Nvidia GTX980 Ti Review

The Nvidia GTX980 Ti is yet another extremely powerful graphics card set to cement Nvidia's authoritative position in the high end sector. The architectural enhancements discussed earlier in the review mean this new card is significantly quicker than the GTX980, and the extra 2GB of GDDR5 will most certainly help improve the Ultra HD 4K gaming experience. The limited 4GB of memory on the GTX980 has posed a quandary for many potential 4k gamers.

I still firmly believe that 4K is the future of gaming. This is one of the many reasons that the PC platform will deliver a better gaming experience than any console- right now most console games are running at a mere 720p or 900p. Playing the Witcher 3 and Grand Theft Auto 5 at 3840×2160 via a capable system really is such a life affirming experience.

Right now we have only been able to publish results from the reference GTX980 Ti, but as our overclocking results indicate Nvidia partners are likely going to release some highly overclocked custom solutions in the coming weeks.

If you are gaming on a 1080p or 1440p panel then the GTX980 Ti could be easily classed as overkill. This card is really designed for higher resolutions such as 1600p and Ultra HD 4K. The GTX980 makes for a more sensible, cost effective choice at 1440p.

Unfortunately if you want to game at 4k and maintain a constant 60+ frames per second in the most demanding Direct X 11 titles, you still need two high end graphics cards.  The GTX980 Ti is muscular GPU, but adding another will certainly drive those all important minimum frame rates into the super smooth 60+ zone.

As we mentioned earlier in the review, AMD have two solutions right now for 4K gaming. On a budget, the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC 8GB is a decent option, but in a single card formation it will struggle to produce acceptable frame rates with the latest, most intensive game engines. The R9 295X2 is still the most powerful graphics card on the market, and has received a massive price reduction is recent weeks, to under £600 inc vat. This is a solution that derives its performance from the brute force power of two R9 290X cores running in Crossfire. While the card is quiet and deadly effective, it does demand a huge amount of power to be taken from the 12V rail of a power supply. Also, without a Crossfire driver profile, performance drops dramatically. We do much prefer highly efficient single GPU solutions such as the Titan X and GTX980 Ti.

Nvidia have been unable to confirm pricing with us, even in the days just before launch. We did speak with some of our etail partners and they told us that pricing for the reference card will be around £539.99 inc vat, with custom solutions from premium partners such as Asus likely to be priced right up to £599.99. We have also heard that GTX980 prices will probably drop by around $50 in the coming weeks, although again this has not been officially confirmed.

The GTX980 Ti is no small expense, but when you consider the 12GB Titan X is still retailing for £900+ there is some serious money to be saved by opting for the new card. It is not like you will be sacrificing a ton of performance either, as an overclocked GTX980 Ti will outperform a reference clocked Titan X. If you can live without the extra 6GB of memory, it seems like a no-brainer to us.

For now, we patiently await the next generation high end solution from AMD and hope they can issue a challenge. Check back on KitGuru for updates in the not too distant future.

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Pros:

• astonishing performance.
• built for 4K gaming.
• reasonably quiet for a reference cooler.
• plenty of overclocking headroom (25% from our review sample).
• reference cooler works great for SLi configurations.
• Likely to be £300+cheaper than the monster Titan X.

Cons:

• Custom cards from partners likely to be close to £600.
• No backplate.
• A little coil whine under extreme circumstances.

KitGuru says: If you don't want to spend £900 or more on a Titan X and don't mind losing 6GB of GDDR5 memory, the GTX980 Ti is clearly the most powerful single GPU graphics solution on the market. A great choice for a new 4K gaming system.

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