So I've heard rumours about the new GTX980Ti and on paper it seems to be a fairly substantial improvement over the standard 980. According to specs I've read online, the GTX980Ti has an extra 1024 CUDA cores, 2GB more memory and of course a wider memory bus to handle it; all for around the same price as the 980 upon release. That's essentially a fully unlocked Titan X, but with 6GB of VRAM instead of 12GB, for between £400 - £500 ($600 - $700 USD) and it's making me wonder; did I, and those who bought the 980, upgrade too soon?
I bought SLi GTX980's pretty early after the initial release, and at 3440x1440 resolution, some games can easily eat up all of the 4GB of VRAM I have available, and while my performance is awesome most of the time, I can't help but think that the extra VRAM could make all the difference.
Do you guys think the improvements will be as substantial as they appear on paper in real-world tests, and generally what are your thoughts on the GTX980Ti?
There might be a 980 Ti in the works for late summer. The reason I say might is that it doesn't make a ton of sense for them to release a 980 Ti with a better version of the Titan X chip. Higher clocks and a more reasonable amount of ram would under cut the Titan and I have a feeling Nvidia won't do that. If they do release it, then they would wait a while. Like I would be shocked if it came out before the end of summer. Try to get some of the people holding out for the 980 Ti to buy the Titan.
Or you know, they could just release it regardless and capitalistic on all of the profit. Honestly I do not think so. The 980 is already a fully utilized GM 204 chip. Like you said they could use the GM200 with maybe 6GB/8GB of VRAM and maybe offer it around the $749-$849 range but why would some one utilizing a single GPU do that when you could just purchase the Titan X.
EDIT: As for the question of upgrading too soon. Anytime you upgrade its too soon. Why buy know when you can wait 5 years and something exponentially better is going to come out? Just buy what fits your budget at the time and be done with it for a year. I highly doubt holding out for a few more months to get 5-15 more frames for an extra $100USD to $200USD.
The specs suggest it will exactly be the same chip as the Titan X, namely the GM200, not an improved one, which has 1024 more CUDA cores than the GM204 in the 980. It doesn't undercut the Titan as it has half the amount VRAM.
Well, the rumoured price point is around the same as what the 980 was when it was released, which is far more tempting than paying £1000 ($1500) for a Titan.
What I meant by improved chip is that the rumor is that it would be a better binned chip. So it would perform better due to higher stock core clocks and higher boost clocks. It really would under cut the Titan X at 6gb's of ram. If you know anything about how much v-ram usage modern games need you'd know that 12gb's is just stupid. 6gb's is the maximum of what I could deem necessary for any modern game. I know when the Titan X came out a reviewer posted a picture on Twitter where they managed to make the card use 8ish gb's and that was done by having multiple games open. The Titan X does not have the double precision of past Titan's so the 12gb's can't be used for scientific reasons like the old Titan's vram could.
It would not debut for less then $700-750. About where the 780 ti came in at. Definitely not 980 prices. Nvidia with the last generation came in with the original Titan at $1000, the 780 at $700, the 770 at $500 and the 760 in the $300 range. With this generation they kind of debut'd with the prices already slashed. Mainly because if they tried for the same pricing scheme of the last generation, the current 200 series amd would still be smarter price to performance. The 970 is not worth $500 when the 290x is $300, which is what would have happened if Nvidia tried to do what they did last release. The 980 Ti would be the $700 card that fits in between the Titan X and 980, with neither receiving a major price cut, which is the likely case. On the last generation the 780 ti came in and marked the end of the OG titan, and the titan black took the top end Titan card name and place. With this generation, Nvidia doesn't have a bigger die to go to. So the Titan X would stay on top, not going out of production like the original Titan did, with the 980 ti right below it.
Yeah absolutely, perhaps some professional applications could push 12GB, which is what I always assumed Titans were aimed at, but games are a long way off. If what I read is correct, DX12 may allow stacking of video memory in multi GPU setups, which would make put my system at 8GB VRAM anyway... Don't quote me on that though. I heard something similar from Nvidia as well with regards to their future "Pascal" architecture also. I will do some reading on all this tomorrow.
But yes, the only reason the 6GB of memory appeals to me is my high resolution monitor, though it may not be 4K, the option of upgrading to Nvidia surround in the future would be nice, I'm thinking I may be limited by 4GB because lots of pixels like lots of VRAM.
I've seen different rumers that IF the 980ti did come around it wouldnt be till 2016 well after the release of the 390x and the rumor I seen mentioned a different gpu that's not in use yet and the card would have 4gb of HBM memory like the 390x. This means once the 390x comes out this June it will be the fasted single gpu card out there in the $500-600 range. It May even out perform the Titan X in some areas. There's also been a few good rumors there will be a 395x2 from AMD late this year. Either way I'm sure into 2016 nvidia will release something like a 980ti or whatever that will outperform the 390x. Now if they do release a 395x2 late 2015 that will be a beast and I'm not sure what nvidia would bring to the table to compete with it. Maybe a EVGA Titan X2 Classified.....LOL.
3440x1440 4gb's shouldn't limiting you. You might hit walls on Gta V and Shadow of Mordor, but outside of those games it should be a non-issue. DX12 might allow for stacking of vram but I'm highly skeptical as of now. We haven't seen it working, and we don't know if it will be implemented widely if it does work as promised.
Yeah, GTA V is very memory intensive, 4GB is still enough for me to run it at almost max settings (AA at x2, everything else maxed) with fairly stable FPS, but it does max out the memory. I'm not limited in most games, it's just if I were to get 2 more of these monitors I think the cards will start to choke. Perhaps I'm wrong though, could just be the cards themselves, I'm not sure many current systems could push 3 3440x1440 monitors with decent frames (50 - 60) to be honest.
Yeah there is no chance you can play at 10320x1440. That is about 180% of 4k. You could on 2 x Titan X's at medium settings. But there is no chance your going to be playing Gta V at that resolution. You could maybe play it with a 3440x1440 center, and 2 flanking 2560x1440. Even then its 149% of 4k though, so still sli Titan X's.
What did you expect? Nvidia does this all the time. i'm not surprised anymore. and neither should you.
but to answer a few questions,
"Did we buy into the 900-series to soon?" That depends, on how much you spend on graphics cards. If you bought a GTX 980. you are probably mad right now cause now you want a 980ti. if you bought a Titan X you are most likely ULTRA mad right now cause you want a 980ti.
Do you think there will be improvements in real-world tests? Yes, because Nvidia pulled this BS last year. Titan was supposed to be the top of the food chain card. The R9-290x beat it in a few games at a lower price point. time to drop the 780ti.
From what we've seen right now, if the GTX 980ti comes, which it will, cause Nvidia likes to be arrogant and show their dominance. i expect the 980ti to launch a month after the 390x if history repeats itself.
People who bought a GTX 980 are going to be mad, Gamers who bought a Titan X are going to be mad. and that's about covers it. People who bought a GTX 970 are still mad, cause of the 3.5GB VRAM issue. and with the GTX 960, it doesn't make sense, even at it's price point. cause a R9-285 which, right now is around $180 bucks beats it, in 2 out of 3 tests. and if you spent 40 bucks more you can get an R9-290 which will annihilate it. so where does the 960 stand? what does it compete with?
That's the end of my tiny rant, but i don't think we should be surprised, that's what you get for spending hundreds of dollars on "The Best".
Do you think there will be improvements in real-world tests? Yes, because Nvidia pulled this BS last year. Titan was supposed to be the top of the food chain card. The R9-290x beat it in a few games at a lower price point. time to drop the 780ti.
If the R9 390x thrashes the Titan X, Nvidia will have nothing to counter attack with. The GM 200 is already fully unleashed. Unlike last time when they fully unlocked the late Titan in order to release a GTX 780ti, the GTX 980ti will probably be a cut down version of the GM 200.
Agreed, BUT one thing you forgot to take into consideration, aftermarket cooling. GTX 980ti will launch with higher clocks and lower temps. With lower temps there is potential for much higher overclocks. Which in theory beat the Titan X. not by much but it's still something.
There could be awesome cooling solutions for the 980ti from AIB partners, but there is still the question of how badly cut down it'll be. My guess is they'll cut it down enough to avoid that whole situation again. Having an overclocked 980ti beat their flagship -money grabber edition- card is not in their best interest.
The 780ti and OG Titan were just one off situations. I doubt we'll see that again.
Latest news I've seen on the GTX980ti is it will just be a 6gb version of the Titan X with some of the cores disables. So say 2500-ish cuda cores and it'll sit between the Titan X (3072) and 980 (2048). Still all speculation only time will tell.
TITAN .............. Feb '13 ....GK110 (gimped) .................. $999
780 ................... May '13 ...GK110 (gimped more) ......... $649
780Ti ................ Nov '13 ...GK110 (FULL, minus DP) ..... $699 | Because F*CK everyone who bought a Titan
TITAN BLACK ... Feb '14 ...GK110 (FULL) ..................... $999
TITAN Z ........... Mar '14 ....GK110 (FULL 2x) .................$2999 / 1499
I'm betting Nvidia will release a GM200 card a few months down the line Just like the 780ti And piss everyone off who bought the first "Titan" of the core family edit: formatting
And it is things like this that keep me on the AMD side as well as wonder why people keep buy Nvidia stuff when they pull this kind of childish shit. I have been perfectly fine with my 7970Ghz ed. for over 3 years now. Before this card, it was a HD 5850. And when the 390X releases, I will most likely find a way to scrounge enough cash to upgrade to the 390X and keep it for another 3-4 years.
It doesn't necessarily affect everyone. people like us who buy mid-range, aren't affected by this. even on the Green Team. People who are running a 970 are either mad or probably laughing at people with GTX 980s and Titan cards..
I have an AMD GPU anyways so this doesn't effect me in the slightest, but people who like to buy high-end cards like the 980, Titan X are probably mad as hell right now.
