The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Review
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2015 6:00 PM ESTSynthetics
As always we’ll also take a quick look at synthetic performance. Being a virtual copy of the GTX Titan X, GTX 980 Ti should perform very similarly here, just as we've seen in our gaming tests.
Compared to GTX Titan X, GTX 980 Ti does technically lose 2 Polymorph Engines as a result of losing 2 SMMs. However as with our games, this doesn’t really hinder GTX 980 Ti, leading it being within a few percent of GTX Titan X on tessellation performance.
As for texel and pixel fillrates, the results are both as-expected and a bit surprising. On the expected side, we see the GTX 980 Ti trail GTX Titan X by a bit, again taking a hit from the SMM loss. On the other hand we’re seeing a larger than expected drop in the pixel fill rates. GTX 980 Ti loses some rasterization throughput from the SMM loss, but a 15% drop in this test is much larger than 2 SMMs. Just to be sure we checked to make sure the ROP/MC configuration of GTX 980 Ti was unchanged at 96 ROPs, so while we can explain 10% or so (GTX 980 Ti doesn't have its clockspeed advantage in such a short test), we're at a loss to fully explain the last 5%. The short run time of the test also makes it more varaible than other tests, so that may be the last 5%.
Though in either case, despite what 3DMark is telling us, we aren’t seeing any signs of GTX 980 Ti struggling at 4K versus GTX Titan X. So if there is a meaningful difference in pixel fillrates, it’s not impacting game performance.
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Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
I'm sure you posted that from your 65nm processor and 80nm GPU.godrilla - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
Because next shrink is in the 3d chips plus hbm category and that should be amazing performance leap.Gastec - Sunday, September 4, 2016 - link
Oh yeah, that's "1337 5p34k" for ya! :PWreckage - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Wait until AMD tries to sell you a rebadge for that much.Rezurecta - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
I don't understand the rage about rebadge all of a sudden. GPU has been doing this for YEARS!Anyway, nice card from Nvidia for a decent price.
dragonsqrrl - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
Don't mix up traditional rebadging and what AMD is doing with their upcoming lineup, it's unprecedented. It's also worrisome, and it's clearly a big problem for AMD. What does it say about the state of the company and their R&D budget that they'll only have 1 new GPU this coming generation? One of the big problems AMD is currently facing, amongst many other things, are their profit margins. In order to compete they're selling larger, more expensive GPU's attached to more complex memory interfaces relative to the competition, and that won't change much this coming generation as a result of these top to bottom rebadges. The situation is really becoming quite analogous to their CPU's, which should raise alarms for any informed enthusiast. It's a less than ideal situation, to put it lightly.Azix - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
If you post this after their launch then maybe I'd understand. As it is their Chips are almost certainly not rebadged because they aren't on TSMC and will include hardware improvements. They maybe be based on hawaii or w/e but not even nvidia managed to put out more than 2 new cards during their major launch last year. Considering this is likely the last year of 28nm launches, it may make sense for them to put out an entire line of modified chips and be done with the 300 series. Keeping it fresh till next year when they can do 2-3 on a smaller process.dragonsqrrl - Sunday, May 31, 2015 - link
"If you post this after their launch then maybe I'd understand."You realize I could just give the exact same response to the rest of your comment. But I won't.
"As it is their Chips are almost certainly not rebadged because they aren't on TSMC and will include hardware improvements.",
That's interesting, I haven't heard anything about AMD switching fabs for the 300 series. Source?
"They maybe be based on hawaii or w/e but not even nvidia managed to put out more than 2 new cards during their major launch last year."
Not quite a straight comparison there, since Nvidia also launched a new architecture with the 750Ti. Thus far we've gotten 4 new GPU's (not just cards) based on Maxwell. And we're not just talking launch here. All indications point to Fiji as the only new GPU of the coming generation for AMD. And what's more, it might not even be an updated architecture. The rest of the lineup will likely be refreshes of Hawaii, Tonga, Pitcairn, and Bonaire, ranging from GCN 1.2-1.0, with at most manufacturing revisions to improve efficiency. Again it's very important to put this in perspective, in the context of what these GPU's will be competing against. They range in feature set, and in power efficiency, none of which is anywhere close to par with Maxwell, and it's going to be very difficult for AMD to compete with this lineup for another generation. It's not a good situation for AMD. "Keeping it fresh"? How you came to spin your conclusion the way you did is beyond me.
ImSpartacus - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Be nice. The guy is basically telling you at this point.ImSpartacus - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
trolling***