Nvidia Launches GTX 980 And GTX 970 "Maxwell" Graphics Cards ($549 & $329)

When looking at your post, I thought the graphs were for Crysis 3! What's causing those frame-drops? Is it simple unoptimisation?

Crysis 2 and 3 both run better for me than Crysis, and have done for my last few upgrades. The beginning of Assault is especially strenuous with alpha heavy explosions going off in a big open map with large draw distance.

When I got my HD7970 years back, I thought something was wrong with it, because Crysis 2 was running so much better than it.

I think it's partially badly optimized and partially just doing some really intensive effects.

Crysis 3 at 1080p and 4xMSAA I got the following results on a section with similar conditions:
Min 74, Max 200, Avg 116.
 
I know it might sound stupid, but I've decided to wait for the 970's with more Vram. If I was getting a single card I'd just get the 4gb version, but because I plan to sli (and play at higher res than 1080p) I'm going to wait... It's going to suck as my 670 is currently going to sell on EBay in the next couple of days...
 
I know it might sound stupid, but I've decided to wait for the 970's with more Vram. If I was getting a single card I'd just get the 4gb version, but because I plan to sli (and play at higher res than 1080p) I'm going to wait... It's going to suck as my 670 is currently going to sell on EBay in the next couple of days...

If some higher memory cards come out in the next three months and they aren't too much more expensive than the ones I have, and if EVGA put them on their trade up program, I probably will, because why not make use of that right?

But I'll be very glad to have 4 Gigs of VRAM when The Evil Within unlocks in a couple of weeks.
 
Should we be waiting for 6GB iterations of GTX970/980 instead?

It's frustrating to know that your cards are more than powerful to run whatever the games throw at them, but are gimped by low VRAM.

If that's the only thing holding me back from Ultra settings on a $410 (CAD) card, then I'd be somewhat upset.
 
I got a MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970, but it has a weird issue.

I never see the POST, just a black screen and it takes a full minute or two to boot into Windows, all the while making a beep sound every 10 seconds or so, then it boots up and works just fine.
This is on my Asus P8H67-V with a Core i5 2500 (SandyBridge). My PSU is a decent Corsair 650 watt. My GTX 670 had no issue, and my system booted to the desktop within 10-15 seconds.

I tried it in my wife's PC, which is an IvyBridge system and it worked just fine.
I'm a longtime geek and A+ certified, but this boggles me.

Any ideas?
 
Should we be waiting for 6GB iterations of GTX970/980 instead?

It's frustrating to know that your cards are more than powerful to run whatever the games throw at them, but are gimped by low VRAM.

If that's the only thing holding me back from Ultra settings on a $410 (CAD) card, then I'd be somewhat upset.

There will be no 6GB gtx 970/980
256bit memory bus means 1/2/4/8 GB memory configurations are possible only

If you want a 6GB card you'll have to wait for gm200 which will have a 384bit bus (though it could have a 512 bit bus and come in 4/8GB configurations)

Yea its loud, it buzzes louder than my plasma tv, my tv buzz is not noticable but with the gpu I can here it from even like 20ft away.
If you have coil whine send your card back, simple...
It's not supposed to have it, and the idea of people just bending over and suddenly being willing to live with coil whine (what a message to send to nvidia and amd) makes me cringe

You have a warranty just for things like this, so use it, don't settle for a dud
 
Finally got these from Tiger Direct

5XhHCy4l.jpg


Noticing a nice upgrade from 780's @4k

about 10-20 fps difference in BF4 & TitianFall maxed @4k

These sound dead silent too, not noticing any wine or noise. Bring on LOTR next week!
 
Finally got these from Tiger Direct

5XhHCy4l.jpg


Noticing a nice upgrade from 780's @4k

about 10-20 fps difference in BF4 & TitianFall maxed @4k

These sound dead silent too, not noticing any wine or noise. Bring on LOTR next week!

/drool

All these pics and tests is seriously giving me a bad case of the itch.
 
At what point does >4 GB of ram become a waste on a 256 bit bus? Would the available bandwidth even allow for taking advantage of 8GB of ram? Do these new consoles that seem to be the genesis of the vram concerns have the bandwidth to hypothetically utilize 5-6GB of vram outside of caching chunks of data? I get that developers have a lot more available to work with now as baseline but I don't see it growing and growing and growing, unless you choose to go higher and higher resolution.
 
I got a MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970, but it has a weird issue.

I never see the POST, just a black screen and it takes a full minute or two to boot into Windows, all the while making a beep sound every 10 seconds or so, then it boots up and works just fine.
This is on my Asus P8H67-V with a Core i5 2500 (SandyBridge). My PSU is a decent Corsair 650 watt. My GTX 670 had no issue, and my system booted to the desktop within 10-15 seconds.

I tried it in my wife's PC, which is an IvyBridge system and it worked just fine.
I'm a longtime geek and A+ certified, but this boggles me.

Any ideas?
The bios was loading very slow for me when I first installed my card, but worked fine in windows once it got through. Updating the Bios fixed it for me.
 
Thanks for letting me know about EVGA's Stepup program, guys.
 
I got an Asus 970 and I'm wondering if the noise I'm hearing during games is normal or if I should RMA. It's definitely not the fans, they aren't even spinning when I hear it. Basically it sounds like and is as loud as a mechanical hard drive loading. A consistent buzzing / grinding sound. It goes away immediately when I alt+tab out of a game. My roommate thinks it's coil whine, but isn't that more of a high-pitch sound? I wouldn't really describe this sound as high-pitch.

My old card was an EVGA 650, which was mostly inaudible, so I'm also wondering if this jump in noise is expected given the jump in performance?
 
The bios was loading very slow for me when I first installed my card, but worked fine in windows once it got through. Updating the Bios fixed it for me.

Sadly my board doesn't have a new BIOS update. 2013 was the last one, and I already flashed it. With the 970, my bios is super slow everytime.

I'm about to say screw it, and just go a whole new build. Researching X99 boards and DDR4 now...
 
Received my 970 today. Installed it and the first thing I did after installing the drivers and rebooting was looking at GPU-z just because:
sueb.gif


Isn't the Pixel Fillrate lower than it should show it as?

Nope, that's what you get at stock. Mine is 42.5 with overclock. Perhaps it might be showing wrong (don't know if that's low or anything), but that's what we all have now.

Are you sure about that? My Pixel Fillrate is 35.6.

Also, my clock and boost clocks are lower than what was advertised. 1114 and 1253 mhz when I should be getting 1140 and 1279, respectively.

This is an GTX 970 Twin Frozr.

http://imgur.com/vynQivy
 
Sadly my board doesn't have a new BIOS update. 2013 was the last one, and I already flashed it. With the 970, my bios is super slow everytime.

I'm about to say screw it, and just go a whole new build. Researching X99 boards and DDR4 now...

Just curious, which board do you have? Also, which 970?
 
Looking at these 2 models. Can someone advise which one? No overclocking will be done by me:

ASUS STRIX GTX 970

Or the MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr

The MSI is $30 more here in Canada than the Asus. I'm leaning towards the ASUS at this point.
 
Looking at these 2 models. Can someone advise which one? No overclocking will be done by me:

ASUS STRIX GTX 970

Or the MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr

The MSI is $30 more here in Canada than the Asus. I'm leaning towards the ASUS at this point.

I'm going with the Asus, but that's mostly because I've had good experiences with my last two asus cards. And also it's cheaper.

Although if I managed to find either one in stock at this point I'd just order whatever.
 
Looking at these 2 models. Can someone advise which one? No overclocking will be done by me:

ASUS STRIX GTX 970

Or the MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr

The MSI is $30 more here in Canada than the Asus. I'm leaning towards the ASUS at this point.

Came down to these 2 for me as well, though they were, at the time, the same price here. ASUS has a quieter fan and a nice backplate. MSI, though, is generally 3-4 frames faster (not much) and no backplate. I went with MSI simply because my board is also MSI.

Not a huge difference between them, really. Whichever is available I suppose.
 
You guys SLI'ng multiple 980's are crazy and rich.

Jealous.

Crazy, yes. Rich, no. I just saved up for this PC build for nearly two years. Most people would probably have got a new car with that money, but mine still runs even if it's getting quite old, so PC it was ;)
 
I got a MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970, but it has a weird issue.

I never see the POST, just a black screen and it takes a full minute or two to boot into Windows, all the while making a beep sound every 10 seconds or so, then it boots up and works just fine.
This is on my Asus P8H67-V with a Core i5 2500 (SandyBridge). My PSU is a decent Corsair 650 watt. My GTX 670 had no issue, and my system booted to the desktop within 10-15 seconds.

I tried it in my wife's PC, which is an IvyBridge system and it worked just fine.
I'm a longtime geek and A+ certified, but this boggles me.

Any ideas?

If the card has hybrid BIOS, try switching to legacy BIOS from hybrid BIOS and see if it helps.
 
You're also registering at PCI-E 1.1 x16 speeds

It does that when it's idle.

How does my Firestrike score look with a gtx 970 at stock and i7920@4ghz?

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2837457

6pHbgSo.png
Seems a little low seeing as I can hit higher with my 780. It's likely the 920 that's making you score lower since 3dMark really likes to use the CPU in the test.
ExrFYUj.png

This is likely as stable as Jell-O but it's fun to see what I can push with my "old" card.
 
And with 3 Way SLI 980s Crysis 3 runs at 40 to 60 fps in 4K with AA off and everything else maxed if you are in open spaces with water and lots of stuff going on (generally stays 50+ but if things are moving through the water low 40s) and inside it seems to hover 60 to 75 fps.

Just confirming that Crysis 2 and 3 are much better optimized titles than the original Crysis which they both run substantially better than, however you slice it.
 
And with 3 Way SLI 980s Crysis 3 runs at 40 to 60 fps in 4K with AA off and everything else maxed if you are in open spaces with water and lots of stuff going on (generally stays 50+ but if things are moving through the water low 40s) and inside it seems to hover 60 to 75 fps.

Just confirming that Crysis 2 and 3 are much better optimized titles than the original Crysis which they both run substantially better than, however you slice it.

Get your ROG Swift yet?
 
It's not just one game even the Evil Within devs said we should have 4GB or don't expect to play it that well.

Watch Dogs was on the 3GB limit and that's with high textures, not ultra.


Shadow of Mordor was 6GB for Ultra... at 1080p.

That's rich coming from that game. It looks horribly last gen with ugly ass textures. Also Watch Dogs was ok on high with 2GB, Ultra was a stuttery mess though.
 
So I just got the MSI Gaming 970 GTX today, reinstalled windows and everything was smooth. What's the tip on OC'ing again? I'm doing the Firestrike but it won't finish with anything over a +250 boost so far. Here's my result with +200 core and +400 memory.

NSD1UZm.png
 
This is all a marketing tactic from NVIDIA to sell more cards down the line, they know that their current GPU offerings are much better than consoles. And if they released cards with 8 GB VRAM it would most likely last entire generation.

So they continue to release cards with 3,4,6 GB VRAM so your forced to upgrade as the generation continues. Huge examples supporting this are games like Evil Within and Shadow of Mordor with requirements exceeding 4GB VRAM.

I was almost ready to pull the trigger on the 970/980, but no thanks NVIDIA gonna wait for the 8GB cards.
 
This is all a marketing tactic from NVIDIA to sell more cards down the line, they know that their current GPU offerings are much better than consoles. And if they released cards with 8 GB VRAM it would most likely last entire generation.

So they continue to release cards with 3,4,6 GB VRAM so your forced to upgrade as the generation continues. Huge examples supporting this are games like Evil Within and Shadow of Mordor with requirements exceeding 4GB VRAM.

I was almost ready to pull the trigger on the 970/980, but no thanks NVIDIA gonna wait for the 8GB cards.

You mean two, and at that two that haven't even been benchmarked.
 
This is all a marketing tactic from NVIDIA to sell more cards down the line, they know that their current GPU offerings are much better than consoles. And if they released cards with 8 GB VRAM it would most likely last entire generation.

So they continue to release cards with 3,4,6 GB VRAM so your forced to upgrade as the generation continues. Huge examples supporting this are games like Evil Within and Shadow of Mordor with requirements exceeding 4GB VRAM.

I was almost ready to pull the trigger on the 970/980, but no thanks NVIDIA gonna wait for the 8GB cards.

I would like to know how 8GB on a 256 bus makes sense. Is Maxwell's secret sauce that effective ? I could see 8GB on a 512bus, probably for the GM200.

In the meantine 4GB will be fine. I'm not at all convinced The Evil Within will actually need 4GB to match consoles.
 
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