• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

GTX 980 - Underwhelmed, is it just me?

Man of Honour
Joined
21 May 2012
Posts
31,940
Location
Dalek flagship
Then it would be at least a good increase in performance over Amd's old tech. You can't really call it top end when it's not really a huge boost over the 290x or the 780ti. Yes its power consumption is good but someone with these old tech cards are not getting much of an improvement if they swapped to the 980 as the big gun Maxwell with higher bus, shaders, rops is being held back until Amd release the 390x.

It may not of worked like that

If the 980 had a 512bit bus this would have involved putting in more transistors which would have generated more heat meaning lower clockspeeds and higher power usage.

The 980 is a brilliant piece of engineering as it is so well balanced putting a bigger bus on it would unbalance everything. When the Maxwell Titan appears it will have to be bigger in every area to get the performance needed.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2003
Posts
20,158
Location
Woburn Sand Dunes
If better power consumption means coil whine, give me higher TDP :)

I don't know that it will! Maxwell's better power consumption is partly because of the improved efficiency of the architecture and also because it has some 2billion less transistors.

I think the wine is because of the load being placed on the power circuitry - not the peak load (watts), but the change in the load. Maxwell is very good at managing its power consumption, which long story short means it varies between low and high power states much much quicker and harder than anything before it. I think its this constant change of load on the power circuitry that causes the coil whine. If that is the case then nVidia will have to change something or risk it being worse with big maxwell.

Well, that's my theory anyway.
 
Last edited:
Associate
OP
Joined
16 Mar 2011
Posts
824
Location
Leeds
Just a quick update, the drivers were up too date but I did a full uninstall and re-download plus clean driver install and things have improved.

Still not as significant as I had hoped, I did some benchmarks on Heaven and although I am at work and don't have the screen shot I think I got a score of around 1895 I think.

I did notice BF4 was using 98-99% GPU usage too. Is that normal?

I now have to decide what to do regarding the coil whine, if I return it, is it likely that the next will be the same?

Do they all do it or is it just some?
 
Last edited:
Permabanned
Joined
30 Apr 2014
Posts
681
It may not of worked like that

If the 980 had a 512bit bus this would have involved putting in more transistors which would have generated more heat meaning lower clockspeeds and higher power usage.

The 980 is a brilliant piece of engineering as it is so well balanced putting a bigger bus on it would unbalance everything. When the Maxwell Titan appears it will have to be bigger in every area to get the performance needed.

I am sure people buying the 980 would not have minded it with a 384 bit bus (don't think big maxwell will have 512bit bus) with a bit extra power consumption instead of 256bit though it might have ended up to close to big maxwell's performance for to get people to buy twice.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
21 May 2012
Posts
31,940
Location
Dalek flagship
I am sure people buying the 980 would not have minded it with a 384 bit bus (don't think big maxwell will have 512bit bus) with a bit extra power consumption instead of 256bit though it might have ended up to close to big maxwell's performance for to get people to buy twice.

It looks like the Maxwell Titan will have a 384bit bus.

If they had put a 384bit bus on the 980 it would have involved redesigning everything else and increased manufacturing costs for a card that does not need it for it's target market. 99% of users are not going to use the 9 series @2160p so what is the point.
 
Associate
Joined
16 Dec 2014
Posts
301
I am sure people buying the 980 would not have minded it with a 384 bit bus (don't think big maxwell will have 512bit bus) with a bit extra power consumption instead of 256bit though it might have ended up to close to big maxwell's performance for to get people to buy twice.

Not needed. Single 980 @ 4K is perfectly capable with the smaller bus
 
Permabanned
Joined
30 Apr 2014
Posts
681
It looks like the Maxwell Titan will have a 384bit bus.

If they had put a 384bit bus on the 980 it would have involved redesigning everything else and increased manufacturing costs for a card that does not need it for it's target market. 99% of users are not going to use the 9 series @2160p so what is the point.

I think the point is to give their users more performance instead of holding back just to get people buying twice but from a business point of view it is good for them as long as their users don't mind paying £450+ for the 256bit and then £600+ for slightly cut down Maxwell Titan. (Amd's 390x depending on performance might make them price lower)

Me thinks Nvidia could have given people Maxwell Titan instead of the 980 (it did not need to be produced from a customer point of view) and produced a slightly cut down version but still faster than a 256bit 980. That would have been faster for users using 1440 res if that was the target market. Can you even max out Crysis 3 at a constant 60fps with one 980 at 1440?
 
Man of Honour
Joined
21 May 2012
Posts
31,940
Location
Dalek flagship
I think the point is to give their users more performance instead of holding back just to get people buying twice but from a business point of view it is good for them as long as their users don't mind paying £450+ for the 256bit and then £600+ for slightly cut down Maxwell Titan. (Amd's 390x depending on performance might make them price lower)

Me thinks Nvidia could have given people Maxwell Titan instead of the 980 (it did not need to be produced from a customer point of view) and produced a slightly cut down version but still faster than a 256bit 980. That would have been faster for users using 1440 res if that was the target market. Can you even max out Crysis 3 at a constant 60fps with one 980 at 1440?

Not likely

4 x EVGA SC 980s @stock
5960X 4.0

Crysis 3 maxed @1440p

From the start in the rain to getting into the first building

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
7664, 84829, 61, 154, 90.346

I could probably get a few more fps if I overclocked the CPU a bit but to answer your question no.

I will do a single card run next to show what you do get.
 
Permabanned
Joined
30 Apr 2014
Posts
681
Not likely

4 x EVGA SC 980s @stock
5960X 4.0

Crysis 3 maxed @1440p

From the start in the rain to getting into the first building

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
7664, 84829, 61, 154, 90.346

I could probably get a few more fps if I overclocked the CPU a bit but to answer your question no.

I will do a single card run next to show what you do get.

So at 1440p one 980 can't max out Crysis 3 at 60fps constant let alone 4k. (Takes 4 to max it at that res. :eek:) I would say from a customers point of view Nvidia could have skipped the 980 and not held back the big guns.
 
Caporegime
Joined
14 Dec 2005
Posts
28,071
Location
armoy, n. ireland
+1

The best part about using 4 cards at 4K is not the obvious extra fps but the greatly reduced frame tearing you get with a single card.
Kaap, out of all your various gpu setups, iirc its 290's, titans and 980's. Which would you decide to keep if it was only one choice of setup, (ie wife/gf says enough is enough):D.
 
Back
Top Bottom