so I spent a little time with the reference 980 today...

[tviceman]

Thing is I can't see why you'd buy one unless you have a pretty older weaker card. Its ridiculous that Nvidia didn't lead with Big Maxwell first. 256-bit isn't high end.

Here we go again.

 

[swilli89]

Thing is I can't see why you'd buy one unless you have a pretty older weaker card. Its ridiculous that Nvidia didn't lead with Big Maxwell first. 256-bit isn't high end.

It's ridiculous? They're still stuck on 28nm for goodness' sake. A larger die Maxwell would probably cost 650+ which only benefits current 290x and 780ti owners. GM204 provides an excellent upgrade path to people like me (Radeon 6970) and those with 680 or prior cards.

Your statement about 256-bit memory interface. I'm really assuming your innocent and didn't read any of the reviews which makes your post unfounded in the first place; however if you would have read a review you would know these cards use new compression techniques to reduce memory bandwidth requirements.

 

[raghu78]

Here we go again.

For the price segment in which GTX 980 launched Nvidia has not brought a significant improvement, especially for GTX 780 Ti owners. In fact 780 Ti stock is being cleared at very good prices and is offering better perf/$ than GTX 980. In comparison to AMD the improvement is much better. But AMD's channel partners are reducing prices on R9 290 and R9 290X. AMD is most likely to announce official price cuts sometime after their earnings call. There is no way they can sell R9 290 / R9 290X at current MSRP. I am predicting R9 290 at $279 and R9 290X at $349 within this month end.

I understand the reasons for what Nvidia did. They want to maximize profits. They can continue to sell GTX 980 at better margins till AMD responds with R9 390X and then release the big die Maxwell GTX Titan 2 at USD 1000 with a GTX 990 or 990 Ti (slight cut down) SKU at USD 650. Then they can price the GTX 980 at USD 399 -USD 449 and push GTX 970 to USD 299. I think this will happen in late Q1 2015 or Q2 2015.

 

[toyota]

ok I figured out why my voltage drops to 1.187 and a 13 mhz bin at same time after a few minutes in demanding games. its combination of temp and gpu load. seems like if I go over 110% load with temps above 75 is when it happens. if I raise the fan speed it to keep gpu in low 70s it will not drop voltage and speed bin at all and will stay pegged at what I set it at. I played around in Crysis 3 and that worked just fine. thats why reviews are getting higher clocks by cranking the fan to 100%. of course that is not realistic since its pretty loud at that speed. I could do a fan curve to about 65% and that would keep it from going over low 70s and stop that one little speed bin and voltage drop I get.

 

[toyota]

ok so put the fan on 90% and bumped the voltage one notch and ran firestrike. it was at 1516/7800 most of the time with voltage of 1.231. it did hit TDP limit a few times in the beginning dropping to 1490 a couple times. pretty good results I think.


adult image host

 

[RussianSensation]

For the price segment in which GTX 980 launched Nvidia has not brought a significant improvement, especially for GTX 780 Ti owners. In fact 780 Ti stock is being cleared at very good prices and is offering better perf/$ than GTX 980. In comparison to AMD the improvement is much better. But AMD's channel partners are reducing prices on R9 290 and R9 290X. AMD is most likely to announce official price cuts sometime after their earnings call. There is no way they can sell R9 290 / R9 290X at current MSRP. I am predicting R9 290 at $279 and R9 290X at $349 within this month end.

That is true. If 780Ti was a 6GB card, 980 would have trouble selling because it's not really better once both are overclocked.

HIS IceQ X2 290 = $269
HIS IceQ X2 290X = $359

We know that after-market 290 = 290X

Titan performance 1.5 years later for $270. :awe:

We can also see that 980 with max power tune is ~ 22% faster than 290X at 2560x1600.


So you'd are paying 2X for 22% more performance at 2560x1600 with 980 over an after-market 290 and at 4K, 980 SLI setup $1100 vs. $540 for dual 290s would win by less than 10%!! Even max overclocked 980 SLI would win by only 25-30% for double the price. Ouch. :hmm:

The value in dual after-market 290s right now is just unbeatable since most after-market 970s are $350+ and 980 at $550. Heck, the same situation is becoming true for yet another AMD vs. NV generation:

Dual 4870s > GTX280 for $100 more
Dual 5850s OC > GTX480 for a similar price
Dual 6950s Unlocked+OC > GTX580 for a similar price
Dual 7950 OC > GTX680 for $100 more
Dual after-market 290s > GTX980 for a similar price

Remove the 970 for a second. How does 980 look against an after-market 290? Absolutely overpriced, even worse than GTX280 $499 vs. HD4870 at $299.

I understand the reasons for what Nvidia did. They want to maximize profits. They can continue to sell GTX 980 at better margins till AMD responds with R9 390X and then release the big die Maxwell GTX Titan 2 at USD 1000 with a GTX 990 or 990 Ti (slight cut down) SKU at USD 650. Then they can price the GTX 980 at USD 399 -USD 449 and push GTX 970 to USD 299. I think this will happen in late Q1 2015 or Q2 2015.

What's surprising to me that PC gamers on our forum know this and are still buying 980 for $550-600, especially after seeing how 680 -> 780/780Ti played out. I doubt NV will price GM200 at $650 though. I think 980Ti (GM200) or w/e NV calls it will go for $799. NV continues to raise prices and the only thing forcing them to come down to earth is AMD these days. If it wasn't for $350-360 R9 290s before 970's launch, 970 would have never come out at $329.

As a side-note, all these new new games coming out are disappointing in terms of next gen graphcis and pushing 3 year old hardware - 280X/770/780/290 slice through Mordor, Evil Within is limited to 30 fps. It will be pretty crazy if by the time Witcher 3 comes out, AMD releases a 390X that beats 980 by 20% in Witcher 3, a game worth upgrading for. I think NV might plan to launch GM200 around Witcher 3 since this game is going to be a big incentive for upgraders.

 

[RussianSensation]

I haven't even bothered with adding voltage yet. My card settles down to 1.187 too after she gets warmed up.

To be honest I think I'm going to get rid of the card. It pains me to see my 290x Lightning sitting on my desk knowing that it isn't worth squat yet in most titles is barely slower and even faster in some of the graphics heavy ones.

What about 3x 980s vs. 295X2+290X TriFire? I think it would be an interesting comparison that 980s will have trouble easily winning without 1500mhz OC due to smoothness of XF over PCIe.

It's pretty insane that you can get 3x after-market HIS 290s for barely more than $800 when 295X2 debuted at $1499. Shows how quickly high-end GPU hardware depreciates these days. :'(

ok so put the fan on 90% and bumped the voltage one notch and ran firestrike. it was at 1516/7800 most of the time with voltage of 1.231. it did hit TDP limit a few times in the beginning dropping to 1490 a couple times. pretty good results I think.

That's an awesome overclock for a reference card. Very impressive. Overall it sounds like you made a good choice moving to a 980 as 970 wasn't much of an upgrade. Looks like your 980 @ 1500+ is about 30-40% faster on avg than your 780 max OC?

 

[toyota]

What about 3x 980s vs. 295X2+290X TriFire? I think it would be an interesting comparison that 980s will have trouble easily winning without 1500mhz OC due to smoothness of XF over PCIe.

It's pretty insane that you can get 3x after-market HIS 290s for barely more than $800 when 295X2 debuted at $1499. Shows how quickly high-end GPU hardware depreciates these days. :'(



That's an awesome overclock for a reference card. Very impressive. Overall it sounds like you made a good choice moving to a 980 as 970 wasn't much of an upgrade. Looks like your 980 @ 1500+ is about 30-40% faster on avg than your 780 max OC?

now I just adjusted the fan curve to go 70% at 70 degrees. with core offset of 263 that becomes 1503 at stock voltage of 1.206. it will stay pegged at that no problem during benchmark loops and never goes over 73 C in fairly warm room. yeah it appears to be just over 35% faster overall comparing daily 780 oc of 1110/6200 to daily 980 oc of 1465/7400.

and btw I need to make a correction to the earlier cpu temp difference. it was actually only 2-3 degrees cooler using the blower 980 compared to 780. I had accidentally looked at the temps wrong in afterburner.

 

[RussianSensation]

now I just adjusted the fan curve to go 70% at 70 degrees. with core offset of 263 that becomes 1503 at stock voltage of 1.206. it will stay pegged at that no problem during benchmark loops and never goes over 73 C in fairly warm room. yeah it appears to be just over 35% faster overall comparing daily 780 oc of 1110/6200 to daily 980 oc of 1465/7400.

and btw I need to make a correction to the earlier cpu temp difference. it was actually only 2-3 degrees cooler using the blower 980 compared to 780. I had accidentally looked at the temps wrong in afterburner.

I think I'd choose 1.206 @ 1503 over 1.231 @ 1516 for 24/7 gaming. Not like the extra 13mhz will matter.

 

[toyota]

I think I'd choose 1.206 @ 1503 over 1.231 @ 1516 for 24/7 gaming. Not like the extra 13mhz will matter.

oh yes of course. I was just trying to see what it can go too. the highest the memory will do appears to be 7900 and for the core its 1528. my actual daily oc for demanding games will probably stay at 1465/7400. for most games I will just leave it stock.

lol btw still cant run that damn Witcher 2 at 60 fps with ubersampling at 1920x1080. I average just over 50 fps with daily oc but still hits dips in the 40s and even one in the upper 30s. I can use DSR to run it at 2560x1440 with uber off and never dips below 65 fps.

sorry if am just rambling at this point as I have been testing so many things out...

oh and earlier you asked what cpu cooler I have and its the Corsair A70. it only has a high or low speed and I have it on high.