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Test System And Benchmarks

Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 And 980 Review: Maximum Maxwell
By , Igor Wallossek

Benchmarking Hardware And Software

The GeForce GTX 980, 9970, and 780 Ti were tested with the 344.07 launch driver, band all of the Radeon cards were outfitted with the Catalyst 14.7 release candidate for testing.

We selected a variety of newer game titles with high detail settings at a resolution of 1920x1080 in order to give the GeForce GTX 970 and its competitors a solid, real-world workload that this class of card should be able to handle. Frankly, it surprised us with its formidable capabilities.

The factory-overclocked EVGA GeForce GTX 970's core clock was dropped to the 1050/1178 MHz nominal/boost reference specification in order to show what a typical specimen should be able to accomplish. Keep in mind that there is no reference cooler for this card, so all GeForce GTX 970s will be unique in this respect.

Two of the games we're testing have an option to use a Mantle code path, so we're running those benchmarks (Thief and Battlefield 4) with Mantle enabled and disabled to measure the API's impact.

High-end graphics cards require a substantial amount of power, so XFX sent us its PRO850W 80 PLUS Bronze-certified power supply. This modular PSU employs a single +12 V rail rated for 70 A. XFX claims continuous (not peak) output of up to 850 W at 50 degrees Celsius.

We've almost exclusively eliminated mechanical disks in the lab, preferring solid-state storage for alleviating I/O-related bottlenecks. Samsung sent all of our labs 256 GB 840 Pros, so we standardize on these exceptional SSDs.


Test System
CPU
Intel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E), 3.3 GHz, Six Cores, LGA 2011, 15 MB Shared L3 Cache, Hyper-Threading enabled.
Motherboard
ASRock X79 Extreme9 (LGA 2011) Chipset: Intel X79 Express
Networking
On-Board Gigabit LAN controller
Memory
Corsair Vengeance LP PC3-16000, 4 x 4 GB, 1600 MT/s, CL 8-8-8-24-2T
Graphics

Reference GeForce GTX 980
1126/1216 MHz GPU, 4 GB GDDR5 at 1753 MHz (7000 MT/s)

EVGA GeForce GTX 970

1165/1365 MHz GPU, 4 GB GDDR5 at 1753 MHz (7012 MT/s)
(underclocked GPU to reference 1050/1178 MHz specification for benchmarks)

Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti
875/928 MHz GPU, 3 GB GDDR5 at 1752 MHz (7008 MT/s)

Nvidia GeForce GTX 770

1046/1085 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1752 MHz (7008 MT/s)

AMD Radeon R9 280X
850/1000 MHz GPU, 3 GB GDDR5 at 1500 MHz (6000 MT/s)

AMD Radeon R9 290
947 MHz GPU, 4 GB GDDR5 at 1250 MHz (5000 MT/s)

AMD Radeon R9 290X
1000 MHz GPU, 4 GB GDDR5 at 1250 MHz (5000 MT/s)
SSD
Samsung 840 Pro, 256 GB SSD, SATA 6Gb/s
Power
XFX PRO850W, ATX12V, EPS12V
Software and Drivers
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64
DirectX
DirectX 11
Graphics Drivers
All GeForce Cards (except GTX 770): Nvidia 344.07 Launch Driver
All Radeon cards: AMD Catalyst 14.7 RC 1
GeForce GTX 770: Nvidia 340.52 WHQL
Benchmarks
Watch Dogs
Version 1.04.497, Custom THG Benchmark, 90-sec FRAPS, Driving
Arma 3
V. 1.26.126.789, 30-sec. Fraps "Infantry Showcase"
Battlefield 4
Version 1.3.2.3825, Custom THG Benchmark, 90-Sec
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Custom THG Benchmark, 40-Sec
ThiefVersion 1.6.0.0, Built-in Benchmark
Grid Autosport
Version 1.0.101.4672, Built-In benchmark
Far Cry 3
Version 1.05, Custom THG Benchmark, 55-sec FRAPS

We'd like to voice our appreciation to Damian and the folks at Memory Express in Canada who helped us with some last-minute equipment requirements in order to perform the benchmarks for this review.  Thanks, gents!

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  • 0 Hide
    Ce3in , 19 September 2014 13:24
    Excellent Review!

    Looks like The Gtx 980 will become a part of my build family!
  • 0 Hide
    HEXiT , 19 September 2014 20:31
    went to buy 1 form ocuk today as they had around 70 in stock of both the 970 and 980... but by the time i sorted the order (about 10 mis) they were out of stock...
    so roll on next week and hopefully they will have them back in stock...
  • 1 Hide
    Marco Washa , 20 September 2014 06:09
    These cards are really impressive. GG nVidia you have done right this time.
    -Top performance as always
    -Low power consumption
    -A right price this time XD
  • 2 Hide
    Marco Washa , 20 September 2014 06:12
    These cards are really impressive. GG nVidia you have done right this time.
    -Top performance as always
    -Low power consumption
    -A right price this time XD
  • 0 Hide
    shaunwil , 20 September 2014 09:47
    Bought a 980 from scan. By 2pm they had sold almost 300 cards in the day. Looking forward to 4k G-sync with the card now when the monitor comes available.
  • 0 Hide
    Omar101 , 21 September 2014 22:51

    nvidia
  • 0 Hide
    Alpha3031 , 22 September 2014 05:00
    Now, if AMD actually made some progress with power. That should drive prices down too.
  • 0 Hide
    Mahisse , 22 September 2014 11:42
    I fear this may be the beginning of the end for AMD GPU. Seems like Nvidia is beating AMD on any entry level now with a better cost/performance ratio. I want competition not monopoly!
  • 0 Hide
    Alpha3031 , 23 September 2014 03:15
    Triple post?
  • 0 Hide
    Mahisse , 23 September 2014 09:30
    Don't know how that happened but they are deleted now :) 
  • 0 Hide
    Bitty , 9 October 2014 14:51
    Just getting back into gaming after a huge gap. Got a Gigabyte G1 gtx970 (another later) to replace a very well-behaved AMD 9790 GHz. All seemed ok until I hit replay in Grid2 when it froze. Repeatedly it did this with oc or not but temps etc were fine. hmmmmm. Valley worked like a charm with none and big overclocks - no artifacts. Titanfall would freeze too. Asetto Corsa was fine. I looked about and saw a few complaining of similar issues thinking the 344.16 drivers were the cause. I suspec ted that power might be an issue since other factors were okay and not everybody has the issue. I then found this article on power draw and the penny dropped.

    I have an oldish Antec TP New Series 650 watt modular psu. I had the gtx970 on one 25A 12v rail feeding the 8+6 connectors. It seems this was possibly not enough to cope with the peaks. Not up on psus but with 80% efficiency that 25x12 is not a full 300 watts - more like 240watts. So, I added another 12v rail for the 6pin and hey presto it worked fine no issue.

    So anyone with such an issue might try this or get a more powerful psu.
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