Overall and Final Verdict
If you had asked me to guess how the GTX 980 would perform just going off the basic specification listing I wouldn’t have placed it up even near the top of our charts. With fewer CUDA Cores and a smaller memory controller I get the impression that Nvidia has left a little on the plate with the GTX 980 launch, but they brought out enough to best the GTX 780 Ti in most cases with a significantly lower TDP and at a lower price. That right, I haven’t really talked about the pricing up until now, but Nvidia priced the GTX 980 at $549, well below the launch prices of both the GTX 780 and GTX 780 Ti that it replaces. Even right now, you would be hard pressed to find a GTX 780 Ti near that price. I do expect to see a few good deals as people clear out stock though.
While we are talking about pricing, I wanted to also address a few other changes to Nvidia’s product lineup due to the introduction of the GTX 980 and the GTX 970. First, the GTX 770, GTX 780, and GTX 780 Ti are all now discontinued, you can expect to see a few awesome deals as those are cleared out. The GTX 980 takes the top of Nvidia’s consumer product range at $549. The new GTX 970 is an impressive $329, I can’t wait to put it to the test as well. These changes also move the GTX 760 down in price to $219 making it a great deal as well.
SO, now that we know the new product lineup how does it stand? Well As per the usual I don’t think that anyone who bought in on the 700 series of cards needs to run out and pick up a new card, but that isn’t Nvidia’s goal. What they are focusing on are the people who invested in the GTX 680 or lower a few years ago. The GTX 980 offers a huge improvement in performance while also pulling less power than the GTX 680. Combine that with the all metal fan shroud of the 700 series cards, the black trim of the 780 Ti, and the new backplate you end up with a much better product than what Nvidia put out a few years ago.
I think what is most impressive about the 980 is it’s 165 watt TDP. Having such a low TDP means less worries about large power supplies and lower heat output. It also translated into great overclocking potential. Because of this, I can’t wait to see if any of the manufactures can fit a GTX 980 or GTX 970 into an ITX form factor. I know Asus has been quiet on the ITX front for a while but with Sapphire and MSI both jumping into the market, it would be great to see them come back.
Now that you have seen the performance numbers, should a GTX 980 be at the top of your list for your next build? It is really going to depend on a few things. Those of you who are running high refresh rate monitors, multiple monitor gaming, or 1440 and higher resolutions should all be considering the card. I think the performance at 1920x1080 is a little excessive, if you need to you could tell your significant other than you NEED the GTX 980 to future proof your system ;). For those of you on a budget, you might want to keep an eye out for our coverage of the GTX 970. With its considerably lower price point I have a strong feeling that it’s going to be a great value for its performance.
