Synthetic Benchmarks
To start off our testing of the GTX 980 Strix I went with our Synthetic Benchmark suite. This consists of three different tests in 3DMark and the Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0. In 3DMark I run the card through the Performance, Extreme, and Ultra settings. This covers 1080p, 1440p, and 4k resolutions. So how did the GTX 980 Strix perform? Well In all three of the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmarks it is right at the top of the charts. That isn’t a huge shock with the reference GTX 980 also up right below it but what impressed me was just how much of a jump the overclock gave the Strix, especially in the Extreme and Performance tests. In Heaven Benchmark 4.0 the two GTX 780’s pulled ahead, but that is two cards just barely out performing a single card.