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Nvidia GTX 900-series

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polycounter lvl 14
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chrisradsby polycounter lvl 14
So the GTX 970 and 980 has been released.

index.php?ct=articles&action=file&id=12474

GTX 970 & 980 Reference REVIEW:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_970_and_980_reference_review,1.html

Pricing:
GTX 980: $549 / 452 EUR (ex VAT)
GTX 970: $329 / 270 EUR (ex VAT)
GTX 760: moves to $219

Basically lots of performance for a pretty cheap price.

I just got my MSI Twin Frozr V GTX 970 4gb today, I haven't had any time to actually test it yet.

Anybody else got theirs or the 980? and what are your thoughts?

Replies

  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Daym, that's like an xb1 being plugged into a graphics card slot XD will have to check this one out, how are you finding it?
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7
    Considering my 460GTX SLi setup is lacking a bit in Vram and overall performance, i think iam going to go with the 970GTX, looks like a massive Performance / Price deal. In Benches it could blow the titan (the old one) as well as a 780GTX out the water. Only the Ti and the double GPU models are stronger...so yeah gonna be my new one.
  • Zack Maxwell
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    Zack Maxwell interpolator
    God #$%#it! I just paid that much for a 780 like two months ago!
    Plus, did they just skip over the 800-series completely? That's weird.
  • thomasp
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    thomasp hero character
    i just got a 770/4GB recently so skipping this one. but nice to see that the new cards are said to consume a lot less juice and still improve performance. that's the kind of progress i want to see! - not those stacked monster cards that need another power supply. bravo.
  • Rurouni Strife
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    Rurouni Strife polycounter lvl 10
    I got a 2gb 770 a few months ago. Wish I splurged for the 4GB model...but maybe by the end of the year I'll get around to grabbing a 970. Nice thing is that at 1080P I don't NEED one of those cards (except for Watch Dogs)
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    oh my lawdy... so many displayport outputs! *fans self*
  • huffer
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    huffer interpolator
    There were some rumors that 8GB versions of the GTX 980 will be launched in a few months, I'll wait for a bit before upgrading (I was soo close to getting a 6GB 780).
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    Grimwolf wrote: »
    God #$%#it! I just paid that much for a 780 like two months ago!
    Plus, did they just skip over the 800-series completely? That's weird.
    Laptops are using 800 series. They did the same thing with the 300 series.
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    Those are display ports dustin. Gonna be a while for me to upgrade.
  • Will Faucher
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    Will Faucher polycounter lvl 12
    I see one DVI, one HDMI, and three of something I don't recognize. Did displays move to some new port type while I wasn't paying attention?

    That is DisplayPort. It's a format commonly used for very high resolution monitors (2550px, 4k, etc), mostly for 27" and higher. I like DP a lot better than DVI, it's not as big and clunky and you don't need to screw anything into your GPU.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    DisplayPort is an amazing format and i'm so happy it's taking over from HDMI in the computer market.
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7
    For those who run a bunch of HDMI Monitors:
    you can easily turn the Display Ports into HDMI compatible ports vida rather cheap adapters.

    //edit checking the Benchmarks: holy **** the 970 is just 2 fps behind the 780 Ti (in BF4), that still costs 588 Euro vs the 970 GTX that costs around 330 Euro.... wonder what Nvidia will do about prices.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Just a heads up to anyone that bought a GPU in the last 90 days, EVGA offers a upgrade step up program where you pay a bit extra to send in your GPU to get a brand new one, if you originally got one of their cards.
  • arrangemonk
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    arrangemonk polycounter lvl 15
    dont tell me you upgrade before your gfx card is broken
  • NegevPro
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    NegevPro polycounter lvl 4
    I love the affordable price of the GTX 970, I'll definitely be picking one up within the next two weeks as I think it's finally time to retire my Radeon 6950.
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7
    NegevPro wrote: »
    I love the affordable price of the GTX 970, I'll definitely be picking one up within the next two weeks as I think it's finally time to retire my Radeon 6950.

    Then i would still be on a Riva 128...since it still is working.
  • claydough
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    claydough polycounter lvl 10
    this will make the 4th year on a 28nm process which is an unprecedented slowdown for moore's law. I was hoping that would mark a return for $499 pricing on GTX x80 releases.
    Which is why I am waiting to see. ( willing to bet the price will drop to $499 after xmas ).
    Also smaller chip sizes from foundries will probably be coming soon with a lot of advancements happening fast. So if one were to go with Maxwell now I guess u could justify the few frames u get over gtx 780ti with the stabilty one would expect from a mature process and the power savings they managed over kepler. Considering this will be the first releases I can remember without a huge jump in performance I can't say a return to "almost" the old pricing is cause fer to much celebration tho?
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    The biggest postives about the 900 generation over the 700 is that the 900 series will fully support DX12, have better VR support, along with 3 display ports, and power savings. It's not a amazing card in terms of performance, but for it's price and features, it's a great deal compared to the 700 series.
  • RobeOmega
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    RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
    970 is about to put my 545 back to the sub bench.
  • Hayden Zammit
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    Hayden Zammit polycounter lvl 12
    I've got a gtx 580 at the moment. You guys reckon it would be good to upgrade to one of these or wait a bit more?
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Wait until AMD releases their new line, it might affect Nvidia prices.
  • beefaroni
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    beefaroni sublime tool
    ZacD wrote: »
    Wait until AMD releases their new line, it might affect Nvidia prices.

    Yep. Definitely wait if possible.

    AMD is set to announce their next GPU on Sept. 25th.
    http://wccftech.com/amd-announcing-generation-product-25th-septemeber-runs-pills-required-marketing-campaign/
  • weee
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    weee polycounter lvl 3
    its been some fusses around these upcoming 9xx cards, they are indeed very nice performance/power ratio wise, also, they have some nice real time GI solutions which might be adopted by Unreal 4 soon, not sure if its hardware exclusive though.
  • aleks.b-j
    Looks interesting - will try to pick one up when I have the chance.
  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    I'm waiting for amazon to get evga 980 sc back in stock, it'll be a nice upgrade from my 570. I thought about waiting for a 980ti or whatever, but if it does come out soon it will likely be up near $700 depending on what AMD releases (which will be 28nm too).

    Value-wise though you can't beat the GTX 970, pretty close to the 980 for $220 cheaper.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    VR will need 90hz+ and 1440p+ resolutions, even if consoles aren't up to par, to do console quality graphics on the Oculus Rift is going to take a lot more powerful GPUs. And PC gaming isn't dead, it'll probably grow bigger as consoles are more and more out of date.
  • JedTheKrampus
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    JedTheKrampus polycounter lvl 8
    It could be useful because of the hardware-accelerated voxelization as well. If you're producing PC-exclusive games or if you just want to iterate rapidly on lighting without having to build lightmaps so much, the GTX 970 could be quite nice to have, and makes games with large maps a lot more practical to make while still including some semblance of global illumination.
  • aleks.b-j
    It does sound pretty good if it really has hardware units for voxel GI.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Also 3x display ports! Hopefully that becomes the standard.
  • thomasp
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    thomasp hero character
    you fancy buying new cables to do the same thing? ;)

    dual-link DVI, display-port, hdmi, thunderbolt - what are the differences/advantages when driving high resolution displays? i have all of the above in use in various combinations and wouldn't know. :)
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Well Display Port is the most flexible, the only one that supports G-Sync, and is supporting higher resolutions at higher framerates quicker than HDMI. Also Display Port can be converted to DVI or HDMI without any issues. VGA is just crap and shouldn't be used. With DVI you do need to make sure you are using a Dual Link DVI cable and GPU to run a 1440p monitor, and only supports up to 2560x1600. The older HDMI standard only supports 4k at 30hz, display port was the only connection type that supported 4k at 60hz, until the 900 series, which is the first GPU with HDMI 2.0. A single DisplayPort 1.2 connector is capable of a maximum data throughput of 21.6 Gbps while HDMI 2.0 is only capable of 18 Gbps. Not that different, but might matter more in the future.
  • iniside
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    iniside polycounter lvl 6
    aleks.b-j wrote: »
    I see something like the 780 gtx as already very overkill for todays and tommorrows game dev as long as we are in the xbox one / ps4 active lifecycle. Do you polycounters need the 980...even a little? I find it hard to believe but I'm willing to listen

    As a true representative of Gaben PC Master Race. I need the most powerful hardware on the market, to make sure that my superiority is going unchallenged and I can look at those console gamers who think that upscaled 720p and 30fps is good enough.

    On other note, not everyone is making console games. I say, that since Crysis 1, there is unpopulated niche for PC exclusive games, which will bring your PC to the knees, and will look better than real life.
    There are people who really want this kind of games, and will pay the price for it. For software and hardware.

    On other side, only hardware support for voxelization is truely new. Lots of other stuff is possible since Fermi and Kepler. Like sparse textures (OpenGL), in DirectX known as Tiled Resources and now Tiled Volume Resources.

    Of course NVIDIa won't add support for it for older GPUs in their directx drivers, even though they are perfectly able to support it.
    ZacD wrote: »
    The biggest postives about the 900 generation over the 700 is that the 900 series will fully support DX12, have better VR support, along with 3 display ports, and power savings. It's not a amazing card in terms of performance, but for it's price and features, it's a great deal compared to the 700 series.

    That is unfortunately not really known. NVIDIa do not provide driver support for new DirectX version for older GPUs. Only the version of DirectX that was around GPU release is supported.
    So we might end in situation when there will be GTX 1080 next year and only it will, have full DX12 support.

    Of course Microsoft might be really piss of by this politics, as it could slow down adpotion of DirectX12 and Windows, to which new DirectX will be locked (I guess Windows 9).

    So I'm inclined to believe that all NVIDIa GPU will support DX12 to the maximum of their capacity. Including Bindless Resources and Sparse Resources from Fermi up.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Fermi and newer cards are supposed to support parts of DX12
  • iniside
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    iniside polycounter lvl 6
    ZacD wrote: »
    Fermi and newer cards are supposed to support parts of DX12

    Yes, but that is not really NVIDIa politics about drivers. Technically they can support, but you need driver support for it.
    Unless Microsoft forces on NVIDIa full DirectX12 support for older cards.. We might end up only with "support".
  • Goeddy
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    Goeddy greentooth
    iniside wrote: »
    That is unfortunately not really known. NVIDIa do not provide driver support for new DirectX version for older GPUs. Only the version of DirectX that was around GPU release is supported.
    So we might end in situation when there will be GTX 1080 next year and only it will, have full DX12 support.

    Of course Microsoft might be really piss of by this politics, as it could slow down adpotion of DirectX12 and Windows, to which new DirectX will be locked (I guess Windows 9).

    So I'm inclined to believe that all NVIDIa GPU will support DX12 to the maximum of their capacity. Including Bindless Resources and Sparse Resources from Fermi up.

    Nvidia said that the 900 are supposed to be DirectX 12 cards. although that is kinda impossible to say right now since the hardware specifications for directx 12 haven't been announced yet.

    i'll be waiting with an upgrade until directX 12 is released and i can be certain my new card supports it, until then my GTX 660 does the job just fine i hope.
  • iniside
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    iniside polycounter lvl 6
    Goeddy wrote: »
    Nvidia said that the 900 are supposed to be DirectX 12 cards. although that is kinda impossible to say right now since the hardware specifications for directx 12 haven't been announced yet.

    i'll be waiting with an upgrade until directX 12 is released and i can be certain my new card supports it, until then my GTX 660 does the job just fine i hope.

    NVIDIa also said that Volume Tiled Resources are new, where in fact such feature is supported since Fermi, using OpenGL ARB_Sparse_Texture ;).
  • ZippZopp
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    ZippZopp polycounter lvl 12
    I'm trying to decide if i should sell my GTX Titan and go for one of these 980's or hold off a bit until the next revision comes out.
  • Grindigo
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    Grindigo polycounter lvl 6
    ZippZopp wrote: »
    I'm trying to decide if i should sell my GTX Titan and go for one of these 980's or hold off a bit until the next revision comes out.

    You are better off to hold out.
  • JedTheKrampus
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    JedTheKrampus polycounter lvl 8
    Agreed. It's not even remotely cost-effective to buy every generation of GPU that comes out. I find myself getting every other generation, but even that is probably more than one would really need.
  • Add3r
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    Add3r polycounter lvl 11
    Agreed. It's not even remotely cost-effective to buy every generation of GPU that comes out. I find myself getting every other generation, but even that is probably more than one would really need.

    Very true, but I see possibly selling my 770 4gb and going with the 980 a decently viable choice. That, or getting a second hand or close out 770 4gb to rock in SLI (which is faster than a single 980 by a crazy margin, but SLI support is limited especially in our 3D pipeline). These cards are amazing for the price, nearly a 30+% jump in performance from a 770 to a 980.
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7
    But the power consumption would also be massive. Asingle 770 is quoted with 240 Watts TDP, so you are enclosing on the 500 Watts just for the GPUs alone, a single 980 is supposed to only eat 168 Watt.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    good luck to anybody selling their 700 series cards when the 900 series are priced like this lol.
  • Add3r
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    Add3r polycounter lvl 11
    But the power consumption would also be massive. Asingle 470 is quoted with 240 Watts TDP, so you are enclosing on the 500 Watts just for the GPUs alone, a single 980 is supposed to only eat 168 Watt.

    This is very true, and for me personally it is an option as I have 1050w PSU from a previous 6970 crossfire setup. But a very valid point with those without 300-400w free. If you did not, it would make more sense to hold out or sell the 700 series and move up, or hold off to the next gen. Then again, super circumstantial as always with workstation setups, and if you have a 780ti or titan... might as well wait. The Titan was designed as a computation card first and foremost and handles rendering quite efficiently from my understanding.

    Main concern with an SLI/Crossfire setup, your render software will never really take hold of that second GPU entirely (if at all), and then would make the newer gen cards viable with the greater VRAM and clocks.

    EDIT:
    @Gir, So true....... lol Looks like I am going the SLI route.
  • weee
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    weee polycounter lvl 3
    i'm on the verge of getting a 970 or 980 after departing with NVidia for many years, wondering how now NVidia consumers line performs in Maya and other 3d app in terms of OpenGL support? I've heard some negatives towards how they crippled the OpenGL driver, while AMD is having a lot of problems, but for OpenGL support, it's decent, and that's the only concern going with NVidia.
  • chrisradsby
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    chrisradsby polycounter lvl 14
    OKi doki, I've benched my own MSI 970 card a little bit, haven't had time to do any long-time testing.

    Here is how it looks (not my machine though)
    LNooRfN.jpg

    Here are my current system specs:

    MSI Z77A-GD65, Socket-1155
    Intel® Core i7-3770K Processor
    Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 16GB CL9
    MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr V 4GB

    BF4:
    Everything Max at 1080p = 100fps (without max AA = 160 fps)

    Batman Arkham Origins:
    Everything Max at 1080p, all DX11 features (even TXAA) = Min: 55fps , Average: 71fps

    It idles around 40* celcius, and under load it's around 60*
    Which compared to my old GTX 680 was around 80* under load.¨


    Overall:
    Super happy with the card, it's very price-worthy. Money well spent especially if you're sitting on something with less performance than a clocked GTX 680. In Sweden the GTX 970 tend to be a bit more expensive than in other areas, in the UK it's very VERY price-worthy.

    From what I've heard it beats out most opposition as well when you clock the card. Which I will probably do in the future.
  • claydough
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    claydough polycounter lvl 10
    Considering Intel is already developing 14nm hardware and all the foundries are on the verge of 20nm production. I imagine a lot of these cards will become obsolete fast.
    On the upside...
    Since the chip technology production ran into some snags, Nvidia had to pull off some bit of engineering to eek out enuff frames to beat gtx 780ti using less power. Instead of being able to just cram more with the smaller size advantage. Advancements that might have never happened if they were not stuck at 28nm??

    For fans of stereoscopic immersion 3dvision-blog.com has a review of the 900 series VR tech:
    http://3dvision-blog.com/9333-nvidia-introducing-vr-direct-technology-with-new-gpu-launch/
  • Goeddy
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    Goeddy greentooth
    claydough wrote: »
    Considering Intel is already developing 14nm hardware and all the foundries are on the verge of 20nm production. I imagine a lot of these cards will become obsolete fast.

    only cause intel can do it doesn't mean NVidia can
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    The one thing that I'm surprised noone has mentioned in here, is that the 970 and 980 both have hardware support for voxels. This is an absolute game changer if it takes off :)
  • Anchang-Style
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    Anchang-Style polycounter lvl 7

    BF4:
    Everything Max at 1080p = 100fps (without max AA = 160 fps)

    Batman Arkham Origins:
    Everything Max at 1080p, all DX11 features (even TXAA) = Min: 55fps , Average: 71fps
    Whats the deal with Batman? is it that much more demanding than BF4? i always thought BF4 was such a hardware killer.
  • claydough
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    claydough polycounter lvl 10
    Goeddy wrote: »
    only cause intel can do it doesn't mean NVidia can

    yer right but as Intel is aggressively trying to close the performance gap between discrete and onboard gpus...
    Nvidia must aggressively compete in a market where most the gpus on the showroom floor of yer average brick n mortar are onboard Intel.

    Even if that performace doesn't represent our demographic...
    We will most likely reap the benefits ( 20nm advancements which are already late )
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