GTX 1080 Ti vs GTX 980 Ti Benchmarking Results

[Ishan]

Hey guys,

Before the lock-down announcement I was in the process of upgrading my GPU from 980 Ti to 1080 Ti since I got a pretty sweet deal on it for 250$. Also sold my old unused RMA'ed ASUS AMD R9 280X card for 150$. So, a great upgrade for just 100$.
Mainly motivation behind the move was to play Red Dead Redemption 2 and this game requires one helluva card. Back in 2015 Witcher 3 motivated me to purchase GTX 980 Ti & never regretted it. Both of the GTX cards are from MSI and it's my favourite brand now. Great customer support and trouble free hardware.

So, I decided to compare these 2 cards in an ultimate showdown in 40 graphical intensive games and at first I was going to write a huge post based on comparison charts but then i decided to go the long mile made complete videos on them in 4 part series.

If anyone is interested, you guys can check them out below:

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If you're an old school like me and don't like watching youtube then here are the tables:

Spoiler for Benchmark 1: 

Spoiler for Benchmark 2: 

Spoiler for Benchmark 3: 

Spoiler for Benchmark 4: 

[King Athelstan]

Nicely done!

I'm a graph guy myself albeit my newschool age. I've got a 1070 myself, which should be around the equal of the 980ti.
Odd to see the higher 0.1% framerates of the 980ti on some of the games, especially Exodus. What would cause that?

[z3n]

Yup, I'm a bit of a graph guy.

Normally I don't have the patience to watch an entire video, but it can be demonstrative of what areas were tested and how they performed.

[Ishan]

Odd to see the higher 0.1% framerates of the 980ti on some of the games, especially Exodus. What would cause that?

Yes I noticed that immediately as well and it has a very simple explanation and why benchmarkers also test the game on different resolutions.
The 0.1% and 1% low dips depend upon the frametime between 1 frame to another. On lower resolutions with powerful graphics card you will see more difference in frametimes because the GPU load varies significantly.
Like in one frame GPU is utilized 80-88% in 1080p giving us a frametime of about 8ms for example but in another graphically intense frame that comes next the load increases to 99% and framtime increases to like 20ms. This disparity between framtimes (8-20ms) causes the dip in FPS thus giving us varied 1% & 0.1% FPS.
For a lower performance cards the frametimes will remain consistent to say like 20ms because the card is being utilized 99% throughout the level of area being tested.

^Above screenshot shows varied GPU load and 980Ti showing more consistent frametime spikes of about 24ms on avg. While 1080Ti varies from 8-24ms since GPU load varies.

That is why gamers lock FPS and use V-Sync so that framerate remain consistent giving a more smooth gameplay throughout the game. Another possible cause is simply poor game optimization by developers or the Driver version of your graphics card. Ubisoft games are notorious for this. You can see this in TW: Three Kingdoms as well where the 1080Ti performs the same as 980Ti with the major difference being consistent frametimes by 980Ti due to 99% GPU usage throughout.

[King Athelstan]

I see I see, makes all of the sense. Ubisoft may be bad, but if you'd like to take a look at awful optimization you should take a look at Bannerlord, or at least pre one of the latest updates. During sieges a pathfinding error made any gpu/cpu combo max out, no matter how powerful.

It's the first game I've played beside fallen order that's making me think I might want to upgrade my cpu at one point

[Ishan]

Oh lol yeah. Bannerlord is a complete mess right now but the game is freaking awesome never the less. Usually i wait for like 9 months until the game is fully patched, plus the reason to save bandwidth from downloading and patching it again and again.
But some games are just too tempting and can't wait.

[King Athelstan]

We've waited 8 years already, no way I'm waiting 8 months. And there's been a patch a day too, so they're really working on it. 67 hours played since release isn't too much, right? I don't have a problem, right? Send help haha right?

[Ishan]

Oh yeah, almost a decade of wait so it's too hard to resist now. And right now with the whole bollocks corona has going on, so, one can find plenty of time to play games at home.

[King Athelstan]

I feel this song is very applicable here, just replace a certain word with Bannerlord.

[Love Mountain]

I wonder if some of these lows are due to lack of VRAM on the 980 TI.

[Ishan]

No it's solely due to graphics processing required by titles. Supersampling and MSAA are the main culprits since they upscale to higher resolutions and then downscale them. VRAM consumption remains under 6GB since the native resolution is 1080p.

Finally managed to stabilize Bannerlord as well. The new Beta patch 1.2.0 is very good and fixes most of the stuttering issues caused by AI and 1000 units on battlemap:

[Stario]

I just stable overclocked my i5 from 3.5GHz to 4.2GHz
Also looking for a decent Nvidia card to replace my ancient GTX750 TI would you still recommend the GTX1080 TI ? AND/OR what GPU would you guys recommend? (didnt want to start a new thread so I though I'd ask here).
Mind you I am still on Windows 8.1

[Ishan]

1080Ti is still relevant and will max out all games@1440p (except few games which use RTX features). Best to buy a second hand card at a cheap price.
Future release of RTX 3xx0 and AMD's RDNA2 won't be clear till late December. But if the rumours are true then a big showdown of graphical performance increase between both is inevitable. So, if you want to invest heavily it's better to wait otherwise you can hash out less money on a 1080Ti now and then look for a greater upgrade 12-18 months later.

[Condottiere 40K]

New graphic card releases are just around the corner, from both the Green and Red teams; I'd wait to see how that affects the second hand prices.

I was sniffing around for a Ti to replace my ten eighty when the two thousand series was introduced, but people were holding on to theirs and quotes seemed to me unreasonable; recently, someone mentioned they still retained about eighty percent retail.

If I recall correctly, Lisa Su stated that the minimum memory you now need is eight gigabytes, and going by the news, the new GeForces appear to have doubled their capacities; I'll assume that she and Jensen know stuff I don't.

Rumours are that either this generation or the next will be getting the Ryzen treatment, so probably worth waiting to see what develops in the run up to Christmas.

[Ishan]

Condottiere is right. I made the upgrade only because 1080 Ti was available for only 100$ (after selling my 980 Ti).
New generation are definitely juicy. Also VRAM would be increased considerably, rumoured 3090 seems to have 24 GB of VRAM. Although VRAM usage is directly proportional to screen resolution, so not of much use unless we're gaming@4K.

[Condottiere 40K]

xx90 hints at some form of dual processor, though I think I'll take a pass at fifteen hundred bux.

As I recall, production has been halted for the current GeForce line up, but I don't know if nVidia can dump excess inventory on the China market, plus I think that anyone who wanted a card during the lockdown has gotten one by now, so at best some weird voodoo economics will likely dictate prices for old stock and second hand.

If I had to make an assessment, Radeon four seventy is enough for ten eighty resolution gaming.

Last year I would have said that fourteen forty at one forty four hertz was the aimed for sweet spot; now it would be four kay at hundred plus.

Last year I also thought that Playstation would be transmitting eight kay at at least sixty hertz, since I couldn't figure out why on Earth the Japanese wanted to broadcast the Olympics at eight kay, if almost no one had eight kay televisions.

[Love Mountain]

You've been watching too much Coreteks Condi. Admittedly, his explanations do make sense, but I'm not educated enough to either debunk it or back it up.

The 2070 Super stopping production is a rumor, I'll believe it when I hear it from Nvidia.


Major VRAM increases are due to consoles IMO. Not a technical expert, but note that the consoles have 16GB of RAM, plus high speed interconnects with storage. 24gb of VRAM may seem overkill today or next year, but 2021-2023 is going to be the next generation of AAA titles. I have no doubt that they will seek to utilize as much of the consoles as possible. If you invest in a 3090 this year, you'll probably still have a very good gaming experience in 2022. 2-3 years for a GPU? Not bad, honestly.

[Condottiere 40K]

Jensen hates selling below wholesale, and if what looks like a quantum leap in graphic computing is about to take place, you don't want to be caught with excessive inventory of old stock. Again.

It's not just aspects like doubling memory and getting Ray Tracing to work across the board, there's also the question if fourth generation express guarantees optimal usage of the bandwidth, which basically would be double that of the third generation, linked to NVME gumsticks of the same generation.

Outside of the Sony and Microsoft leaks, not much is known for sure of what kind of horse power Radeon will be providing for their consumer cards; in my opinion, if they can't catch up to nVidia, at least let them be very competitive in price.

And on a side note, if fourth generation does happen to be game breaking, can Intel compete with their current line up?

[Love Mountain]

I don't know. It'll depend on how soon Ampere mid-range GPUs come out. In which case, selling 2070 Supers alongside the top-end Ampere line-up might make sense.

RDNA2 information remains elusive, but rumors and published specifications of the new consoles do drop pretty strong hints.

52 CUs at 1.85GHz gives out 12 tflops. Desktop cards will push the power envelope further. A 64 CU or 80 CU card is impressive... in my imagination. We'll see if the hype was warranted.

This isn't Intel lowest point yet in my opinion. Though the 8th-9th gen transition for Intel was particularly painful and humiliating, the 10th generation has been a worth competitor to the current Zen 2 lineup, albeit with its own quirks and catches. On the other hand, Rocket Lake is a new architecture on 14nm. A new architecture might see significant improvement for Intel's performance, but it will still be hampered by its 14nm lithography. 2021 might be the worst era for Intel vs AMD desktop rivalry.

At least the mobile space looks interesting with Tiger Lake and new AMD APUs promising a cutthroat battle. If Tiger Lake is unequivocally better than Renoir, and AMD has no answer for 6+ months, it would be a disaster for AMD. On the other hand, the next few AMD APUs are looking very interesting and very promising. Depending on how well AMD does, we might finally see a decisive shift in major OEM partnerships. Which can finally herald an era of true competition in the mobile space. As of right now, XMG's post shows how inexperienced and unprepared AMD is to be a true competitor to Intel. Supply chains and partnerships take time to set up, they take time to work out all the kinks, and that's before you get into the challenge of convincing major manufacturers to hop into bed to you. Especially when getting in bed with you will incur the wrath of the missus (Intel).

Either way, even with technological supremacy, AMD faces an uphill battle, and despite the negative press, Intel isn't simply taking it lying down.

[Condottiere 40K]

I think priority is server, mobile, laptop, desktop. I think if nVidia buys ARM, ecks eighty six will be pushed to just good enough to be energy efficient for mobile, which where the real bloodbath will take place., because mobile is going to include hybrid folding smartphone tablets, which probably means either emulation or finding a way to squeeze in native Wintel. The trick has always been being just good enough at a reasonable price.

In the end, it comes down to what you want to use these gadgets for, and I think sticker shock may be more pervasive than Jensen believes, when you combine it with five hundred buck consoles, with alpha games taking a while to ramp up to four kay and include features like ray tracing, on consoles, before being ported to personal computers.

I think that graphic hardware will basically cater to mobile, ten eighty, four kay upscaled and four kay games; while the hardware itself will be mobile, ten eighty optimized, four kay wannabe, and four kay.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the four kay discrete graphic card sales breakthrough will be next year, not this year, when price, performance, and game availability should hit critical mass.