed, FXAA:
GTX 680: 44.3 FPS Average (but way lower in the wilderness which the ingame benchmark glosses over)
GTX 980 ti: 79 FPS Average (just for a lark I went ingame with these settings to the forest near Paleto Bay and the lowest I went was 49 FPS before being mauled by a cougar)

GTA V: 1080p, Ultra settings, all sliders maxed, FXAA, Frame Scaling (DSR) 2.0:
GTX 680: Didn't try
GTX 980 ti: 46.2 Average (much lower in wilderness; this might be playable with some tweaking, and it makes the textures look astonishing)

So roughly double the speed in GTA V, and playable with ultra everything. I was getting some weird frame hitches ingame that I hadn't noticed before, but I'm wondering if that was a GTA V update, since I haven't actually loaded that game in a month. I'll play around more and see what's up. Might be the swap file issue that people were reporting; I'd never seen it, personally.

Shadow of Mordor: 1900x1200, Max settings
GTX 680: 45.8 FPS Average
GTX 980 ti: 111.3 FPS Average, 69 FPS low

So, yeah, it obliterates that game. The lowest FPS was 20+ higher than my average FPS with the 680. And I actually am able to bump up to the Ultra textures which I couldn't do on the 680. I'll take a look at some other games later, but so far it looks like it's going to be maxing everything, which is exactly what I hoped for. And it's quiet! I was running it in the OC Gaming mode, prefer max performance, and it didn't register louder than the 680. Now, granted, I have a lot of ACTUAL fans blowing in my room, since it's been ridiculously hot here, but it looks like it will deliver high performance and great cooling and still stay quiet. So that's pretty awesome.

 

[Majcric]

Good to hear you're liking the new card. I also thought it was a nice upgrade as well. In short, my kind of upgrades.

 

[stahlhart]

Where are we allowed to bash, err complain about AMD then?

You are strongly encouraged to confine debate that adheres to forum rules here: http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8

The AMD and Nvidia forums are for individuals who do not want to argue with you, and don't want to hear it.

-- stahlhart

 

[guskline]

Atomic Playboy sounds like a great card. I'm keeping my 2 Sapphire Tri-X 290s in my rig below since they are water cooled and run well. I'm tempted to jump on the same MSI 980TI in my 3770k rig running a single air cooled Sapphire Tri-X R9 290. Your thoughts? I run a 27" 2560 x 1440 monitor on the 3770k rig.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I don't have any experience with the R9 290; it's faster than a 680, so your improvements wouldn't be as drastic as mine. But it's clear that the 980 ti would be a pretty massive upgrade at 2560x1440. Especially if you can toss a water block on that third 290 and run tri-fire on your other rig; no point letting it go to waste. Now whether that's worth ~$700 to you, that's a judgment call. But the 980 ti is really, really good for a single card solution.

 

[railven]

Card arrived today and I didn't delay getting it installed (with the exception of taking the time to blow about 47 pounds of accumulated dust and cat hair out of the computer; I really should do that more frequently). I've barely spent any time with it, but I have some brief benchmarks comparing my GTX 680 (stock):

GTA V: 1080p, Very High settings, FXAA:
GTX 680: 60 FPS Average
GTX 980 ti: 124.8 FPS Average

GTA V: 1080p, Ultra settings, all sliders maxed, FXAA:
GTX 680: 44.3 FPS Average (but way lower in the wilderness which the ingame benchmark glosses over)
GTX 980 ti: 79 FPS Average (just for a lark I went ingame with these settings to the forest near Paleto Bay and the lowest I went was 49 FPS before being mauled by a cougar)

GTA V: 1080p, Ultra settings, all sliders maxed, FXAA, Frame Scaling (DSR) 2.0:
GTX 680: Didn't try
GTX 980 ti: 46.2 Average (much lower in wilderness; this might be playable with some tweaking, and it makes the textures look astonishing)

So roughly double the speed in GTA V, and playable with ultra everything. I was getting some weird frame hitches ingame that I hadn't noticed before, but I'm wondering if that was a GTA V update, since I haven't actually loaded that game in a month. I'll play around more and see what's up. Might be the swap file issue that people were reporting; I'd never seen it, personally.

Shadow of Mordor: 1900x1200, Max settings
GTX 680: 45.8 FPS Average
GTX 980 ti: 111.3 FPS Average, 69 FPS low

So, yeah, it obliterates that game. The lowest FPS was 20+ higher than my average FPS with the 680. And I actually am able to bump up to the Ultra textures which I couldn't do on the 680. I'll take a look at some other games later, but so far it looks like it's going to be maxing everything, which is exactly what I hoped for. And it's quiet! I was running it in the OC Gaming mode, prefer max performance, and it didn't register louder than the 680. Now, granted, I have a lot of ACTUAL fans blowing in my room, since it's been ridiculously hot here, but it looks like it will deliver high performance and great cooling and still stay quiet. So that's pretty awesome.

Damn, it's like we're the same person! Though I already cleaned the cat/dust out of the PC when I was tinkering with 290X's. Stock GTX 680 user here getting my 980 Ti today! Will install that card moment I get home.

Them bench scores. hrnggggggggggggggggggg

EDIT:

Atomic Playboy sounds like a great card. I'm keeping my 2 Sapphire Tri-X 290s in my rig below since they are water cooled and run well. I'm tempted to jump on the same MSI 980TI in my 3770k rig running a single air cooled Sapphire Tri-X R9 290. Your thoughts? I run a 27" 2560 x 1440 monitor on the 3770k rig.

Similar setup, i too am currently on a 27" 1440p monitor. I just came away from CFX 290X ref that I was going to mod to water cooling. I personally couldn't stand the return to microstuttering. At least the 3 games I played while the cards were in my rig. The noise I ignored since if anything I was gonna go water anyways. But, if CFX improved with XDMA my recollection of pre-XDMA must be wrong because I found it worse, at least in WoW. It was HORRIBLE in WoW.

The power consumption alone was also insane. Corsair Link was telling me about 680W at the wall. Running them 1125/1600 +30mv/power 50%. I was also getting "60" FPS, but seriously it felt like 40.

My two cents.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Damn, it's like we're the same person! Though I already cleaned the cat/dust out of the PC when I was tinkering with 290X's. Stock GTX 680 user here getting my 980 Ti today! Will install that card moment I get home.

So the MSI model comes with all sorts of port covers, a plastic cover for the pins and a plastic shield over the fans that very clearly says "Remove before operating," which, duh. But as I'm pulling out my old GTX 680, I notice a weird flap of plastic comping up at the edge. I pull on it, and what do I discover? "Remove before installation." ****! Apparently I've been running the 680 for over three years with the disposable thin plastic logo guard in place. I face-palmed so hard on that one. Though in my defense, EVGA made it literally impossible to see the writing that says "Remove before installation" against the background of the cooler. Come on, man. I don't know why these companies are so eager to protect their logo on a cooler that's going to be facing downwards in 99% of installations. No one's going to see if it gets a tiny scratch!

 

[RaulF]

EVGA hybrid in stock newegg. go go go.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/evga-980-ti-classified,29491.html

Is that one out yet?

NM, was right there.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487146

 

[Aikouka]

I don't have any experience with the R9 290; it's faster than a 680, so your improvements wouldn't be as drastic as mine. But it's clear that the 980 ti would be a pretty massive upgrade at 2560x1440. Especially if you can toss a water block on that third 290 and run tri-fire on your other rig; no point letting it go to waste. Now whether that's worth ~$700 to you, that's a judgment call. But the 980 ti is really, really good for a single card solution.

I upgraded from a 780 Ti, because the FPS increase was around 50% (or higher) at 2560x1440. An upgrade from the R9 290 should be a bit better than that, so I guess it depends on whether or not that is enough value. Although, you could argue that my upgrade wasn't as necessary as GSync only needs 30 FPS or higher, so trying to reach a 60 FPS+ plateau isn't as necessary.

 

[railven]

Got my Zotac 980 Ti Ref today.

Max Power/Temp whatever slider
+300 on core
+300 on mem
100% fan load (still quieter than ref 290X fan @ 100% load)

Very satisfied with my card. Bring on the Corsair watercooler bracket!!!

 

[Xed]

Probably unlikely, but I hope the Lightning comes in at $699 like the Classified.

 

[jackstar7]

B&H has shipped my MSI G6. Looks like it is back to pre-order though, but the word from the CSR is that they'll have more by the 10th, in theory.

 

[Abwx]

Card arrived today and I didn't delay getting it installed (with the exception of taking the time to blow about 47 pounds of accumulated dust and cat hair out of the computer; I really should do that more frequently). I've barely spent any time with it, but I have some brief benchmarks comparing my GTX 680 (stock):

GTA V: 1080p, Very High settings, FXAA:
GTX 680: 60 FPS Average
GTX 980 ti: 124.8 FPS Average

GTA V: 1080p, Ultra settings, all sliders maxed, FXAA:
GTX 680: 44.3 FPS Average (but way lower in the wilderness which the ingame benchmark glosses over)
GTX 980 ti: 79 FPS Average (just for a lark I went ingame with these settings to the forest near Paleto Bay and the lowest I went was 49 FPS before being mauled by a cougar)

GTA V: 1080p, Ultra settings, all sliders maxed, FXAA, Frame Scaling (DSR) 2.0:
GTX 680: Didn't try
GTX 980 ti: 46.2 Average (much lower in wilderness; this might be playable with some tweaking, and it makes the textures look astonishing)

So roughly double the speed in GTA V, and playable with ultra everything. I was getting some weird frame hitches ingame that I hadn't noticed before, but I'm wondering if that was a GTA V update, since I haven't actually loaded that game in a month. I'll play around more and see what's up. Might be the swap file issue that people were reporting; I'd never seen it, personally.

Shadow of Mordor: 1900x1200, Max settings
GTX 680: 45.8 FPS Average
GTX 980 ti: 111.3 FPS Average, 69 FPS low

So, yeah, it obliterates that game. The lowest FPS was 20+ higher than my average FPS with the 680. And I actually am able to bump up to the Ultra textures which I couldn't do on the 680. I'll take a look at some other games later, but so far it looks like it's going to be maxing everything, which is exactly what I hoped for. And it's quiet! I was running it in the OC Gaming mode, prefer max performance, and it didn't register louder than the 680. Now, granted, I have a lot of ACTUAL fans blowing in my room, since it's been ridiculously hot here, but it looks like it will deliver high performance and great cooling and still stay quiet. So that's pretty awesome.

FPS, yes, but what about image quality..??..



http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37528605&postcount=208


What is the opinion of the experts by there..?..

Fud or real issue..?.

Edit : The GPU is a Titan but drivers should be the same functionaly speaking, and there s few Titans anyway to have enough opinions expressed...

Infraction issued for thread crapping.

I stated eleven posts earlier that there aren't going to be any arguments in the vendor forums, and it's clear from your posting activity elsewhere tonight that you are here looking for one.

-- stahlhart

 

[railven]

Welps, I just went through my first session of WoW with the 980 Ti.

Ultra+2160P DSR - 60 FPS, never a hitch. Fan at 50% temps hovered in the 65C. Hotter than I like, but acceptable for ref blower.

Time to update my sig.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Welps, I just went through my first session of WoW with the 980 Ti.

Ultra+2160P DSR - 60 FPS, never a hitch. Fan at 50% temps hovered in the 65C. Hotter than I like, but acceptable for ref blower.

Time to update my sig.

Did you get a $700 graphics card just to play a 10 year old game downsampled from 4K? LOL... that's dedication. But it is a sick graphics card, isn't it? I hooked up the home entertainment center; GTA V, Shadow of Mordor, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, all running at highest possible settings (except for PhysX on AC4 because I hate the implementation of volumetric smoke in that game), never drop below 60 FPS. And I can tell you, those look great blown up to 65 inches, even if only in 1080p. Now I just need to spring for The Witcher 3. And start messing around with downsampling, I guess...

 

[railven]

Did you get a $700 graphics card just to play a 10 year old game downsampled from 4K? LOL... that's dedication. But it is a sick graphics card, isn't it? I hooked up the home entertainment center; GTA V, Shadow of Mordor, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, all running at highest possible settings (except for PhysX on AC4 because I hate the implementation of volumetric smoke in that game), never drop below 60 FPS. And I can tell you, those look great blown up to 65 inches, even if only in 1080p. Now I just need to spring for The Witcher 3. And start messing around with downsampling, I guess...

Haha, it was raid night! () WoW is still, sadly perhaps, a big part of my gaming consumption. I still play the other games, right now catching up on a lot of normally console exclusives - so perhaps a 980 Ti is OVERKILL but hey - MGS5 in September .

I'm very much happy with my purchase. The blower is no where near as bad as I was expecting it to be, even at 100% speed it is nothing like the 290X stock blower (having both within the span of 4-days, yeah woof). My GTX 680 that would normally go to 50-60% fan speed to keep the GPU under 65C (just my preference) was louder than the GTX 980 Ti ref blower. However, I'm still gonna slap a H60 ASAP

I will get to test out FFXIV tonight.

 

[pj-]

Been playing with my EVGA SC+ ACX2+ for a couple days and am very pleased with it. It's able to consistently hit 1500mhz in games with only a slight boost to voltage. Temps and noise are good too.

One weird thing is that I know someone with the same card (in SLI) who is getting 60mhz less boost clock at a slightly higher GPU overclock. Is that kind of variation expected?

http://i.imgur.com/CvyPVS8.png
http://i.imgur.com/eSuGeQt.png

 

[Termie]

To the post above, and anyone else interested...the boost of a 980 Ti card depends on four things:

(1) extra voltage
(2) power limiter
(3) temperature
(4) the factory overclock

Let me explain:

- Simply applying extra voltage can provide a slightly higher boost, even at the same boost setting.

- If power exceeds the power limit, voltage will be cut and boost will drop at least one bin

- If temperature exceeds 70C, voltage will be cut and boost will drop at least one bin (and likely more if 80C is exceeded)

- the manual overclock applied is added to the factory overclock, so you can't compare the overclocks of different models just by looking at what extra boost was requested in the overclocking application.

To get around some of the limits above, you can lift the power limiter and the temperature limiter, although I find that there are still some hard stops when it comes to temperature, leading to cuts to the boost.

Also, if someone is using these cards in SLI, it's going to be very hard to keep them out of a boost-limited situation. While the aftermarket coolers are far more effective than the blower at keeping temperatures low, getting two cards to stay below 70C is going to be nearly impossible.

 

[JoeRambo]

Just got my Gigabyte G1 card. Everything is fine, performance is up ~66% @1440P vs my previuos "Ghz" GTX 780. Card fan is silent, temps are ~80 in Define R4 case with 3 fans ( tho ambient is some 29C now ).

What is not nice is Asic quality of ~65.4% and it feels in OCing, ~1460 is limit for my sample. What is uber annoying is the amount of coil whine this card has when > 90FPS... Previuos card was ASUS 780 DCII, would only whine tiny bit when FPS is in thousands, this one is real annoying

Perf difference is very real tho, 980TI @1450Mhz vs 780 @~1140Mhz is 50-60% more perf...