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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Ryan Smith - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Yes on the former, no on the latter.will54 - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Remember that the 980 and 970 both used the same amount of RAM with the 970 having some ROP cut making it impossible to have the full 4 GB. This is a different situation with the 980TI and Titan X both having the full 96 ROP's and the 980TI using half the RAM. Two completely different situations !octiceps - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Besides the fact that Titan X has twice the DRAM chips per ROP/MC partition, how is it different? Anyway I won't belabor the point as Ryan has already confirmed.BillyONeal - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Typo: On the BF4 page the last sentence should probably say "It in fact" rather than "In fact"rpg1966 - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Why do people care if it uses the whole 6GB or not (and apparently it does)? It's completely and utterly irrelevant to 99% of users. If the card has the performance you want at the price you're prepared to pay, the memory situation is irrelevant.chizow - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Idk, I think it is a fair question, and the article covers it pretty well. The current-gen consoles pushed up VRAM requirements significantly for this generation of games and while 3-4GB was generally viewed as enough last-gen, that quickly changed when games start using 4+GB at the resolutions (1440p and higher) and settings (MSAA, max textures etc) someone paying a $650 would expect their GPU to handle.12GB will almost certainly be overkill, 6GB is probably minimum to hold you over til 14/16nm, 8GB would be just right, imo.
rpg1966 - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Again, all but irrelevant. It performs as you expect (as per reviews), or it doesn't?chizow - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
No, its not irrelevant if that means tomorrow's games aren't performing relative to what you saw in reviews today because its hitting its VRAM limit. Knowing how close you are to that limit at the settings you play at helps you gauge and understand whether it will be enough for longer than a few months.Daroller - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
All true, but I think what he's getting at is that it shouldn't materially affect your purchase decision. You don't have an alternative at this price point, even if it is partially gimped. AMD doesn't have currently have anything at this price point which performs this way either. It's this or TITAN X for $350.00 more. Pick your poison.It's all moot, there are no hobbled ROPs on this card.
chizow - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Eh...if I knew for sure games at 1440p were already using, say 5.5-6GB of VRAM, that would materially affect my purchase decision to buy 2 of these cards, or stick to a single Titan X and look at picking up a 2nd.But, I know most of my games at 1440p are using <4GB and the most demanding ones are using 4-5GB max, so I feel pretty good about 6GB being enough.