NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Review: Does Maxwell Bring Maximum Gameplay?

With the results seen on the previous page, we learned that all three of the cards included can handle today’s games at the resolution of 2560×1440 without much issue. In most cases, the detail levels in each game can be cranked right up, and I think it’s safe to say that you’ll probably get liveable framerates by doing that with any modern game (let’s ignore Crysis 3 at Very High detail for a moment).

As great a resolution as 1440p is, though, it’s only 3.68 megapixels. Contrast that to our multi-monitor resolution of 5760×1080, which is 6.22 megapixels. Clearly, that will require even more GPU horsepower to tear through, so let’s see how all of these cards – especially the GTX 980 – fare.

	Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
	Minimum		Average
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980	52		60
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Environment:	Very High	Shadow:	High
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	Low
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	48		59
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Environment:	High	Shadow:	Normal
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	Normal
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	Low
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On
AMD Radeon R9 290X	44		56
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Environment:	High	Shadow:	Normal
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	Normal
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	Low
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On

Right off the bat, we see proof of just how much more power the GTX 980 can avail when pushed hard. While with the 290X and 780 Ti, I had to drop some of the detail levels, I was able to largely retain them with the GTX 980. The exception is with AO, which had to be turned off, and God Rays, which was dropped from High to Low (there’s no Medium, for some reason). Not only did the GTX 980 manage to run with higher detail levels, it even gives us better framerates overall.

	Battlefield 4
	Minimum		Average
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980	51		63
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Texture Quality:	High	Texture Filtering:	High
	Lighting:	High	Effects:	High
	Post Processing:	High	Mesh:	High
	Terrain:	High	Terrain Decoration:	High
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	HBAO
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	43		55
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Texture Quality:	High	Texture Filtering:	High
	Lighting:	High	Effects:	High
	Post Processing:	High	Mesh:	High
	Terrain:	High	Terrain Decoration:	High
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Medium
	Ambient Occlusion:	HBAO
AMD Radeon R9 290X	49		61
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Texture Quality:	High	Texture Filtering:	High
	Lighting:	High	Effects:	High
	Post Processing:	High	Mesh:	High
	Terrain:	High	Terrain Decoration:	High
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Medium
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO

In Battlefield 4, the GTX 980 retains the same detail levels of the GTX 780 Ti, but tosses 8 FPS extra onto the average. Where an FPS and the 60 framerate mark is concerned, that’s a very good thing.

	Crysis 3
	Minimum		Average
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980	40		58
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	Medium
	Effects:	Medium	Object:	Medium
	Particles:	Medium	Post Processing:	Medium
	Shading:	Medium	Shadows:	Medium
	Water:	Medium	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	42		57
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	Medium
	Effects:	Medium	Object:	Medium
	Particles:	Medium	Post Processing:	Medium
	Shading:	Medium	Shadows:	Medium
	Water:	Medium	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes
AMD Radeon R9 290X	37		55
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	Medium
	Effects:	Medium	Object:	Medium
	Particles:	Medium	Post Processing:	Medium
	Shading:	Medium	Shadows:	Medium
	Water:	Medium	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes

Crysis 3 has proven to be a bit too much for the GTX 980, disallowing us to go higher than Medium. Sticking to that setting, we just about scratch the 60 FPS mark. Interestingly enough, the 780 Ti doesn’t fall far behind here, nor does the 290X for that matter. This game, along with this huge resolution, begs for a second GPU.

	GRID 2
	Minimum		Average
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980	55		61
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Multisampling:	4x 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 780 Ti	57		63
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Multisampling:	4x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	Ultra	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	High
	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:	Off	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra
AMD Radeon R9 290X	54		60
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Multisampling:	4x 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:	Off	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra

The 290X had to see global illumination dropped in order to bring us to 60 FPS, while the 780 Ti saw that, as well as AO decreased a tad. The GTX 980, by contrast, ran just fine with everything maxed-out.

	Sleeping Dogs
	Minimum		Average
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980	70		85
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	51		78
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme
AMD Radeon R9 290X	59		73
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme

With so few graphics options to work with, it’s probably not much of a surprise that all of these Best Playable settings match. Despite the fact that the GTX 980 peaked at 85, the performance hit from putting AA on High was too much.

	Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
	Minimum		Average
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980	56		72
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	Ultra
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	53		71
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	Ultra
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA
AMD Radeon R9 290X	50		65
Graphics Settings & Ingame Screenshot Resolution: 5760×1080	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	Ultra
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA

Similar to what we saw with our Crysis 3 results, there really is no difference at the top-end between the 780 Ti and GTX 980 with Blacklist.