Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming Windforce Review

Reviews
By Kevin Carbotte
published

Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming might just be the fastest single-GPU graphics card we've ever tested. It features a custom PCB, binned and overclocked processor, and robust cooling.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Battlefield 4

Battlefield 4 may be one of the oldest games in our suite, but it can still bottleneck even the most modern graphics cards. Its workload is also good for weeding out unstable overclocks.

Gigabyte’s GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming has no trouble with Battlefield at 2560x1440, and it maintains at least 71 FPS during our run. The reference GeForce GTX 980 Ti results were generated back in May. No doubt, Nvidia made some improvements to its software since then. But it appears that Gigabyte's claims of performance superiority may be legitimate.

The GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming even manages to maintain playable frame rates at 3840x2160, staying north of 33 FPS. That's better than the reference model by an average of 6 FPS.

Curiously, while we didn't have any stability issues, our custom overclock yielded no benefit at either resolution.

Far Cry 4

Far Cry 4 is a much newer game, and it makes use of some Nvidia-exclusive enhancements to shadows and ambient occlusion, among other visual effects. Gigabyte's GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming achieves respectable performance at 2560x1440. Its frame rate hovers around 90 FPS most of the time, only dipping as low as 75 FPS.

Our custom overclock again fails to impress.

That performance difference is even more evident at 4K. The reference card maintains just over 30 FPS, while the Xtreme Gaming keeps its nose in the 40s.

In Far Cry 4, a single GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming is roughly on par with two overclocked GTX 970s in SLI.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V is an open-world game notorious for being hard on graphics hardware. There aren't many hardware configurations able to maintain smooth performance at the title's High preset, but Gigabyte's GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Edition has no trouble there. At 1440p, the minimum frame rates were in the high 60s, with the average sitting around 90 FPS. The reference card doesn't stand a chance.

Even with the resolution bumped up to 4K, minimum frame rates hover in the mid-30s with an average in the mid-40s. Our reference card averages 39 FPS, so once again, Gigabyte's implementation offers a significant improvement.

Our custom overclock again fails to deliver much of a gain. But at least performance isn't hurt this time around.

Metro: Last Light

Gigabyte's GTX 980 Ti is the first single-GPU card we've tested that averages around 100 FPS and never dips below 60 FPS at 2560x1440. The reference card averages 75 FPS, so the difference is pretty huge.

With the resolution increased to 4K, we're telling a similar story. The frame rate remains well above 30 FPS, again besting the reference model by a large margin.

Our custom overclock yields a slight performance boost at 1440p but proves little help at 4K.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Shadow of Mordor is another game that requires big graphics hardware for smooth performance at its highest detail settings. Gigabyte's GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming doesn't dip under 70 FPS at 2560x1440.

With the resolution increased to 4K, the GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming averages around 49 FPS, never falling under 35 FPS. In comparison, the reference GeForce GTX 980 Ti averages 38 FPS.

Once again, our overclock does little to improve on the factory configuration.

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider is the only game in our suite that showed Gigabyte's 980 Ti dipping below 60 FPS at QHD. Though it averaged 100 FPS, we saw dips down to 55 FPS.

To compare, Nvidia's reference GeForce GTX 980 Ti delivers about 15 fewer frames per second on average.

Performance is quite good at 4K. Gigabyte's Xtreme Gaming card again outperforms the reference 980 Ti with an average frame rate that matches the other board's maximum.

MORE: Best Graphics CardsMORE: All Graphics Content

Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

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94 Comments Comment from the forums
  • red river
    just wati for the Pascal cards peeps!
    Reply
  • Myrmidonas
    I agree. Buying a GPU now is a waste of money.Just wait for the Pascal cards.
    Reply
  • Gam3r01
    I am mostly interested to see how it would stack up against an MSI Lightning or the ASUS Strix cards.
    Reply
  • ern88
    Can't wait to see how Pascal and Polaris cards to come to market.
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    Ehh, if you keep waiting for the next best thing, you'll be waiting an eternity, because something newer and better is always just around the bend. Don't buy the next flagship Pascal card, wait for the Ti version. But don't buy that, wait for the next generation of Pascal because that'll be even more powerful and efficient, while being quieter. But don't buy that either, wait for the Ti.

    I picked up a 980 Ti last month and I love it, and I won't need a new card for several years now. There's a lot to be said about waiting, but you gotta take the plunge eventually.
    Reply
  • beshonk
    That's because it's a dual GPU card...You just proved you have no idea what you're talking about.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    That's because it's a dual GPU card...You just proved you have no idea what you're talking about.

    The Nissan GTR puts less than 3 seconds from 0 to 60 using a twin turbo V6 and beats exotic cars using V10s that cost 2 to 3 times more.

    Unless you're brand loyal or actually care about multi GPU issues, dismissing the 295 just because is a dual GPU card is weird in my eyes.

    --

    I kinda missed the Fury X in there and nice showing by that 390X. Beating the 980 in a lot of tests. Too bad the consumption numbers are so bad.

    Nice card none the less. I'll wait for the new batch of cards though to replace my lovely 7970Ghz.

    Cheers!
    Reply
  • artk2219
    17344858 said:
    Lol at the R9 295x2 winning most of the benchmarks handily.

    Thats what happens when its going against two 290X's, but the 980 TI doesn't have to deal with micro stuttering, it uses a whole lot less power, and puts out less heat. But, the 295's were priced really nicely when they were readily available. I saw one new open box at microcenter for $495 a few months ago, and I didn't pick it up... I still kind of regret that, I had it in my literal hands and everything :-/.

    Reply
  • Epsilon_0EVP
    Ehh, if you keep waiting for the next best thing, you'll be waiting an eternity, because something newer and better is always just around the bend. Don't buy the next flagship Pascal card, wait for the Ti version. But don't buy that, wait for the next generation of Pascal because that'll be even more powerful and efficient, while being quieter. But don't buy that either, wait for the Ti.

    I picked up a 980 Ti last month and I love it, and I won't need a new card for several years now. There's a lot to be said about waiting, but you gotta take the plunge eventually.

    The difference in this case is that we're having a massive die shrink for the first time in 4 years. Pascal and Polaris cards are likely to completely wreck the current cards in performance per watt, which could mean ridiculous performance gains as well. In this specific scenario, waiting is not a bad idea.
    Reply
  • ael00
    looks like a beastie. I especially like the fact that it shares the tank constructions of the 980/970 g1 series.

    Im sure if it wasn't 6 months late it would have dominated the 980ti/R9 fury market segment. No rgb fans will stop people hoarding cash for pascal tho ...
    Reply