Testing Nvidia's GeForce GTX 980 Video Card

The final piece of Norm's new Haswell-E system build is the graphics card, and as it turns out, Nvidia has just released its new GeForce 900 series of GPUs. We run through what's new in the high-end Maxwell architecture, how the GTX 980 performs, and give recommendations for practical upgrades. What graphics card are you currently using, what screen resolution do you run at, and do you play games with AA turned on?

[sLimof]

love the jp on the game-frame in the background

[ShapezPuller]

Just thought I might say fantastic review!
It was snappy, informative and succinct; you didn't beat around the bush with what it was good for and what it wasn't (eg. the lack of immediacy for buying a Maxwell card; GLM use etc.) and most importantly, you delivered it with gusto.
I do like the format with both you (Norm) and Will but this review worked; so why fix something that isn't broken?
Kudos

[richard-hawley]

That voxelisation tech for lighting can be used for other effects, smoke, fluids and all kinds of things we haven't even thought of yet.

[Zogtee]

I really appreciate these PC tech spots, Norm. Thanks.

[DriveCancelDC]

GTX 670 owner here, not worth upgrading if you play at 1080P. Was playing Shadows of Mordor recently at a constant 60 FPS with ultra settings, the only things I didn't use were the texture pack (it looks borderline identical without it, which is pretty shocking since the pack is 10GB) and tessellation. I'm also using a 5 year old quad core i5 at 3.5Ghz. I love it when hardware lasts longer than you expect.

Unless you care about performance draining features that barely make a difference, like tessellation, or you play at 2560x1600 I wouldn't upgrade from a GTX 580/670/760.

[captainnutella]

Thanks for making this video Norm. I'm still running an old 450 because I'm on a very tight budget, but I'm considering saving up and buying a newer card soon.

[PeTeRGiRoN]

sweet vidd norm great details and fully understandable for those who arent to computer savvy

[leginaire]

I am guessing one of nvidia partners will come with a dual gpu version, before any new card from nvidia.
With just a die shrink they could double the performance with the next cards.
Ow and 800 series does exist they where just for laptops, I wonder if it uses some of maxwells tech to keep power consumption low giving amazing performance for a laptop gpu.

[DaleMAN]

There's a damned good review. Thank you mate. I truly understood what that video card is all about.

[cloontje]

It makes me cry how he handles the cards, thank god that 980 has a backplate.

[BillyBallsuck]

Where the hell did you manage to buy the GTX 980 for 500? The lowest deal I have found is 600.

[DeathBringer]

You'll notice the serious aftermarket versions of these cards meant for overclocking.. come with extra power pins/connectors, not less, despite the cards being more efficient. You still want that extra headroom with power as it can suck up juice pretty fast once you start to overclock heavily.

[ghosthead]

Good video. Off topic, what is the name of the light box showing Jurassic Park in the background and can you get them showing other films?  Would love something like that looping Ghostbusters.

[manfrommontreal]

why is a pixeled version of Jurassic Park running in the background?

[dawhelan]

Really enjoying the Jurassic Park scenes on the Game Frame in the background.

[oO_ox_O]

Of course there is dynamic lighting is possible with the current techniques (also if prerender techniques are preferred wherever possible) is possible, it takes a sort of renderpass (just to depth buffer and simplified scene without many shaders) per light-source though.

[MilitantOldLady]

That is an almost Trump grade comb over. 
Embrace the baldness and shave your head. 

[antiplayr]

They didn't skip over the 800 series, they just decided to use them exclusively on mobile. My laptop uses the 860M 4GB and it kicks butt. 

[Srefanius]

Even the Gtx 680 and 770 are still enough for almost all 1080p games. So as I am a 680 owner myself I would still recommend to wait for the next generation unless you want to play in higher resolutions. You might not be able to max out all settings of the games in the coming year but that isn't really necessary in my opinion. The only reason to get better fps would be VR, but that's not there yet. New 20nm GPUs even might come before the Oculus consumer rift.

[sephirothno]

So jealous of that rig :( Looking awesome.