After GTX Titan left a massive gap between itself and the GTX 980 in terms of both price and speed, we all suspected a card such as the GTX 980 Ti was coming. Still, we weren't expecting the GTX 980 Ti to be so close to the GTX 980’s price, while nearly matching the GTX Titan X's speed, making the latter almost redundant.
The GTX 980 Ti uses the same 28nm GM200 GPU as the Titan X, but with two of its 24 streaming multiprocessor (SMM) units disabled, leading to an 8 per cent reduction in stream processors and texture units, now 2,816 and 176 respectively. Otherwise, it's business as usual; the 1GHz clock speed (1,075MHz boost), 250W TDP and memory subsystem are unchanged.
Likewise, the six 64-bit memory controllers are retained for a full 384-bit bus with 16 ROPs per controller, there’s a full 3MB of L2 cache and no partially disabled partitions. The GDDR5 again runs at 7GHz effective for a total memory bandwidth of 336GB/sec. The only other difference is the GTX 980 Ti's 6GB frame buffer, rather than 12GB. However, 6GB is still enough memory to run 4K games at maximum settings without bottle necking the card before the GPU.
The GTX 980 Ti also fully supports DirectX 12 to feature level 12_1, which is where you find the most advanced rendering features, such as conservative raster (for accurate, ray-traced shadows) and volume tiled resources (for better rendering of 3D textures such as clouds, smoke and fire).
The card is equipped with future-proof display outputs, including HDMI2 and three DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, any one of which can handle a G-Sync display. SLI is also supported all the way to 4-way setups. Meanwhile, power is received via the 8-pin and б-pin PCI-E power connectors and delivered through the same 6+2 phase power system found on the Titan X.
Nvidia has wisely stuck to its lovely aluminium reference cooler too; the build quality is extremely solid and it looks the part too, although there's no backplate. A vapour chamber cools the GPU while a metal contact plate cares for the memory chips and VRMs. Heat is passed into two aluminium heatsinks, before the vast majority of it is blasted directly out the rear of your case by the radial fan.
Performance
You only need to glance at the performance figures to see the proximity in performance of the GTX 980 Ti and Titan X. Across 2,560 x 1,440 and 4K, the GTX Titan X is 4 per cent quicker than the GTX 980 Ti on average - a difference you're never likely to notice. Even in Alien: Isolation at 2,560 x 1440, where the Titan X's minimum frame rate is 11 per cent higher, both cards are running so fast here that you wouldn't notice the difference. In turn, the GTX 980 Ti is ahead of the GTX 980 by a healthy 29 per cent when taking the average of the game results, and ahead of the R9 290X by 42 per cent.
For 2,560 x 1,440 gaming, the GTX 980 Ti's minimum frame rates exceed 60fps in all but one of our games, Crysis 3, where the 53fps minimum is still smooth.
Even 4K is handled well, thanks to the 980 Ti’s fast memory subsystem and large frame buffer. Again, in every game except Crysis 3, it stays well above 30fps - we're finally seeing cards that can handle 4K with maximum or close to maximum details by themselves. In Crysis 3, the 26fps minimum passes also our technically playable test, and is still a good result that matches that of the Titan X.
Power consumption is completely in line with the Titan X too. The fact that you can run games this fast in a PC that draws less than 400W from the mains is testament to Maxwell’s outstanding efficiency. The cooler runs louder than on the GTX 980, and is clearly audible, but it will only be a distraction if you have your graphics card positioned very close to you and your gaming audio is set to a low volume.
The CTX 980 Ti is a great overclocker too. We added 250MHz (25 per cent) to the base dock, which saw it regularly boosting to over 1.4GHz in games. We could also increase the memory clock by 14 per cent to around 8GHz effective. As a result, performance leapt up significantly, with the new 33fps minimum in Crysis 3 being a real highlight. When the Titan X is also overclocked, both cards perform near enough identically - another win for the GTX 980 Ti.
Conclusion
The GTX 980 Ti is a powerful pre-emptive strike against AMD, which at the time of publication still hasn't released its R9 300 series. The pricing is fair too; it’s 30 per cent quicker than a GTX 980 and about 30 per cent more expensive. It's still costly, yes, but the performance benefit is equally massive. The card is also future-proof with DX12, HDMI2 and G-Sync support as well as a 6GB frame buffer, and the overclocking potential is outstanding. However, Nvidia has also dealt a blow to its own Titan X. Effectively, Titan X buyers are now paying £300 for 6GB of GDDR5, leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of early adopters.
It also means AMD has a tough challenge to fight back. Hopefully, cutting prices won't be the red team's only weapon against Nvidia, and performance alone will be enough to bring down prices generally. If you want great high-resolution gaming performance on a single-GPU fora respectable price, the GTX 980 Ti is currently the king of the castle. However, if possible, we recommend waiting to see the impact of AMD's R9 300 series before buying right now. MATTHEW LAMBERT
By offering 4K gaming on a single GPU for just £549, the GTX 980 Ti already makes the Titan X redundant. However, we recommend holding out to see the impact of AMD's R9 300 series before buying a premium GPU right now.
SPECIFICATIONS
Graphics processor Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti, 1,000MHz (boost 1.075MHz)
Pipeline 2,816 stream processors, 96 ROPs
Memory 6GB GDDR5, 7GHz effective
Bandwidth 336GB/sec
Compatibility DirectX 12, OpenGL4.5
Outputs/inputs 3x DisplayPort, Dual-link DVI-I, HDMI
Power connections 1x 8-pin, 1x 6-pin, top-mounted
Size 267mm long, dual-slot