Introduction

GTX 980 Ti Market Segment Analysis GeForce

GTX 970 Radeon

R9 290X Radeon

R9 390X GeForce

GTX 780 Ti GeForce

GTX 980 Radeon R9

Fury Radeon R9

Fury X GeForce

GTX 980 Ti MSI GTX 980

Ti Lightning GeForce

GTX Titan X Radeon

R9 295X2 Shader Units 1664 2816 2816 2880 2048 3584 4096 2816 2816 3072 2x 2816 ROPs 56 64 64 48 64 64 64 96 96 96 2x 64 Graphics Processor GM204 Hawaii Hawaii GK110 GM204 Fiji Fiji GM200 GM200 GM200 2x Hawaii Transistors 5200M 6200M 6200M 7100M 5200M 8900M 8900M 8000M 8000M 8000M 2x 6200M Memory Size 4096 MB 4096 MB 8192 MB 3072 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB 6144 MB 6144 MB 12288 MB 2x 4096 MB Memory Bus Width 256 bit 512 bit 512 bit 384 bit 256 bit 4096 bit 4096 bit 384 bit 384 bit 384 bit 2x 512 bit Core Clock 1051 MHz+ 1000 MHz 1050 MHz 876 MHz+ 1126 MHz+ 1000 MHz 1050 MHz 1000 MHz+ 1203 MHz+ 1000 MHz+ 1018 MHz Memory Clock 1750 MHz 1250 MHz 1500 MHz 1750 MHz 1750 MHz 500 MHz 500 MHz 1750 MHz 1774 MHz 1750 MHz 1250 MHz Price $290 $300 $400 $390 $470 $520 $630 $620 $780 $1000 $620

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 Ti was released this June. Built on the same GM200 GPU as the GeForce Titan X, it has fewer shaders (2816 vs 3072). While the GTX 980 Ti's GPU is still produced on a 28 nanometer process at TSMC in Taiwan, it comes with the fantastic power efficiency optimizations of the NVIDIA Maxwell architecture, which promises lower power draw, higher performance, and reduced fan noise all at the same time.Our review of the reference design GTX 980 Ti revealed that it is barely slower than the Titan X, which means custom designs could surpass Titan X performance at a much lower price point.Today, we are reviewing MSI's new flagship GeForce GTX 980 Ti using the "Lightning" branding, which stands for maximum overclockability and the support for features extreme overclockers using liquid nitrogen will find useful.For more "regular" users, MSI has built a large triple-slot, triple-fan thermal solution that turns its fans off in idle and light gaming. At a base clock of 1203 MHz, the GTX 980 Ti Lightning comes highly overlclocked out of the box, and memory has been overclocked as well.All these features come at a quite significant price premium as the MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning is currently available online for $779, which is more than $150 over the cheapest GTX 980 Ti.