**Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 / 980 Review Thread**

[Fruitbooter]

Any SLI 970 benchmarks?

 

[Kaapstad]

r9 285 isn't full tonga. The full part has 2048 shaders vs 1792. AMD has admitted full Tonga has 4 more CU which is 256 more shaders or 14% more. But shaders scale worse as you go up as you run into other bottlenecks in the architecture. So 14% more shaders won't equal 14% more performance.

" AMD has confirmed to us that Tonga is indeed hiding four more compute units than are active in the R9 285, so the diagram above ought to be accurate in that regard. "

http://techreport.com/review/26997/amd-radeon-r9-285-graphics-card-reviewed/2

AMD Community manager on the subject.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=26916805&postcount=31

Anyway I am done here as this thread is supposed to be about the new NVidia cards.

 

[Omega]

Still torn about getting a 970 over my 680 SLI 2gb.

Any advice folks? I game at 2560 res

 

[Kaapstad]

Still torn about getting a 970 over my 680 SLI 2gb.

Any advice folks? I game at 2560 res

A 980 will give about the same performance as you have now, a 970 will give you a bit of a drop unless it is a game that does not support SLI.

 

[Yaayuh!]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-013-SF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2057

More then enough

Ignore this guy.

 

[almighty15]

AMD will easily compete from a performance and price point of view.

I feel though that when it comes to power consumption they will be far behind Maxwell.

Though I hope I'm proven wrong.

 

[Omega]

May get a 970 and get another in the future... Thanks for the advice

 

[inverseSquare]

Anyone seen any physical sizes for the MSI 970?

Quoting myself...

"The card is like 27cm in length with the cooler included."

From:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/msi-geforce-gtx-970-gaming-review,2.html

 

[Yaayuh!]

If this is priced well then we have a damn good card here!

Also, for those 256bit non-believers. Seems fine doing high AA and UHD to me...

The cards are bandwidth limited, a couple of sites, even TPU have noted that real world benefit from overclocking is not as high as the overclock percentage.

That to me is the cards not having enough bandwidth to take advantage of the ALU performance.

Can you point me in the direction of the bandwidth limitations please. Not being sarcastic, just lazy because what i have seen so far looks fine to me.

 

[WesleyBurns]

I read that nvidia has made optimizations so that memory bandwidth is more effiecient. It looks like it too. The 980 surely is equivalent to the 780ti and slightly better. Great card for the price, as long as you do not currently own a 780ti. Once Nvidia come back with a 980 ti they can have my cash as that is the performence increase im looking for.

 

[Boomstick777]

*Some more video reviews added to the OP*

 

[almighty15]

Ignore this guy.

750w not enough for 2x GTX980's? Lmao

 

[Huggie86]

2 x 970 on a 700w psu work ok in a h440 or 1 x 970?

Also thinking about a swift as well.

 

[Kaapstad]

Can you point me in the direction of the bandwidth limitations please. Not being sarcastic, just lazy because what i have seen so far looks fine to me.

They are fine as far as I can see too.

Worst case scenario I have seen in the reviews is if you go very heavy on the settings they can drop to 780ti levels of performance in some games (which is not so bad) but most of the time they are in front.

As to overclocking memory, it is not a problem however high you go as long as the error correction is not kicking in. Better still I think I saw in the reviews that at least some of these cards are using Samsung memory.

 

[almighty15]

Can you point me in the direction of the bandwidth limitations please. Not being sarcastic, just lazy because what i have seen so far looks fine to me.

Can't go through them now as I'm at work but techpowerup had it listed ad a negative in there conclusion.

 

[Boomstick777]

Who is buying a 970 or 980 then?

 

[Kaapstad]

Can't go through them now as I'm at work but techpowerup hassle it listed ad a negative in there conclusion.

Value and Conclusion

•NVIDIA's MSRP for the GeForce GTX 980 is $1,000,000.

•Amazingly low power consumption
•Greatly improved efficiency
•Faster than GTX 780 Ti
•Quiet
•Good overclocking potential
•Reasonable pricing
•3x DisplayPort output with G-Sync Surround support
•HDMI 2.0
•4 GB VRAM
•Backplate included
•New software features (MFAA, DSR)



•Performance increase over GTX 780 Ti not very big
•High overclocking potential doesn't turn into that much real-life performance

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980/31.html

The above is what they put in the conclusion. The point is if the VRAM is already going fast enough for a given task, overclocking it won't make the slightest difference. Overclocking the core on the otherhand will generate extra work and performance.

These improvements in power consumption have also enabled NVIDIA to reduce noise levels of their card considerably, making gaming on it a quiet experience. With 34 dBA, the card is very quiet for its performance class, but I still see some headroom to reduce noise some more, which is something that board partners will certainly capitalize on.
Overclocking on our sample worked extremely well in terms of frequencies. We could increase GPU clock by 20%, which is higher than most launch samples we've tested before. However, due to NVIDIA's power capping and thermal protection (80°C), this translates into less real-life performance than expected. Compared to the best manually overclocked GTX 780 Ti we've reviewed, real-life performance is roughly on par. NVIDIA does give you some controls in their driver to improve overclocking performance, namely +25% power limit and up to 94°C thermal limit. I also expect additional performance improvements with custom boards, once board partners figure out all the magic performance dials. It's also good to see Samsung memory chips used, which, as expected reach roughly 2 GHz maximum clock in our testing, definitely better than chips from Elpida.

I think what you are referring to is the above caused by NVidia'a power capping. I don't think this will stop some of the guys on this forum though.

 

[Geo-Gamer]

I got myself an MSI 970 first thing when i woke up at 8am. Was half awake and all I saw were 970's priced at £280 and i couldnt resist

For me its a great buy for my new build. At the start of all these rumours I honestly thought the 780 will perform better than the 970 and was going to pick up at 780 for around £330. Good job I waited as I have now picked up at 970 for £280 and its a better card

 

[shamus21]

Are MSI now using the new cooler design on 970/980

 

[shamus21]

Who is buying a 970 or 980 then?

me