GTX 980 Ti specifications - Teaser and benchmarks

[Headfoot]

It really is a shame that Fiji is only going to be 4gb and is shaping up to cost as much as the 980 TI. No matter how great AMD optimizes their vram resource management, the "initial" shock of "only" having 4gb is going to last just like throttling r9 290x initial reviews.

My guess is we'll see no loss of FPS in current games even at 4k but we'll never hear the end of "The sky is falling... maybe some time in the future. Do you really want to risk the sky falling on you next year?"

Hopefully one or the other will do a $50 price cut, to which the other responds with a price match, where the other responds with another $50 price cut... etc. Price or bundle war, please...

 

[Silverforce11]

My guess is we'll see no loss of FPS in current games but we'll never hear the end of "The sky is falling... maybe some time in the future. Do you really want to risk the sky falling on you next year?"

You know if they want to play the future-proofing game.. it's quite easy (better than their stupid Fixer videos!) actually, NV has provided all the material AMD's marketing department could ever want.

*Cue sad music
"Kepler... how the mighty has fallen under Maxwell's assault. But, Maxwell's reign will be short with Pascal on the horizon..."

"Your Titan X, invalidated by a lowly peasant Pascal... Game on AMD's GCN-powered Radeons, it's the standard for all game developers for years to come!"

There is a crapstorm of Kepler anger on Reddit, official NV forums & other gaming forums. They can certainly play to that if NV wants to make it a future proof battle.

 

[Zanovar]

You know if they want to play the future-proofing game.. it's quite easy (better than their stupid Fixer videos!) actually, NV has provided all the material AMD's marketing department could ever want.

*Cue sad music
"Kepler... how the mighty has fallen under Maxwell's assault. But, Maxwell's reign will be short with Pascal on the horizon..."

"Your Titan X, invalidated by a lowly peasant Pascal... Game on AMD's GCN-powered Radeons, it's the standard for all game developers for years to come!"

There is a crapstorm of Kepler anger on Reddit, official NV forums & other gaming forums. They can certainly play to that if NV wants to make it a future proof battle.

Haha

 

[crisium]

Depends, would it be trouble if its 15% faster than Titan X? Don't think so.

What if due to Water cooling by default, it does a 25% OC easy as? Superior GloFo node with less leakage & usage of power gating, dense stacking from APUs... etc.

It doesn't matter. Anytime Nvidia has an advantage that is the new bottomline. Last gen Nvidia sold more cards with less memory. Now is the time when VRAM matters because now Nvidia has more. We already saw this same hypocrisy with power consumption.

Fiji XT will be dismissed outright due to 4Gb by too many people. Go read the forums like NeoGaf. Legions of 680 or 670 2Gb users who passed on 3gb 7950 or 7970 are now laughing at 4Gb Fiji Xt because of the ram and with no regard for anything else.

 

[piesquared]

It really is a shame that Fiji is only going to be 4gb and is shaping up to cost as much as the 980 TI. No matter how great AMD optimizes their vram resource management, the "initial" shock of "only" having 4gb is going to last just like throttling r9 290x initial reviews.

One can only imagine what prices would be like today if hd7970's initial release had much better drivers. GTX680 wouldn't have been able to launch at $499, and $1,000 Titan would not have been created at the time. The transition to higher prices is complete. Just like when AMD transitioned the x870 (with the hd6870) to be midrange, the GTX x80 (gtx680 / gtx980) is the new "midrange" product numeration but with higher prices.

lol You wish, not this time. Let me give you the reaction of the 'initial' shock>>>wow

 

[Cloudfire777]

I think a big majority will buy Nvidia cards over AMD cards if priced the same and same performance.

Maybe AMD is gambling too much with HBM? I have a feeling 390X and 980Ti will be very close in performance

 

[Zanovar]

the mem on this card interests me.its future support doesnt.it does actually,i got that all wrong.and yes im a twat.

 

[LTC8K6]

You can't fix a VRAM capacity bottleneck with a core OC. Quad SLI'ers tend to use extreme resolutions/multiple monitors. Think 3x 4K monitors.

Hey, if 4gb is plenty, then 6gb must be too!

 

[xthetenth]

Hey, if 4gb is plenty, then 6gb must be too!

It's a niche market and I think Adam's already bought his titans. 4GB is likely enough for a very good single card.

 

[LTC8K6]

All of that crapstorm will disappear when the 980ti breaks cover.

 

[moonbogg]

I'm just wondering when GPU's will have more ram than the rig they get installed into. Seems like its coming pretty quick. Maybe another gen or two. Titan X with 12 gigs and my rig has 16 and I think 16 is about 8 more than is even really needed.

 

[MrK6]

I'm just wondering when GPU's will have more ram than the rig they get installed into. Seems like its coming pretty quick. Maybe another gen or two. Titan X with 12 gigs and my rig has 16 and I think 16 is about 8 more than is even really needed.

I'm still on 8GB with no issues. Many game exe's are still 32-bit, so most of the time even on my rig I'll have 4GB system RAM doing little. Time's a changin'.

Anyway, proof is in the details on this card. If it has a powerful cooler and overclocks well (like this sample seems to), $779 is a reasonable offer; I may pick one up.

 

[tviceman]

lol You wish, not this time. Let me give you the reaction of the 'initial' shock>>>wow

The 290x tied Geforce Titan at release and there wasn't a massive outcry of "wow." So instead of being "hot and power hungry", potential buyers will be wary of it's "paltry" 4gb vram scenario. 780 TI tying 390x at similar prices (if that happens), means 390x will lose massively in sales. Neither card will make a huge dent in sales at $749 or more.

 

[tviceman]

My guess is we'll see no loss of FPS in current games even at 4k but we'll never hear the end of "The sky is falling... maybe some time in the future. Do you really want to risk the sky falling on you next year?"

You may be right. I am in the camp that 4k performance isn't there yet unless you SLI Titan X's, so 390x isn't going to change that picture at all. On top of that, most of the potential customers in the market for a $500+ video card usually upgrade again in less than 2 years making 4gb even less of an issue. But it will still be an issue.

 

[moonbogg]

I'm expecting 980ti to have 5.5 + .5 configuration. Good thing 5.5 is "plenty" for 1440p. Someone tell me 5.5gb is plenty for 1440p. What's the highest GTAV hits? 3.8 to 4gb or so? Also, maybe I can get away with one of these, but then again, that's just not as much fun now is it?

 

[tviceman]

I'm expecting 980ti to have 5.5 + .5 configuration. Good thing 5.5 is "plenty" for 1440p. Someone tell me 5.5gb is plenty for 1440p. What's the highest GTAV hits? 3.8 to 4gb or so? Also, maybe I can get away with one of these, but then again, that's just not as much fun now is it?

Yeah it will be VERY interesting to see what the "TRUE" ram configuration is.

 

[Wag]

If 4GB was enough for 4k gaming I would go with that, but since it's not and I already have 3 6GB Titans, I have no choice but to go with Nvidia this time around.

The Witcher 3 runs like [redacted] on my 3 6GB Titans @ 4k/60Hz so I really need to upgrade at this point.

Profanity isn't allowed in the technical forums.
-- stahlhart

 

[Despoiler]

If 4GB was enough for 4k gaming I would go with that, but since it's not and I already have 3 6GB Titans, I have no choice but to go with Nvidia this time around.

The Witcher 3 runs like [redacted] on my 3 6GB Titans @ 4k/60Hz so I really need to upgrade at this point.

Nobody knows what HBM + AMD memory management will bring to the table as far as VRAM need. It's premature to make your statement.

 

[Wag]

Nobody knows what HBM + AMD memory management will bring to the table as far as VRAM need. It's premature to make your statement.

I'll definitely wait for the 390x to arrive before I decide, and I hope it will a good card. For a flagship card I do hope it's more suited for 4k gaming than the initial expectations. Right now I am struggling to get 30FPS at times @ 4k even with my 3 older Titans, and I'd like to upgrade. No way I'll invest >$1000 in a card again, I'm done with that.

It's too bad they can't time the release of cutting edge cards closer to the release of big games.

 

[LTC8K6]

It is now time for AMD to leak some info about how 4Gb HBM is as good as 6gb GDDR for the frame buffer...

(Assuming the card AMD releases has 4gb, that is)

 

[alcoholbob]

I'll definitely wait for the 390x to arrive before I decide, and I hope it will a good card. For a flagship card I do hope it's more suited for 4k gaming than the initial expectations. Right now I am struggling to get 30FPS at times @ 4k even with my 3 older Titans, and I'd like to upgrade. No way I'll invest >$1000 in a card again, I'm done with that.

It's too bad they can't time the release of cutting edge cards closer to the release of big games.

You need to tame your expectations. Even 3 Titan Xs can't max out Witcher 3 with Hair Works and AA at 4K.

The fact is we'll need a $1000 10nm flagship in 2019 before a single card can run Witcher 3 at 4K. 390X is a nonstarter at 4K because CF support is garbage for new titles so the 4GB is irrelevant. It's gonna be a 1440p card since running two and hoping for CF support for new games is a losing cause.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Hey, if 4gb is plenty, then 6gb must be too!

4GB is enough if you have HBM yes.

edit: nevermind

 

[tviceman]

If 4GB was enough for 4k gaming I would go with that, but since it's not and I already have 3 6GB Titans, I have no choice but to go with Nvidia this time around.

The Witcher 3 runs like [redacted] on my 3 6GB Titans @ 4k/60Hz so I really need to upgrade at this point.

Kepler is not cutting it in current games, likely because Nvidia is not optimizing drivers for Kepler (current theory which I agree with). 2 980's can run the game at 4k with hairworks enabled.

 

[LTC8K6]

I wonder if we will see a card with the new higher density GDDR5 chips?

 

[RussianSensation]

Maybe, but hot, power hungry & throttling applies to all resolutions.

4GB won't matter to the vast majority of gamers. Particularly those on 1080p (where a Titan X is still barely enough in newer titles, re: Witcher 3) and 1440p.

Honestly I have my doubts it will hold up well at 4K, but they can prove me wrong when it comes to launch reviews. I want to be proven wrong, I want a fast single GPU.

Unless you plan on getting dual 390s/390Xs or dual GM200 cards, 4K is too demanding for cards like the Titan X. A fast single GPU for 4K gaming this generation is an oxymoron. It doesn't exist until R9 395X2/Titan Z2 come out. A gamer's only option is to turn down settings/details which then becomes a discussion of what's better 1440P fully maxed out or 4K at Medium? I am not sure as no professional reviewer has done the comparison with pictures.

I think if you want 4K experience that's definitively better than 1440P, you need 2 flagship cards. 4GB vs. 6-12GB at 4K should only come into play if you are using 2 or more such cards. If you are buying a single card for 1080P-1440P, it's not an issue while no single-chip card is fast enough at 4K today to take advantage of the extra VRAM since it's GPU bottlenecked to start with.

I think you know all of this though! A single R9 390X or a Titan X isn't fast enough for 4K to achieve 50-60 fps consistently at High/VH settings in AAA games.

Fiji XT will be dismissed outright due to 4Gb by too many people. Go read the forums like NeoGaf. Legions of 680 or 670 2Gb users who passed on 3gb 7950 or 7970 are now laughing at 4Gb Fiji Xt because of the ram and with no regard for anything else.

NeoGaf --> even if R9 390X matched the Titan X for $399, they would buy NV. Too many gamers on that site/forum are too NV biased to take seriously.

I am interested to see what the price/performance of the 2nd tier Fiji card is as historically HD5850-R9 290 tier has been BY FAR the best buy from AMD on the high end. This time it might be different if R9 390X sweetens the deal with warrantied AIO CLC. I still think the 3584-3840 Shader Fiji PRO at $499-549 has a shot at making major waves. If Fiji PRO is 10-15% faster than a 980 and it costs LESS than $499, it's going to steal the spot light for many gamers who don't care to pay $700-1000 for that last 15%.

If Fiji PRO is 15% faster than 980, but comes with 4GB of VRAM, for example, what would I take Fiji PROs in CF for $999 or a Titan X? Fiji PROs.

If $499 Fiji PRO is 90% as fast as a $699 Fiji XT, what would I take? Fiji PRO.

A lot of gamers will realize this generation is a stop-gap and evaluate how much to spend this round more wisely I feel. Then again, many people bought 980 over 970 SLI, which was a bad move as 970 SLI is superior in all resolutions (for those who can fit 970 SLI into their case of course).

I think a big majority will buy Nvidia cards over AMD cards if priced the same and same performance.

You have it wrong. Majority will buy an NV card even if it's priced higher and performs worse.

The 290x tied Geforce Titan at release and there wasn't a massive outcry of "wow."

That's because the media reviewed the cards that way. Had the media reviewed after-market cards, there would be a HUGE wow factor when a $399 R9 290 = Titan. If the media starts ripping apart 4GB and benches games at 8xMSAA at 4K to show the bottleneck, that will be the result. However, the media did no such thing with 970 SLI or 980 SLI. In fact, sites like PCPerspective and TechReport and TPU think 3.5GB on 970 is perfectly fine. Many gamers bought 970 SLI / 980 SLI for the last 8 months. Are all those setups instantly obsolete now if R9 390X launches with only 4GB of VRAM? That's really the hypocrisy here because 980 4GB SLI > Titan X in 90% of benchmarks.

Who thinks R9 390X will be faster than 980 SLI? I don't. 980 SLI isn't bottlenecked by 4GB of VRAM, so why would a single 390X be? The Titan X isn't fast enough for 4K anyway which means unless you get 2+ of those, the extra VRAM for gaming is a marketing point right now. All of this could change if we get AAA games that truly require > 4GB of VRAM.