The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTFar Cry 4
The next game in our 2015 GPU benchmark suite is Far Cry 4, Ubisoft’s Himalayan action game. A lot like Crysis 3, Far Cry 4 can be quite tough on GPUs, especially with Ultra settings thanks to the game’s expansive environments.
For those of you just joining us, the GTX 980 Ti and GTX Titan are still neck-and neck. The GTX 980 Ti trails the Titan by no more than 4%, at 1440p and 2560, with the two cards taking the top two spots in our charts for single-GPU cards as one would expect.
On an absolute basis, at 4K Ultra this happens to be another case where the GTX 980 Ti delivers framerates around 40fps, in this case coming in at 40.6fps. Otherwise the GTX 980 Ti is going to come up a hair short of 60fps at medium quality – hitting 59.5fps – and finally going over 70fps at 1440p Ultra.
This also ends up being another case where the GTX 980 Ti looks very good as compared to the GTX 780. Here it beats NVIDIA’s last $649 card by as much as 86% at 1440p, highlighting NVIDIA’s performance gains at this price point over the last 2 years.
290 Comments
View All Comments
ComputerGuy2006 - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Well at $500 this would be 'acceptable', but paying this much for 28nm in mid 2015?SirMaster - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Why do people care about the nm? If the performance is good isn't that what really matters?Galaxy366 - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
I think the reason people talk about nm is because a smaller nm means more graphical power and less usage.ComputerGuy2006 - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Yeah, we also 'skipped' a generation, so it will be even a bigger bang... And with how old the 28nm is, it should be more mature process with better yields, so these prices look even more out of control.Kevin G - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Even with a mature process, producing a 601 mm^2 chip isn't going to be easy. The only larger chips I've heard of are ultra high end server processors (18 core Haswell-EX, IBM POWER8 etc.) which typically go for several grand a piece.chizow - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Heh, I guess you don't normally shop in this price range or haven't been paying very close attention. $650 is getting back to Nvidia's typical flagship pricing (8800GTX, GTX 280), they dropped it to $500 for the 480/580 due to economic circumstances and the need to regain marketshare from AMD, but raised it back to $650-700 with the 780/780Ti.In terms of actual performance gains, the actual performance increases are certainly justified. You could just as easily be paying the same price or more for 28nm parts that aren't any faster (stay tuned for AMD's rebranded chips in the upcoming month).
extide - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
AMD will launch the HBM card on 400 series. 300 series is an OEM only series. ... just like ... wait for it .... nVidia's 300 series. WOW talk about unprecedented!chizow - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
AMD already used that excuse...for the...wait for it...8000 series. Which is now the...wait for it....R9 300 OEM series (confirmed) and Rx 300 Desktop series (soon to underwhelm).NvidiaWins - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
RIGHT! AMD has been backpedaling for the last 3 years!Morawka - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
980 was $549 at release.. So was the 780Nvidia is charging $650 for the first few weeks, but when AMD's card drops, you'll see the 980 Ti get discounted down to $500.
Just wait for AMD's release and the price will have to drop.