EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ Graphics Card Review

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by Rob Williams on June 30, 2015 in Graphics & Displays

After taking a look at NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti in May, we summed it up as being the “new King Of High-end”. That being the case, it’s not hard to imagine that an overclocked take on the card, featuring a better cooler, would be anything but a winner. To test that theory out, we’re taking a look at EVGA’s Superclocked+ edition.

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.

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.

To make things simple, most of the Best Playable settings for EVGA’s 980 Ti Superclocked+ match the settings I used for the reference 980 Ti. There are some exceptions, though, where I was able to notch some setting higher thanks to the higher clock speed. So with that, let’s get on with it:

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
Minimum Average
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
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag - Best Playable (4K) - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+
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
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Best Playable (4K) - Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag

As powerful as the 980 Ti is, it’s not able to “max out” Black Flag at 4K and hit 60 FPS. By “maxed out”, I mean use High HBAO+, as well as High God Rays. With EVGA’s card, I came close; keeping HBAO+ to Low and God Rays to High, an even 60 FPS could be attained.

Battlefield 4
Minimum Average
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
Battlefield 4 - Best Playable (4K) - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+
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
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Best Playable (4K) - Battlefield 4

Settings between the two cards were matched here, with EVGA’s giving us a sweet boost beyond 60 FPS.

Crysis 3
Minimum Average
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
Crysis 3 - Best Playable (4K) - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+
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
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Best Playable (4K) - Crysis 3

It seems at 4K, getting a performance boost is going to require a lot more GPU horsepower. Despite the clock boost of the EVGA card, performance was matched here.

Dying Light
Minimum Average
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
Dying Light - Best Playable (4K) - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+
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
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Best Playable (4K) - Dying Light

As we saw with Battlefield 4, EVGA’s card supplies a nice performance boost with Dying Light over the reference 980 Ti.

Grand Theft Auto V
Minimum Average
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
Grand Theft Auto V - Best Playable (4K) - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+
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
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Best Playable (4K) - Grand Theft Auto V

I am not sure about you guys, but simply looking at that mammoth list of graphical settings gives me a headache. Fortunately, I didn’t need to tweak anything here, given both cards are so similar, but once again, EVGA’s card gave a notable boost. What a difference 100MHz makes, right?

GRID 2
Minimum Average
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
GRID 2 - Best Playable (4K) - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+
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
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Best Playable (4K) - GRID 2

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

Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition
Minimum Average
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
Sleeping Dogs - Best Playable (4K) - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+
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
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Best Playable (4K) - Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition

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, both cards deliver excellent performance.

The Crew
Minimum Average
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
The Crew - Best Playable (4K) - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+
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
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Best Playable (4K) - The Crew

The Crew is the second game in this list that benefited from the clock boost of EVGA’s card, not for an FPS boost, but rather a graphics boost. The result is being able to increase the Shadows from Medium to High.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Minimum Average
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
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist - Best Playable (4K) - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+
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
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Best Playable (4K) - Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist

With Blacklist, there’s two routes to choose between: A) Keep full-on ambient occlusion, or B) Reduce ambient occlusion and gain 10+ FPS. Whatever you decide to do, EVGA’s 980 Ti is going to deliver some great performance.

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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.

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