Introduction

GeForce GTX 980 Market Segment Analysis GeForce

GTX 680 GeForce

GTX 780 Radeon

R9 290 GeForce

GTX 970 Radeon

R9 290X Radeon

HD 7990 GeForce

GTX Titan GeForce

GTX 780 Ti GeForce

GTX 980 ASUS GTX

980 STRIX Shader Units 1536 2304 2560 1664 2816 2x 2048 2688 2880 2048 2048 ROPs 32 48 64 64 64 2x 32 48 48 64 64 Graphics Processor GK104 GK110 Hawaii GM204 Hawaii 2x Tahiti GK110 GK110 GM204 GM204 Transistors 3500M 7100M 6200M 5200M 6200M 2x 4310M 7100M 7100M 5200M 5200M Memory Size 2048 MB 3072 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB 2x 3072 MB 6144 MB 3072 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB Memory Bus Width 256 bit 384 bit 512 bit 256 bit 512 bit 2x 384 bit 384 bit 384 bit 256 bit 256 bit Core Clock 1006 MHz+ 863 MHz+ 947 MHz 1051 MHz+ 1000 MHz 1000 MHz 837 MHz+ 876 MHz+ 1126 MHz+ 1178 MHz+ Memory Clock 1502 MHz 1502 MHz 1250 MHz 1750 MHz 1250 MHz 1500 MHz 1502 MHz 1750 MHz 1750 MHz 1750 MHz Price $340 $320 $290 $330 $360 $1000 $1000 $430 $550 $580

The GeForce GTX 980 is NVIDIA's latest high-end single-GPU graphics card, made possible by the company's new Maxwell architecture. The GM204 graphics processor, which powers the GTX 980 in this review, comes with amazing power consumption improvements that are the foundation behind the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980 taking the enthusiast market by storm.The GeForce GTX 980 is carved out of the 28 nm GM204 silicon with all its shaders enabled, resulting in a shader count of 2,048. There are 128 available texture units and the ROP count is a massive 64, with a 256-bit bus connecting 4 GB of GDDDR5 memory.ASUS decided to use their recently introduced STRIX brand for their GTX 980 flagship. The card is built on a customized PCB design with an improved cooler that completely stops the fans in idle and features higher clock frequencies out of the box.Currently retailing at $580, the card is relatively affordable, being just $30 more expensive than the reference board.