Benchmarking Hardware And Software
The GeForce GTX 980, 9970, and 780 Ti were tested with the 344.07 launch driver, band all of the Radeon cards were outfitted with the Catalyst 14.7 release candidate for testing.
We selected a variety of newer game titles with high detail settings at a resolution of 1920x1080 in order to give the GeForce GTX 970 and its competitors a solid, real-world workload that this class of card should be able to handle. Frankly, it surprised us with its formidable capabilities.
The factory-overclocked EVGA GeForce GTX 970's core clock was dropped to the 1050/1178 MHz nominal/boost reference specification in order to show what a typical specimen should be able to accomplish. Keep in mind that there is no reference cooler for this card, so all GeForce GTX 970s will be unique in this respect.
Two of the games we're testing have an option to use a Mantle code path, so we're running those benchmarks (Thief and Battlefield 4) with Mantle enabled and disabled to measure the API's impact.
High-end graphics cards require a substantial amount of power, so XFX sent us its PRO850W 80 PLUS Bronze-certified power supply. This modular PSU employs a single +12 V rail rated for 70 A. XFX claims continuous (not peak) output of up to 850 W at 50 degrees Celsius.
We've almost exclusively eliminated mechanical disks in the lab, preferring solid-state storage for alleviating I/O-related bottlenecks. Samsung sent all of our labs 256 GB 840 Pros, so we standardize on these exceptional SSDs.
| Test System | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E), 3.3 GHz, Six Cores, LGA 2011, 15 MB Shared L3 Cache, Hyper-Threading enabled. | ||||
| Motherboard | ASRock X79 Extreme9 (LGA 2011) Chipset: Intel X79 Express | ||||
| Networking | On-Board Gigabit LAN controller | ||||
| Memory | Corsair Vengeance LP PC3-16000, 4 x 4 GB, 1600 MT/s, CL 8-8-8-24-2T | ||||
| Graphics | Reference GeForce GTX 980 1126/1216 MHz GPU, 4 GB GDDR5 at 1753 MHz (7000 MT/s) EVGA GeForce GTX 970 1165/1365 MHz GPU, 4 GB GDDR5 at 1753 MHz (7012 MT/s) (underclocked GPU to reference 1050/1178 MHz specification for benchmarks) Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti 875/928 MHz GPU, 3 GB GDDR5 at 1752 MHz (7008 MT/s) Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 1046/1085 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1752 MHz (7008 MT/s) AMD Radeon R9 280X 850/1000 MHz GPU, 3 GB GDDR5 at 1500 MHz (6000 MT/s) AMD Radeon R9 290 947 MHz GPU, 4 GB GDDR5 at 1250 MHz (5000 MT/s) AMD Radeon R9 290X 1000 MHz GPU, 4 GB GDDR5 at 1250 MHz (5000 MT/s) | ||||
| SSD | Samsung 840 Pro, 256 GB SSD, SATA 6Gb/s | ||||
| Power | XFX PRO850W, ATX12V, EPS12V | ||||
| Software and Drivers | |||||
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64 | ||||
| DirectX | DirectX 11 | ||||
| Graphics Drivers | All GeForce Cards (except GTX 770): Nvidia 344.07 Launch Driver All Radeon cards: AMD Catalyst 14.7 RC 1 GeForce GTX 770: Nvidia 340.52 WHQL | ||||
| Benchmarks | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Watch Dogs | Version 1.04.497, Custom THG Benchmark, 90-sec FRAPS, Driving | ||||
| Arma 3 | V. 1.26.126.789, 30-sec. Fraps "Infantry Showcase" | ||||
| Battlefield 4 | Version 1.3.2.3825, Custom THG Benchmark, 90-Sec | ||||
| Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag | Custom THG Benchmark, 40-Sec | ||||
| Thief | Version 1.6.0.0, Built-in Benchmark | ||||
| Grid Autosport | Version 1.0.101.4672, Built-In benchmark | ||||
| Far Cry 3 | Version 1.05, Custom THG Benchmark, 55-sec FRAPS | ||||
We'd like to voice our appreciation to Damian and the folks at Memory Express in Canada who helped us with some last-minute equipment requirements in order to perform the benchmarks for this review. Thanks, gents!
- Introducing GM204: There's A New Maxwell In Town
- New Features
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Reference Card
- Gigabyte GTX 980 WindForce OC
- Gigabyte GTX 970 WindForce OC
- EVGA GTX 970 Superclock ACX 2.0
- Test System And Benchmarks
- Results: Battlefield 4 And Thief
- Results: Arma 3 And Grid Autosport
- Results: Assassin's Creed IV, Watchdogs, Far Cry 3
- A New Power Consumption Test Setup
- Power Consumption In Detail
- Power Consumption Overview
- Efficiency
- Temperatures And Noise
- Verdict


Good stuff here - but you guys were a bit slow on this one. Tom's Hardware is the first site I visit every morning. But with the delay of this article, I've been all over the net this morning on other sites that got their stuff out sooner.
I was hoping for more performance but the efficiency is quite nice. They just put pressure on the top end and gave us a price reduction, instead of overall performance gains.
Likely, we're going to see a Maxwell Titan equivalent come in the next year or so as these are a x04 much like Kepler with the 670/80s were and we're still going to be waiting to see what the x10 will be with the Maxwell architecture.
Good stuff here - but you guys were a bit slow on this one. Tom's Hardware is the first site I visit every morning. But with the delay of this article, I've been all over the net this morning on other sites that got their stuff out sooner.
That's some flat out insane price / performance ratio right there!
Same answer to both... no time.
We literally got the 970 for testing yesterday. The 980, we got the day before. We barely got the article out by this morning.
For those of you who want more info, we'll be spending more time with the GeForce GTX 980 and 970 in the weeks to come, don't you worry.
I'm waiting for the real Maximum Maxwell myself. Unimpressed with these xxx04 launches from Nvidia.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/
Depending on resolution, dual 970's are roughly equal to the 295x2 at only 2/3's the price.
The features that Nvidia has been rolling out constantly has been quite impressive, while many of them do not appeal to me at all, the sheer amount and in most cases quality of them is insane.
Well done Nvidia. Let's see what AMD responds with, my next main gaming machine purchase as of now are 2 x Nvidia GTX970.
EDIT : Im sure that its a good upgrade to my 2 x HD7950s
Same answer to both... no time.
We literally got the 970 for testing yesterday. The 980, we got the day before. We barely got the article out by this morning.
For those of you who want more info, we'll be spending more time with the GeForce GTX 980 and 970 in the weeks to come, don't you worry.
Thank you! That answered a question I had in a previous GTX980/970 tease on the live news feed.
Do you guys have this problem often with Nvidia? You always seem to have fewer Nvidia board partner variaty and slower review releases on Nvidia GPUs.
More so than other websites.
Same answer to both... no time.
We literally got the 970 for testing yesterday. The 980, we got the day before. We barely got the article out by this morning.
For those of you who want more info, we'll be spending more time with the GeForce GTX 980 and 970 in the weeks to come, don't you worry.
Thank you! That answered a question I had in a previous GTX980/970 tease on the live news feed.
Do you guys have this problem often with Nvidia? You always seem to have fewer Nvidia board partner variaty and slower review releases on Nvidia GPUs.
More so than other websites.
My bets are that no NVidia GPUs on the best GPU's for the $$ for the past several months earned Tom's a slight delay in the delivery of these GPUs.
My bets are that no NVidia GPUs on the best GPU's for the $$ for the past several months earned Tom's a slight delay in the delivery of these GPUs.
Nah, doubt Nvidia is that petty.
More publicity is exactly that, more publicity.
Tom's has been around a long time and is trusted by A LOT of people.
Doubt Nvidia would compromise the user base.