EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti FTW Graphics Card Review

by Rob Williams on October 19, 2015 in Graphics & Displays

NVIDIA’s GeForce 980 Ti is a seriously compelling high-end graphics card, so it’s not too hard for vendors to make their offerings tempting. With its FTW edition, though, EVGA does have one trick up its sleeve: a bumping of the reference clock speed to 119%. There’s more than just that to the card, though, so let’s dive right in.

Page 8 – Best Playable: Single Display

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.

In this particular matchup, all three 980 Ti cards in our possession are compared against each other. Given the similar performance of each card, the overall settings are going to be extremely similar. There will be some exceptions, however, as will be noted as we go along.

With that, let’s tackle this:

	Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
	Minimum		Average
EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW	51		60
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Environment:	Very High	Shadow:	Very High
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	HBAO+ (Low)	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On

EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+	53		60
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Environment:	Very High	Shadow:	Very High
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	HBAO+ (Low)	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On

NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti	57		62
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Environment:	Very High	Shadow:	High
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	Low
	Ambient Occlusion:	HBAO+ (Low)	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On

The goal most people seem to have when purchasing a pre-overclocked card isn’t to increase detail levels, but instead get better framerates in general. Admittedly, there’s no surprise to that: most overclocks don’t allow people to actually crank settings higher. There are some exceptions here, though, since the FTW card sports clocks 19% faster than reference. Over the reference card, both the SC+ and FTW increase both the Shadow and God Rays detail in Black Flag, and still average out to 60 FPS.

	Battlefield 4
	Minimum		Average
EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW	48		68
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Texture Quality:	Ultra	Texture Filtering:	Ultra
	Lighting:	Ultra	Effects:	Ultra
	Post Processing:	Ultra	Mesh:	Ultra
	Terrain:	Ultra	Terrain Decoration:	Ultra
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	HBAO

EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+	42		66
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Texture Quality:	Ultra	Texture Filtering:	Ultra
	Lighting:	Ultra	Effects:	Ultra
	Post Processing:	Ultra	Mesh:	Ultra
	Terrain:	Ultra	Terrain Decoration:	Ultra
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	HBAO

NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti	39		59
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Texture Quality:	Ultra	Texture Filtering:	Ultra
	Lighting:	Ultra	Effects:	Ultra
	Post Processing:	Ultra	Mesh:	Ultra
	Terrain:	Ultra	Terrain Decoration:	Ultra
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	HBAO

Settings between all three cards were equaled here, with a notable gain of 9 FPS with the FTW card, over the reference one.

	Crysis 3
	Minimum		Average
EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW	40		60
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	Very High
	Effects:	High	Object:	High
	Particles:	High	Post Processing:	Medium
	Shading:	Medium	Shadows:	High
	Water:	Medium	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes

EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+	40		59
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	Very High
	Effects:	High	Object:	High
	Particles:	Medium	Post Processing:	Medium
	Shading:	Medium	Shadows:	Medium
	Water:	Medium	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes

NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti	41		59
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	Very High
	Effects:	High	Object:	High
	Particles:	Medium	Post Processing:	Medium
	Shading:	Medium	Shadows:	Medium
	Water:	Medium	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes

As with Black Flag, the FTW card allowed me to bump some graphics values over even the Superclocked+ card. Those involve an increase to High for both Particles and Shadows.

	Dying Light
	Minimum		Average
EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW	54		69
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Texture Quality:	High	Shadow Map Size:	High
	Foliage Quality:	High	View Distance:	80%
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	NVIDIA HBAO+:	Off
	NVIDIA Depth of Field:	On	Motion Blur:	On
	Antialiasing:	On

EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+	51		66
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Texture Quality:	High	Shadow Map Size:	High
	Foliage Quality:	High	View Distance:	60%
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	NVIDIA HBAO+:	Off
	NVIDIA Depth of Field:	On	Motion Blur:	On
	Antialiasing:	On

NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti	45		60
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Texture Quality:	High	Shadow Map Size:	High
	Foliage Quality:	High	View Distance:	60%
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	NVIDIA HBAO+:	Off
	NVIDIA Depth of Field:	On	Motion Blur:	On
	Antialiasing:	On

Yet again, the FTW allowed me to increase a detail setting here; this one being the draw distance from 60% to 80%. Even after that, there’s still a bonus 3 FPS topped on for good measure.

	Grand Theft Auto V
	Minimum		Average
EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW	56		68
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	FXAA:	On	MSAA:	Off
	NVIDIA TXAA:	Off	Population Density:	100%
	Population Variety:	100%	Distance Scaling:	100%
	Texture Quality:	Very High	Shader Quality:	Very High
	Shadow Quality:	Very High	Reflection Quality:	Very High
	Reflection MSAA:	Off	Water Quality:	Very High
	Particles Quality:	Very High	Grass Quality:	Very High
	Soft Shadows:	PCSS	Post FX:	High
	Motion Blur:	0%	DoF Effects:	Off
	Anisotropic Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Normal
	Tessellation:	Off

EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+	52		64
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	FXAA:	On	MSAA:	Off
	NVIDIA TXAA:	Off	Population Density:	100%
	Population Variety:	100%	Distance Scaling:	100%
	Texture Quality:	Very High	Shader Quality:	Very High
	Shadow Quality:	Very High	Reflection Quality:	Very High
	Reflection MSAA:	Off	Water Quality:	High
	Particles Quality:	High	Grass Quality:	Very High
	Soft Shadows:	PCSS	Post FX:	High
	Motion Blur:	0%	DoF Effects:	Off
	Anisotropic Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Normal
	Tessellation:	Off

NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti	48		59
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	FXAA:	On	MSAA:	Off
	NVIDIA TXAA:	Off	Population Density:	100%
	Population Variety:	100%	Distance Scaling:	100%
	Texture Quality:	Very High	Shader Quality:	Very High
	Shadow Quality:	Very High	Reflection Quality:	Very High
	Reflection MSAA:	Off	Water Quality:	High
	Particles Quality:	High	Grass Quality:	Very High
	Soft Shadows:	PCSS	Post FX:	High
	Motion Blur:	0%	DoF Effects:	Off
	Anisotropic Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Normal
	Tessellation:	Off

I am not sure about you guys, but simply looking at that mammoth list of graphical settings gives me a headache. While both the reference and Superclocked+ card used identical settings, I was able to bump the Particles and Water quality to Very High with the FTW card.

	GRID 2
	Minimum		Average
EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW	63		73
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Multisampling:	8x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	Ultra	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Ultra
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	On	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	High
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	On	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra

EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+	61		70
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Multisampling:	8x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	Ultra	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Ultra
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	On	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	High
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	On	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra

NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti	53		61
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Multisampling:	8x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	Ultra	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Ultra
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	On	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	High
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	On	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra

Maxed out, GRID 2 runs perfect on either the reference 980 Ti or EVGA’s clock-boosted versions. It is worth pointing out, though, that EVGA’s cards manage to keep the minimum FPS at 60+.

	Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition
	Minimum		Average
EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW	62		74
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	On	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme

EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+	57		66
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	On	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme

NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti	52		62
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	On	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme

As beautiful as Sleeping Dogs is, it’s one setting in particular that obliterates performance: anti-aliasing. Once that’s dropped down to normal levels, all three cards deliver excellent performance. The FTW does come well ahead, though, proving that this game is really sensitive to clock boosts. And yes – despite being pretty random with where I take certain ingame screenshots, I managed to almost perfectly match the location of the screenshots taken with the FTW and reference cards. At first, I thought I had messed up a filename, but not so!

	The Crew
	Minimum		Average
EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW	57		60
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Geometry:	Ultra	Shadows:	High
	Textures:	Ultra	Environment Mapping:	Ultra
	Depth-of-Field:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Grass:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO

EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+	55		60
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Geometry:	Ultra	Shadows:	High
	Textures:	Ultra	Environment Mapping:	Ultra
	Depth-of-Field:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Grass:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO

NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti	58		60
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Geometry:	Ultra	Shadows:	Medium
	Textures:	Ultra	Environment Mapping:	Ultra
	Depth-of-Field:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Grass:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO

Both the Superclocked+ and FTW cards enjoy a High Shadow setting over the reference card. It’s a pity Ubisoft deems it appropriate to cap the framerate in many of its games, as the scaling would be much more interesting otherwise.

	Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
	Minimum		Average
EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW	51		63
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	Ultra
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO + HBAO+
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA

EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+	49		59
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	Ultra
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO + HBAO+
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA

NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti	57		72
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 3840×2160	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	Ultra
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA

With Blacklist, there are two routes to choose between: A) Keep full-on ambient occlusion, or B) Reduce ambient occlusion and gain 10+ FPS. With the SC+ and FTW cards, you can have both.

Page List:

Top

1. Introduction
2. Test System & Methodology
3. Game Tests: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Battlefield 4
4. Game Tests: Crysis 3, GRID 2
5. Game Tests: Metro Last Light, Sleeping Dogs
6. Game Tests: Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Total War: SHOGUN 2
7. Synthetic Tests: Futuremark 3DMark, 3DMark 11, Unigine Heaven 4.0
8. Best Playable: Single Display
9. Power & Temperatures, Overclocking & Final Thoughts

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Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.