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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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.