980 Ti SLI Revew - 4K & 1440 Benchmarks | Overclocking

[NBKJOKER732]

 

 

 

Hey guys, Joker here. Just wanted to do a short write up and share some of the numbers that I've seen with my testing so far on the GTX 980 Ti's in SLI.

 

First, I'll just say that these cards are an absolute beast to behold. Coming from using two 980's on a 1080p 144hz display and then snagging these cards within days of getting the new Acer XB270HU with 144hz, G-Sync & 1440p.. I was happy I made the leap forward. Basically for me gaming at over 60fps on ultra is essential. I don't even really play games that run at just 60, Wolfenstein excluded, because I just can't do 60hz gaming. The reason I'm explaining that to you is because going from 980's to 980 Ti's was like recapturing the performance I used to get at 1080p using those 980's which was just purely amazing. Being able to now crank Witcher 3 up with Hairworks at 1440 and getting 80-100 frames easily without my overclock is awesome because with two 980's I ran mostly around 60fps and at times dipping to as low as 50.

 

Overclocking. My cards both came in with average ASIC scores of 70.4% and 70.6% so I knew they would be decent overclockers. I found that +250 on the core was my sweetspot since boost kicking in has me hovering on 1450, which is what I've determined to be my max stable core clock. After 1450 some things begin to unravel. Valley and Heaven benchmarks would both crash if boost took me to 1460 with a +260 overclock. I didn't mess around with memory as much since performance gains are minimal. I just threw it on +200 and left it there. Avererage performance increase in games and benchmarks was 15-18% with my added 250 on the core.

 

 

Performance in 4K. Now I'm not a 4k Gamer by any stretch, nor do I plan to be until I see performance in SLI giving the types of numbers I'm now getting at 1440p and used to get at 1080p when I had my 980's, but that is strictly coming from a 144hz gamer, however.. If you are looking to play at 4K and 60hz is fine for you that is awesome and you can be assured tht the 980 Ti's will kick serious butt in doing so. The most VRAM demanding game I tested, Shadow of Mordor with the texture pack and every setting including anti-aliasing cranked up, I did not dip below 60fps and held strong at 5600MB of memory usage in the games benchmark. So if you think you need the 12GB of the Titan X for a single 4K screen.. then you are sorely mistaken. Triple 4K screens, certainly, but for a single 4k panel; I think two 980 Ti's is the much better option.

 

Overall just very impressed and I'll go back with what I just said in the beginning was that this has given me the perfect 1440 144hz gaming experience. I would also say that for 4k 60hz, two 980 Ti's is definitely the way to go over something like the Titan X with its insane price point. These are gaming cards and that is what they do well. Below are my benchmark numbers and game averages for those that did not have a built in benchmark. And lastly below that is the video I did for this review in case you would like to check it out. I hope you enjoyed this mini review. Later

 

 

 

[ImBleu]

C.. Can.. Can I touch it?

[Mohenjo]

huh, thats a nice frame rate boost with OC 

[NBKJOKER732]

[Lays]

"I didn't mess around with memory since gains are minimal"

 

Memory is one of the biggest performance increases for Valley and a few other synthetic benches.  When you're playing at high resolutions it helps quite a bit as well.  Overclocking memory doesn't really raise temps or power consumption, it's not like there's a drawback to it

[Altecice]

"I didn't mess around with memory since gains are minimal"

 

Memory is one of the biggest performance increases for Valley and a few other synthetic benches.  When you're playing at high resolutions it helps quite a bit as well.  Overclocking memory doesn't really raise temps or power consumption, it's not like there's a drawback to it

 

+1

 

It helps ALOT with higher than 1080p gaming... Its really simple. The faster your memory clock, the more data you can get in and out of memory in the same time = better performance.

[Lays]

+1

 

It helps ALOT with higher than 1080p gaming... Its really simple. The faster your memory clock, the more data you can get in and out of memory in the same time = better performance.

 

especially since he tested in valley, Valley doesn't really give a crap about your core clock after a certain point.

BUT, running 7000 mhz memory vs like 8000 will make a massive difference if you have decent memory chips.

[MegaDave91]

Did you run these test with full AA? Those numbers seem a little low for SLI @ 4K.

[Altecice]

Did you run these test with full AA? Those numbers seem a little low for SLI @ 4K.

 

If you watch his vids, yes he ran everything with full AA.

[MegaDave91]

If you watch his vids, yes he ran everything with full AA.

Ah, I see. Something seemed abnormally low with those 4K results considering I own all but Dragon Age and get better performance with my Titan X.

[LazyLizard]

UBER!!!

[NBKJOKER732]

Did you run these test with full AA? Those numbers seem a little low for SLI @ 4K.

Yes, I always do testing in full ultra unlike a lot of websites since I feel those are the numbers that enthusiasts want to know about.

 

Benchmarks & Games tested:

Witcher 3 Uber w/Hairworks

Grand Theft Auto V Ultra

Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor w/Ultra Texture Pack

Firestrike Extreme

Firestrike Ultra

Metro Last Light Ultra w/PhysX

Tomb Raider Ultra w/TressFX

Unigine Heaven 4.0 Ultra

Unigine Valley Ultra

[Altecice]

Yes, I always do testing in full ultra unlike a lot of websites since I feel those are the numbers that enthusiasts want to know about.

 

Benchmarks & Games tested:

Witcher 3 Uber w/Hairworks

Grand Theft Auto V Ultra

Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor w/Ultra Texture Pack

Firestrike Extreme

Firestrike Ultra

Metro Last Light Ultra w/PhysX

Tomb Raider Ultra w/TressFX

Unigine Heaven 4.0 Ultra

Unigine Valley Ultra

 

Personally at 4K I dont think you need AA at all. I would like to see numbers without AA on @ 4k

[BiG StroOnZ]

Why do you rock out in the middle of displaying the graphs? It's so unprofessional and very annoying. You can just play the Metal music in the background and show the graphs. Wouldn't take away from it being "Rocking Benchmarks" at all.

[othertomperson]

How much AA are you using? Those numbers are worse than 970 SLI...

[GrimNeo]

 

-snip-

I don't have 980 Ti but I do have Titan X SLI. I don't have the same games as you but I did test Shadow of Mordor with HD Texture pack. at 1440p I got 130fps and at 4k I got 69.8fps. 4k used 6GBs of vram. Also my gpu's are not overclocked but they will be once I get the Hybrid water coolers from EVGA. Thanks for sharing.

 

especially since he tested in valley, Valley doesn't really give a crap about your core clock after a certain point.

BUT, running 7000 mhz memory vs like 8000 will make a massive difference if you have decent memory chips.

Thank you. I plan on overclocking once I get my water coolers for the Titan X's.

 

Ah, I see. Something seemed abnormally low with those 4K results considering I own all but Dragon Age and get better performance with my Titan X.

What fps do you get with one Titan X?

 

How much AA are you using? Those numbers are worse than 970 SLI...

Benchmarks please.

[othertomperson]

Benchmarks please.

 

Just look at it! Compare 980 Ti SLI to 980 SLI, bear in mind it's an almost doubling of performance, at 4K (ie, with no CPU bottleneck) OP is looking at 1fps more in Shadow of Mordor, 3fps in Metro Last Light, 2fps in Tomb Raider. These are games that very much support SLI and scale well -- and even if they didn't this would hinder the 980 as much as the 980 TI. The 980 TI, overclocked or not, is being gimped here by something.

[GrimNeo]

Just look at it! Compare 980 Ti SLI to 980 SLI, bear in mind it's an almost doubling of performance, at 4K (ie, with no CPU bottleneck) OP is looking at 1fps more in Shadow of Mordor, 3fps in Metro Last Light, 2fps in Tomb Raider. These are games that very much support SLI and scale well -- and even if they didn't this would hinder the 980 as much as the 980 TI. The 980 TI, overclocked or not, is being gimped here by something.

I just watched a benchmark from JayzTwoCents but it did not feature 980 SLI or 980 Ti SLI but it did have 970 SLI.

 

 

Has to be a cpu bottleneck right? In Jayz review a single reference 980 Ti oc to 1400Mhz gets 90fps in GTA V while a higher oc 980 Ti Hybrid got 94fps. No way a single 980 Ti should beat 980 Ti SLI. 970 SLI did 105 fps at 1440p.

 

Metro Last Light benchmark. 980 Ti reference got 94fps while 970 SLI got 108fps. OP test shows 980 TI SLI getting 89.1fps at 1440p.

 

Thanks. Had to check it out. The 4k benchmarks he has are really low as well. Don't know till he shows his pc specs. I did not watch his whole video so I could of missed op's specs. Op is missing out on a lot. The 980 Ti SLI is bottlenecked and being held down. Sad day.

 

@NBKJOKER732 unleash those bad boys and get a better cpu or overclock it. It is holding you back.

[MegaDave91]

With my overclocked Titan X, I average 49 fps in the Metro LL benchmark with everything turned as high as possible, EXCEPT for SSAA because is redundant at 4K.

 

Compare that to his 53.7 fps 980 OC SLI and 59.9 980TI OC SLI, respectively. That is why something initially seemed off.

[MegaDave91]

My OC'd Titan X averaged 43.18 fps @ 4K in the SoM benchmark with everything max/turned as high as possible. Not far off 980/980TI SLI.

[MegaDave91]

Your 4K Tomb Raider results seem askew with 4xSSAA and Tress-FX enabled. With perfect scaling, my OC Titan X in SLI wouldn't even equal your 980 SLI results. It's almost seems like you've recorded average frames in some games and max in others.

 

I know my CPU is different, but it doesn't bottleneck at 4K and it shouldn't account for the differences. 

[sgloux3470]

What settings are you running DA:I and GTA V on to get such low framerates on 980 SLI?

 

DA:I for me (Ultra everything except no MSAA  Fade Touched Textures enabled too.)

 

59 FPS framerate cap, so there's some minor variance.

http://i.imgur.com/JIAQrfi.jpg

[Commander_Z]

i love how people can just drop $2k on new GPU's and a monitor

 

Still rocking a Strix 970, only on 1080p though

[anthonyc813]

lol I found your youtube channel like 2 weeks ago when looking up Withcer 3 stuff. Now I see you here!

 

My girl friend asked me to kiss her where it stinks, so I brought her to New Jersey

fuck Jersey. No left turns. And yes, I'm from LI

 

feel better from the surgery

[NBKJOKER732]

What settings are you running DA:I and GTA V on to get such low framerates on 980 SLI?

 

DA:I for me (Ultra everything except no MSAA  Fade Touched Textures enabled too.)

 

59 FPS framerate cap, so there's some minor variance.

http://i.imgur.com/JIAQrfi.jpg

Actual ultra, unlike what other websites and channels run. I don't turn down anything including anti-aliasing. I cover this in my video at length.