1070 vs 980 ti: GTX 1070 vs GTX 980 Ti Game Performance Benchmarks (i7-6700K vs i7-4790K)

The GTX 1070 versus the GTX 980 Ti – BabelTechReviews

The GTX 980 Ti vs. the GTX 1070 & vs. the Fury X

How well has Maxwell aged?

This review is a quick follow-up to the Fury X versus the GTX 980 Ti evaluation. It has been just over two years since the GTX 1070 convincingly beat the Fury X and also surpassed the GTX 980 Ti. It appears that AMD is no longer optimizing their drivers for Fiji’s limited 4GB of HBM vRAM, so we are going to see if NVIDIA is still well-supporting Maxwell using our 35-game benchmark suite.

Both the GTX 980 Ti and the Fury X launched at $650 and they were surpassed when NVIDIA released the GTX 1070 at $379. The GTX 1070 beat the GTX 980 Ti overall by roughly 10%, and it also convincingly beat the Fury X. This evaluation will revisit some games from our last GTX 1070 vs. GTX 980 Ti vs. Fury X encounter together with many newer ones, and we will compare them using the very latest drivers.

Our game benchmark suite has evolved as we always update our games to include the latest and most popular titles including Far Cry 5 and The Crew 2. Since then, we have also upgraded from an i7-6700K to i7-8700K at 4.7 GHz, but we found very little performance difference between them.

We want to see how these three GPUs stand now in relation to each other by benchmarking with updated drivers at the most demanding settings at 3840×2160, 2560×1440, and at 1920×1080 resolutions.

Let’s check out the performance of GTX 1070 versus the GTX 980 Ti and versus the Fury X after we look over our test configuration on the next page.

Test Configuration – Hardware

  • Intel Core i7-8700K (HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 4.7 GHz for all cores; Coffee Lake DX11 CPU graphics).
  • EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard (Intel Z370 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
  • Team Group 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB, dual channel at 3200 MHz), supplied by Team Group
  • GTX 1070 Founders Edition, 8 GB at stock clocks, supplied by NVIDIA
  • EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC ACX 2. 0+, 6 GB, at Founders Edition stock clocks, supplied by EVGA
  • PowerColor Fury X, 4 GB, at stock Fury X clocks
  • 2 x 480 GB Team Group SSDs – one for AMD, and one for NVIDIA
  • 1.92 TB San Disk enterprise class SSD
  • 2 TB Micron 1100 SSD
  • EVGA 1000G 1000 W power supply unit
  • EVGA CLC 280 mm CPU water cooler, supplied by EVGA
  • Onboard Realtek Audio
  • Genius SP-D150 speakers, supplied by Genius
  • EVGA DG-77, mid-tower case supplied by EVGA
  • LG 43″ HDR 4K TV
  • Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K

Test Configuration – Software

  • NVIDIA GeForce 398.36 WHQL drivers. See Control Panel image below.
  • AMD Adrenalin Software 18.7.1 drivers. See Control Panel image below.
  • VSync is forced off.
  • AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied
  • All gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font.
  • Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
  • Windows 10 64-bit Home edition. All DX11 titles were run under DX11 render paths. DX12 titles are generally run under the DX12 render path unless performance is worse than with DX11. Two games use the Vulkan API
  • Latest DirectX
  • All 35 games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication.
  • WattMan used to set cooling and power options. See Control Panel image below.
  • MSI’s Afterburner, used to lower the GTX 980 Ti’s clocks and to set temp and power limits to maximum.
  • OCAT, latest version
  • Fraps, latest version

35 PC Game benchmark suite & 4 synthetic tests

Synthetic

  • Firestrike – Basic & Extreme
  • Time Spy DX12

DX11 Games

  • Grand Theft Auto V
  • The Witcher 3
  • Fallout 4
  • Watch Dogs 2
  • Just Cause 3
  • Rainbow Six Siege
  • Far Cry Primal
  • Battlefield 1
  • Resident Evil 7
  • For Honor
  • Ghost Recon Wildlands
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda
  • Prey
  • DiRT 4
  • Project CARS 2
  • Middle Earth: Shadow of War
  • Assassin’s Creed Origins
  • Destiny 2
  • Call of Duty WW II
  • Star Wars: Battlefront II
  • Final Fantasy XV
  • Far Cry 5
  • The Crew 2

DX12 Games

  • Tom Clancy’s The Division
  • Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
  • Hitman
  • Rise of the Tomb Raider
  • Deus Ex Mankind Divided
  • Gears of War 4
  • Civilization VI
  • Sniper Elite 4
  • Total War: Warhammer II
  • Forza 7

Vulkan Games

  • DOOM
  • Wolfenstein: The New Order

AMD Adrenalin Control Center Settings

All AMD settings are set so as to be apples-to-apples compared with NVIDIA’s control panel – all optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings.

Here are the Wattman settings that we used to set power, temperature and fan settings to their maximums.

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings that match AMD’s settings.We used MSI’s Afterburner to lower the EVGA GTX 980 Ti’s clocks to match the stock clocks of the Founders Edition, and also to set temperture and power limits to their maximums. The GTX 1070 was left at stock clocks, and consistent with our benchmarking over the past decade, the power and temperature limits are also set to maximum.

Let’s check the performance of 35 games by benchmarking the GTX 1070 versus the GTX 980 Ti and versus the Fury X, and then head for our conclusion on the next page.

Performance summary charts

Here are the summary charts of 35 games and 2 synthetic tests. The highest settings are always chosen. The benches were run at 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and at 3840×2160. All game results show average framerates in bold, and the minimums are next to them in italics; and higher is always better. “X” means the benchmark would not run.

The first column is devoted to the GTX 1070 results, the GTX 980 Ti results are in the second column, and the Fury X results are in Column 3.

The charts may be opened in separate windows or tabs for better viewing.

The GTX 980 Ti is now even faster than the Fury X for the majority of our games than when we benchmarked it about 2 years ago, but the gap between the GTX 1070 and the GTX 980 Ti has not changed much. There are still a few older games where the stock GTX 980 Ti is faster than the GTX 1070 at selected resolutions. However, generally the GTX 1070 remains very roughly 10% faster overall with many exceptions, especially with some newer games where it is even faster; and in others where it barely wins over the GTX 980 Ti.

The GTX 980 Ti crashed above 1920×1080 resolution benching Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, but there were no issues running the benchmark on the GTX 1070. Our only really strange results were with Wolfenstein where the GTX 1070 is significantly faster than the GTX 980 Ti, although the Ti holds its own versus the Fury X. We switched the two GeForce cards in and out of our PC to double-check our results and they were consistent.

Generally the GTX 980 Ti and the Fury X are still capable at 1920×1080 and even at 2560×1440 if some detail settings are lowered, but the GTX 1070 has more headroom at stock clocks for additional performance. The GTX 1070 is a more capable card for 4K, but the GTX 1080 Ti and the TITAN Xp are really the only video cards that handle it at higher detail settings.

Let’s head for our conclusion.

The Conclusion

As in all of our previous evaluations, the GTX 1070 is the fastest of our 3 cards, and the GTX 980 Ti is generally faster than the Fury X in most of the benches. Nothing has really changed over the past 2 years, although the Fury X has lost even more ground to the GTX 980 Ti. There were a few driver issues with the older cards but they performed well in modern games. The GTX 1070 is more suitable for playing at 4K, but compromises with lowered detail settings will need to be made for fluid play.

As before, if overclocking is taken into consideration, the GTX 980 Ti runs away from the Fury X which is a very poor overclocker. We did not overclock any card for this evaluation, but the GTX 980 Ti is a better overclocker than the GTX 1070 FE, and it can make up some performance with a good overclock.

If you currently game at 4K on any of these cards, we would recommend an upgrade to the GTX 1080 Ti if you want Ultra/High settings in many of the newer games. It appears that NVIDIA has not neglected Maxwell in favor of Pascal, although AMD no longer appears to be optimizing for Fury X’ limited vRAM, and compromises in detail settings may have to be made even at 2560×1440 for fluid play.

Stay tuned, there is a lot more coming from us at BTR. We will return to VR benching with a series featuring the Vive Pro versus the Oculus Rift using FCAT-VR to measure the performance of 25 of your favorite VR games. Expect an unboxing of the Vive Pro shortly.

Happy Gaming!

Categories Video Cards Tags AMD, evaluation, fiji, Fury X, GTX 1070, gtx 980 ti, maxwell, nvidia, pacal, review

Nvidia GTX 980 Ti vs 1070: GeForce GTX Graphics Cards

You may know that GTX 1070 is also known as Fury X. If you do, then you also may have the knowledge of how it managed to beat the 980 version. From this, here’s what the implications say. If you’d like to get more details on the specifications and performance for both the versions fo the GTX graphics card and 1070, then go through the rest of the contents below on 980 ti vs 1070!

Basic Comparison Among GTX 980  & 1070 Graphics Card!

Here is detailed information of gtx 980 ti vs gtx 1070 specifications for the two of Graphics Card 980 ti vs 1070:

  1. According to the performance rating, GTX 1070 has 45 ratings while 980 has 43. The value of money for GTX 1070 is also higher than that of 980, which is 37.74 over 32.57.
  2. The architecture buildup for GTX 1070 is PAscal while for GTx 980, it is Maxwell 2.0. That being said, the Code name fro GTX 1070 is GP104 and for 980, it is GM200. 
  3. Both the GTX 1070 and 980 as Desktop-type that means both are meant for PC use only. That being said, the release date of GTX 1070 was in June 2016, the 10th of June while for 980 was 2015, 2nd June.
  4. Initially, the launching price for GTx 1070 was 379$ but now the current price is $520. Now, for the  GTX 980, the launching price was $649 and now the current price is said to be $605. 

Technical Comparison Between GTX 1070 vs 980 ti

The previous section was all about the basic details of the two 1070 vs 980ti. Now, let us take a look at the technical specifications for both gtx 1070 vs 980 ti to get a clear idea of how well it can work.

  1. GTX 1070 has approximately 1920 pipelines while GTX 980 has around 2816. Also, the Compute Unified Device Structure for 1070 has the same which is 1920 while for 980, that is 2816.
  2. The core clock speed for GTX 1070 runs at 1506 MHz while fro 980, it runs at 1000 MHz. that being said, the boost clock for 1070 is 1683 and fro 980, it is 1075 MHz.
  3. The transistor count for 1070  is at 16nm. For 9780, the same is at 28nm. Now, if we talk about the consumption supply for both of them, 1080 consumes approximately 150 Watt. GTX 980 consumes 250 Watt. 
  4. The maximum temperature that the GPU for GTX 1070 can take is 94 degrees Celsius while GTX 980 is not defined till now. The Texture fill rate fr GTX 1070 goes at 202.0 GTexel per second and or 980, the rate is 176 billion per second. The floating-point for GTX 1070 is 6,463 gflops and for 980, it is 6,060 gflops. 

Compatibility Comparison Between GTX 1070 vs 980 ti

The compatibility of the two with other computer components of the system matters. Here’s what you assess from:

  1. GTX 1070’s BUS support and that of GX 980 is PCIe 3.0 (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express). In fact, the interface is the same for both which is PCIe 3.0 x 16. 
  2. The system power for GTX 1070 is 500 Watts while for 980, it is 600 Watts. Also, GTX 1070 has 8-pin power connectors while80 has both 6 pins as well as 8 pins. 
Dimensions of GTX 1070 Dimension Of GTX 980
Length: 10. 5’’ (26.700) cm Length: 10.5’’ (26.7) cm
Width: 2-slots Width: Not defined
Height: 4.376’’ (11.1) cm Height: 4.376” (11.1) cm

Memory Comparison Between GTX 980 ti vs 1070

Go through this section to get a detailed analysis of the memory that is installed for both GTX 1070 and 980:

  1. The memory type for GTX 1070 is GDDR5 while for 980, the memory type is the same GDDR5. However, for 1070, the RAM space is 8GB and for 980, it is 6GB. 
  2. The memory bus width for GTX 1070 is 256 bit while for 980, it is 384. Also, the clock speed for 1070 is *GB per second and for 980, it is 7.0 GB per second. Memory bandwidth is also 256 GB for 1070 and for 980, it is 336.5 Gb per second. 

Output & Port Comparison Between 980 ti vs 1070

Go through this section to find out the comparison of video output and port:

The display connector for 1070 is 1x DVI, 1 x HDMI, 3x Display Port. For 980 GTX, the display connectors consist of 1 DVI, 1HDMI and 3 DisplayPort.

1070 does not have any multi-monitor. But GTX 980 has 4 displays. That being said, 1070 also does not any defined VGA resolution. While 980 has a VGA resolution of 2048×1536. Also, 1070 has no defined audio input for HDMI. But, 980 has an internal one built up. 

Overview: Which One Is Better – 980ti vs 1070?

Based on the detailed analysis and test performance of both GTX 1070 and 980, here’s what it implies;

Based on Benchmark’s performance, which was around 2 years back, GTX 980 showed to be faster in most of the games. However, the launch of 1070 changed this thing. But even then, there are some games that do exist which upon playing with GTX 980, run smoother than GTX 1070. 

But, in the overall aspect, if we look at the whole picture, then GTX 1070 is relatively a bit faster than 980 by 10%. But this implication comes with exceptions. For example, there some games that runway faster in 1070 compared to 980. While there are some other games that run slower with 1070 compared to 980. 

The Final Verdict [980 ti vs 1070]

Based on everything, GTX 1070 has more processing speed and is way faster than 980. While 980 is only faster if compared to Fury X. As GTX 1070 as extensive features, specifications and a great performance rate based on its runtime speed, it is needless to say that it is better. In that case, 1070 is preferably better to play at games that required 4K resolution. 

But if you’re looking at overclocking then GTX 980 would be preferable as it is better than GTX 1070.