Little bit disappointed with the 980 Ti performance

[Stg-Flame]

Specs in signature.

From the hype of the card, I was expecting to be able to at least max a few of the newer games (Metro Last Light, Shadow of Mordor, etc.) at 1440p, but it seems some settings still kill the FPS. I'm aware it could be poor optimization, but I even turned all the settings to max on The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings and while it plays around 50FPS constant, it does dip down to the 40s ever so often. This is somewhat disheartening, but maybe I just had exaggerated expectations for this card replacing my SLi 670s.

I was planning on going SLi 980s down the line after the price had dropped a bit, so maybe once I get a second card in my system I will see the drastic improvements I was expecting.

 

[Azix]

1080p is still safest for maxing everything. You're lucky it wasn't 4k, then you'd really be sad. 1440p is close to 2x the pixels of 1080p if I remember right. That revelation is pretty much why I am planning to avoid it for now.

buying a high end card just to turn down settings because of pixel count doesn't seem right.

 

[tviceman]

At 1440p, you should be able to max out just about every game (except for AA in the most demanding titles). There are a few titles here and there that will still challenge the 980 TI, but if you overclock it to 1400+mhz, then it should chew through everything at 1440p (again, some titles might need AA to be turned off).

 

[casiofx]

Shadow of Mordor High vs Ultra have very little difference aside from the farther vegetation view distance.

You should find those settings that ate up alot of the performance with little IQ increase.

 

[futurefields]

This is why I'm not a pixel chaser.

IMO it's just throwing money away.

It is so not worth the cost to performance.

Sticking with 1080p for a long time.

 

[tg2708]

Yes a bit disappointing for sure OP, SLI or CF is most likely the better route for maxing at this time, but then as others have said throughout the forums it comes with more issues along with better performance.

 

[x3sphere]

You should be able to maintain constant 60 in TW2...

Is Ubersampling enabled or something? Pointless at 1440p, and with it on you're nearly pushing as many pixels as 4K which would explain the poor performance.

Metro Last Light has an Ubersampling-like option too (SSAA), which again is pointless at 1440p. In case you're not aware, SSAA effectively doubles the rendering resolution.

 

[escrow4]

A 980 Ti @ 1200p maxxxed out in Witcher III - every single setting including Hairworks - will just hit 60FPS. If it could do that at 1440p why would you ever upgrade? Nvidia would go broke. 4K is a myth for a long long time unless you upgrade an SLI setup every 6 months and pray drivers work.

 

[x3sphere]

A 980 Ti @ 1200p maxxxed out in Witcher III - every single setting including Hairworks - will just hit 60FPS. If it could do that at 1440p why would you ever upgrade? Nvidia would go broke. 4K is a myth for a long long time unless you upgrade an SLI setup every 6 months and pray drivers work.

TW3 yeah.

He says he's only getting 50 in TW2 though, makes no sense unless Ubersampling is on.

 

[Silverforce11]

It's not a massive leap, ~30% over a 980, which struggles in maxing out 1440p so 30% extra isn't gonna give you much.

Lots of games have perf crippling settings that provide little visual gains, chasing those is not possible unless you have multi-GPUs.

 

[RussianSensation]

This is why I'm not a pixel chaser.

IMO it's just throwing money away.

It is so not worth the cost to performance.

Sticking with 1080p for a long time.

I hate to admit it but I am with you on this but it's largely because game development right now does not focus on next gen PC gaming graphics and pushing the limits. There is so much untapped potential but today games are made for consoles first and foremost. Instead we get games that look like garbage and run like garbage like ARK Survival Evolved.

Since Metro 2033/LL, Crysis 3 and RYSE: SoR, PC gaming graphics have entered a total period of stagnation. The Witcher 3 was a technical failure. We have not seen anything push the boundaries of graphics on the PC despite the gargantuan gap that's starting to form between the weak PS4 and Core i7 5960X and 980Ti. PC gaming developers have so much CPU and GPU horsepower and pixels to use to provide next generation PC gaming graphics but they either don't focus on doing so or don't have the talent to properly use all of that horsepower.

I have now moved to 2560x1440 but I am not even remotely impressed by PC gaming graphics. The increase in pixel count from 1080P did little to mask the sad state of affairs (aka lack of next gen PC graphics) in 2014-2015 PC games. The problem is not the 980Ti, which is an excellent GPU and a spectacular one in overclocked states. It has more to do with the fact that the media and marketing would love nothing more than to sell us on 4K this, 4K that and high resolution is the future but the graphics are hardly improving on the PC because pushing the boundaries of what's possible on the PC is not a priority for any major studio today.

We can easily have a game that looks better at 1080P than any game does at 4K. What makes amazing graphics is not resolution alone but realistic lighting, physics, shaders, shadows, AI and other graphical effects such as dynamic/adaptive real time tessellation!

Uncharted 4: Extended Gameplay (1.88GB download file) looks better/more realistic than any PC game, regardless of resolution or PC hardware we have. How in the world does a console game with weak Jaguar cores and a GPU slower than HD7870 have more realistic physics effects than any PhysX PC game ever made?

We should not have a PS4 game that has more advanced physics and graphics than the PC:

Uncharted 4: E3 2015 Demo Breakdown Part 1
Uncharted 4: Extended Breakdown Part 2

What Naughty Dog is accomplishing with their 1st generation PS4 game should be disheartening to every enthusiast PC gamer out there who realizes that even if we were to acquire Quad-SLI 980Ti and 5960X @ 4.6Ghz, we still do not have next generation PC games that makes us want to own such amazing hardware. High resolution gaming, GW features and all kinds of marketing behind it is just there to make us upgrade but at the end, we are far behind 2-year-old claims that within 10 years graphics will become photo-realistic.

Thus far since PS4/XB1 launched, I was sure that we would see a major breakthrough in next generation PC gaming graphics given that consoles would be x86 and would just be underpowered PCs. I was hoping games would be made to push the PC and then just ported to consoles but that's not at all what's happening. Instead, the last 2 years are shaping up to be the most disappointing in terms of technical PC prowess in decades with almost all AAA PC games being straight ports of console games with slightly better graphics, usually horribly unoptimized effects that drop FPS by miles with little to no benefit in increased visual fidelity.

How many years were we waiting for any PC game to use dynamic/adaptive tessellation the way tessellation was always promised to change gaming graphics for us? And now Uncharted 4 on a console has better adaptive tessellation than any PC game ever made. FAIL.

I am hoping DX12 and UE4 games will start to change things or upgrading graphics cards looks like it has now become a game of chasing e-peen pixels and overcoming the horrendously unoptimized AAA PC game coding & GW titles that sometimes look inferior to the console versions! :whiste:

I mean look at Fallout 4 -- those graphics are so mediocre for a 2015 PC game but yet NV/AMD expect us to buy $650 GPUs?

It's not a massive leap, ~30% over a 980, which struggles in maxing out 1440p so 30% extra isn't gonna give you much.

Lots of games have perf crippling settings that provide little visual gains, chasing those is not possible unless you have multi-GPUs.

But 980Ti OC is basically as fast as GTX970 SLI or R9 295X2. What PC game since Crysis 3 or RYSE Son of Rome has wowed you graphically? The Order 1886 and Uncharted 4 are literally pissing all over every single 2014-2015 PC game out despite using mediocre hardware. On the PC I am moving draw distance slider in Dying Light which hammers performance and I need a magnifying glass in a still screenshot to see the difference. x64 tessellation factor + 8xMSAA that hammered GPUs with HairWorks in The Witcher 3 before Patch 1.07, while the foliage, trees and grass look like a game made 5 years ago, in many ways inferior to Crysis 1 as far as physics effects go. FAIL.

but I even turned all the settings to max on The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings and while it plays around 50FPS constant, it does dip down to the 40s ever so often. This is somewhat disheartening, but maybe I just had exaggerated expectations for this card replacing my SLi 670s.

That has probably a lot to do with Uber Sampling.

I was planning on going SLi 980s down the line after the price had dropped a bit, so maybe once I get a second card in my system I will see the drastic improvements I was expecting.

It's probably going to be better to sell the 980Ti and upgrade to Big Pascal instead. 16nm + next gen architecture + HBM2 should be a huge upgrade.

 

[lehtv]

2560 * 1440 = 1920 * 1080 * 1.78
GTX 980 Ti = GTX 970 * 1.41 (techpowerup)

1.41/1.78 = 0.79

GTX 980 Ti should be getting ~20% lower frames on 1440p than GTX 970 does on 1080p. However, judging by techpowerup's benches, it doesn't seem to be so drastic, more like 10% lower. So GTX 980 Ti actually handles 1440p a bit better than you'd expect based on the difference in pixel count - but not as smoothly as GTX 970 on 1080p.

 

[Silverforce11]

@RS
There's diminishing returns for graphics at the ultra quality at a great cost to performance.

A game like uncharted, using lower res textures/models, but they can build more expansive areas, more interactive environments etc to make up for the visual fidelity. Just simple things like global illumination, hurts performance a lot but the final difference to the image isn't going to WOW you.

I haven't been wowed by many 3d games since Outcast (1999!), Metro (some scenes were very atmospheric) and Skyrim with mods. I think we've hit a threshold where ultra realistic textures cannot offer more visual information in a pixel.

VR is the next wow-factor, lets see if it lives to the hype.

 

[Stg-Flame]

You all hit the nail on the head. The moment I turned on Uber Sampling (still don't know what it does) on TW2, it started to lag a bit but the picture did look a bit more crisp than without it. For Last Light, again SSAA (again, what the hell does this actually do) kills the FPS and not just in-game. The moment I enable it even on low, the main menu goes down to 20FPS.

Whatever happened to the old simple days of AA, AF, Bloom, HDR, View Distance, Texture Size, etc.? It seems most games today have more acronyms than keybindings and every single game just expects we know exactly what that particular setting will do to the game. I could always look it up and in some cases I have, but I still see absolutely zero difference in the comparison screenshots provided via Google (Alpha to Coverage is a perfect example - in Grim Dawn I see no difference but also no hit to performance and the comparison screenshots used by Google are mostly from DayZ and I honestly see no difference).

Thanks for all the replies. Perhaps I should start trying to push this card to 1400 as many people have suggested.

 

[RussianSensation]

Uber Sampling was more or less full scene anti-aliasing - a very inefficient form of AA that renders the scene/pixels multiple times. A traditional name for it is SSAA or sometimes FSAA. I am not sure if UberSampling was a 4xSSAA mode or some hybrid but it's a very intensive setting. Imagine taking a 1440P image and rendering it 2-4X and downscaling/downsampling it to your monitor's set native resolution. It's no wonder it would stress even a modern GPU.

Some people actually find that it blurs things in TW3 while making other things sharper.

Alternatively, other games have found that you can set 'sharpening filter' to 0 (basically off) in the .ini 'Config' file - under the 'Rendering section'. This makes the game more blurry but some liked it better and would run Uber Sampling off to get above 60fps. (The .ini 'Config' file is found in My Documents > Witcher 2)

There are other alternatives such as using Sweet FX as some gamers found Uber Sampling made the colours dull in TW2:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher2/mods/630/?

Someone like BFG would be able to correct my explanation and add a lot more detail.

You are right that game developers should provide a better explanation with a small preview/picture comparisons to aid in setting selection.

 

[raghu78]

It's not a massive leap, ~30% over a 980, which struggles in maxing out 1440p so 30% extra isn't gonna give you much.

Lots of games have perf crippling settings that provide little visual gains, chasing those is not possible unless you have multi-GPUs.

Not really. once you pit custom 980 Ti against custom 980 the gap is close to 40%. The ref GTX 980 Ti runs at lower boost clocks than ref GTX 980. But GM200 is capable of the same clocks as GM204 once you have a good custom PCB with beefy power circuitry, vastly better cooling and a BIOS which really allows the GM200 to stretch its legs.

 

[alcoholbob]

Not really. once you pit custom 980 Ti against custom 980 the gap is close to 40%. The ref GTX 980 Ti runs at lower boost clocks than ref GTX 980. But GM200 is capable of the same clocks as GM204 once you have a good custom PCB with beefy power circuitry, vastly better cooling and a BIOS which really allows the GM200 to stretch its legs.

Alternatively when you put SLI into consideration two 980Tis is only about 20% faster than a 980 even with overclocking.

 

[moonbogg]

I was blown away by my cards performance. Not disappointed at all with them. Then again I came from two 670's. Each card is faster than both 670's. In some benchmarks, a single 980ti gets 3X the FPS of a 670. Performance is between 2-3X increased. If you come from a 970 or something like that, then yeah, you spent a lot to get a little. Well, not a little, but not as much.

 

[x3sphere]

Alternatively when you put SLI into consideration two 980Tis is only about 20% faster than a 980 even with overclocking.

I doubt that. If you saw benchmarks that put 980 Ti SLI at only 20% faster it's likely due to throttling.

980 Ti SLI is going to require a custom fan profile or water to maintain clocks.

 

[Mondozei]

I blame GPU reviewers for this.

There's this mad rush to pretend that 1440p is the new 1080p. It's not.

According to Steam Survey, we're looking at around 3-4% of people with 1440p or above.
And yet cards like the 390 are being measured on 1440p and 4K. Laughable.

The thing is, Witcher 3 on ultra will get you around 60 fps on 1080p on a 980 Ti.
Maybe even less. And that isn't because of bad drivers etc. It's that demanding.

This 1440p craze feeds people reading reviews a wrong impression; that GPU tech has advanced a lot more than it has. Well, game graphical fidelity have also advanced a lot. It's just that the stuff that is progressing now isn't as obvious as the stuff being done a decade ago. A lot of it is increased complexity and just pushing more drawcalls.

A good indication of which review sites to trust and not to trust if whether they include 1080p or not. There are exceptions; Anandtech and pcper, but by and large those with 1080p benchmarks also tend to give better and more truthful results(Techpowerup, Sweclockers). Incidentially, both of these websites are also the primary sources for so-called "performance indexes" which isn't exactly a coincidence. They've done their homework.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Specs in signature.

From the hype of the card, I was expecting to be able to at least max a few of the newer games (Metro Last Light, Shadow of Mordor, etc.) at 1440p, but it seems some settings still kill the FPS. I'm aware it could be poor optimization, but I even turned all the settings to max on The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings and while it plays around 50FPS constant, it does dip down to the 40s ever so often. This is somewhat disheartening, but maybe I just had exaggerated expectations for this card replacing my SLi 670s.

I was planning on going SLi 980s down the line after the price had dropped a bit, so maybe once I get a second card in my system I will see the drastic improvements I was expecting.

I'd say turn off ubersampling in the witcher 2, 5120x2880 seems a little extreme.

 

[guskline]

Went from 2 water cooled (EK block) Sapphire Tri-X OC R9-290s in CF (1000 core/1300 memory) to a single water cooled (EK block) EVGA GTX980TI SC (1102 core/1753 memory).

In synthetic benchmarks (i.e. Firestrike 3d) the dual 290s report higher scores. The OC room on my 290s left me to have a stable OC of 1100/1400. Oh I know some OCers go higher BUT I wanted an OC that would play all day solid. That was with appropriate added gpu/memory voltage.

The GTX980TI SC can add +150 core/350 mem without added voltage and run solid all day. OC to OC the benchies are higher on the 2 290s but not by much.

What I find amazing is replacing 2 cards for 1 with hardly any drop off AND getting much less power draw, heat 6G Vram vs 4G. The OP fails to mention this.
I wonder on the 670s what the power draw was? I'm sure not the same as my dual 290s but the 980TI is amazing -pricey but amazing.

Don't get me wrong. My 290s are ROCKS but suck voltage and produce heat like no tomorrow. They are Air Cooled now in my 3770k rig but they are staying stock.

PS: So RS, tell us how you like that BenQ BL3200PT?

 

[Sabrewings]

I have yet to be disappointed in my 980 Ti. I run everything I play on 1080p with 2.0 DSR. Brute force rendering and downsampling seems to be its forte.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I was blown away by my cards performance. Not disappointed at all with them. Then again I came from two 670's. Each card is faster than both 670's. In some benchmarks, a single 980ti gets 3X the FPS of a 670. Performance is between 2-3X increased. If you come from a 970 or something like that, then yeah, you spent a lot to get a little. Well, not a little, but not as much.

I went from dual overclocked 670s to a single 980 Ti as well. While I agree the benchmarks are outstanding, I'm more into playing the games than looking at numbers and as it stands, I'm not able to upgrade many of the settings from where they were at on my SLi 670s. Last Light I'm running at the exact same settings, though I am maintaining a constant 60FPS even in the outside areas and tunnel fire-fights. I am happy with my purchase (especially since I was able to get this card at a laughably cheap price), but I'm just now wowed by the performance like people were reporting.

Then again, I did get some pretty good overclocks on my 670s, so I was able to run most games at max or near maxed settings at 1440p.

I'm going to try overclocking my card today and see if that doesn't give me some better performance.

 

[Subyman]

Pretty sure my 980TI does 90+ fps in Shadows of Mordor maxed. Ubersampling in Witcher 2 needs to be turned off because with it on you are running at 2x resolution. 980 TI really shines when OCed. If you have a reference card then you need to OC yourself as most custom cards come with a 20% OC out of the box and Maxwell scales very well with clocks.