by Rob Williams on September 24, 2014 in Graphics & Displays
With the help of Maxwell, NVIDIA has hit a definite home run with its GeForce GTX 900 GPUs. In our look at the GTX 980 last week, we were left thoroughly impressed, but little did we realize at the time, the GTX 970 – and ASUS’ Strix edition in particular – was about to impress us even more. Simply put, you need to check this card out.
For about as long as GPU-accelerated games have existed, an ideal performance target has been 60 frames-per-second. Owing thanks to this is the standard 60Hz monitor, which delivers its best result when the framerate matches its refresh rate. To make sure the monitor’s refresh rate and game’s framerate keep aligned, to avoid visible tearing, VSync should be enabled.
While I believe our Best Playable results will appeal to any gamer, they could especially prove useful to those intrigued by livingroom gaming or console replacements. The goal here is simple: With each game, the graphics settings are tweaked to deliver the best possible detail while keeping us as close to 60 FPS on average as possible.
Because our Metro Last Light and Total War: SHOGUN 2 tests are timedemos, and because this kind of testing is time-consuming, I am sticking to six out of the eight games I test with for inclusion here.
|
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag |
|
Minimum |
Average |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 |
51 |
60 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti |
52 |
61 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix |
56 |
62 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
ASUS’ Strix came ahead of the 780 Ti in most of the game tests seen on the previous four pages, and the card kicks this page off with even more impressive performance. While the 780 Ti was best playable with the same settings used in our regular apples-to-apples benchmarking, I found that I was able to boost the ambient occlusion to HBAO+ High and not only peak at 62 FPS, but gain 4 FPS on the minimum as well.
|
Battlefield 4 |
|
Minimum |
Average |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 |
47 |
63 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti |
43 |
62 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix |
46 |
60 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
To hit 60 FPS in Battlefield 4, decreasing the anti-aliasing to 2xMSAA with the 780 Ti was necessary. By contrast, the GTX 970 could stick with 4xMSAA. Unlike the GTX 980 though, the 970 had to drop from HBAO to SSAO – not exactly a hard pill to swallow.
|
Crysis 3 |
|
Minimum |
Average |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 |
44 |
65 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti |
42 |
66 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix |
44 |
61 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
As we saw with our Crysis 3 results earlier, the GTX 970 in this particular game scores a bit lower than the 780 Ti. However, at 1440p, we’re still hitting 60 FPS with “High” detail. Not even the GTX 980 could boost many of the settings to Very High – this game might be a year-and-a-half old, but it’s still a graphical beast.
|
GRID 2 |
|
Minimum |
Average |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 |
69 |
88 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti |
73 |
83 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix |
78 |
86 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
Perhaps not surprisingly, the ASUS Strix handles this game without issue at max detail at 1440p resolution.
|
Sleeping Dogs |
|
Minimum |
Average |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 |
65 |
78 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti |
54 |
71 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix |
57 |
72 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
While the differences in AA modes in this particular title are difficult to see the difference between, it’s safe to stick to the High setting when using the GTX 970 – even the minimum is nearly 60 FPS.
|
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist |
|
Minimum |
Average |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 |
50 |
60 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti |
58 |
71 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix |
59 |
68 |
Graphics Settings
& Ingame Screenshot
Resolution: 2560×1440 |
Like the GTX 780 Ti, the GTX 970 handles the game just fine using the same settings as our apples-to-apples test. The only detail level that can go higher is AA, and any change there will cause the FPS to plummet.