The GTX 980 Ti only consumed 16% more power once overclocked which is quite impressive since we regularly saw performance gains of at least 20%. Moreover, with a total system consumption of 341 watts, the overclocked 980 Ti only consumed the same level of power as the standard Fury X. Speaking of the Fury X, given how small the performance gains were, it doesn’t make sense to overclock this graphics card, especially when the total system consumption is increased by 18%.
So Is It Worth It?
Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti is clearly still a rather capable graphics card and this is why many that bought one back in 2015 haven’t bothered upgrading to the GTX 1070 or even the GTX 1080 just yet. Comparing a stock 980 Ti is a little misleading as few would have purchased a reference card and those that did likely ended up overclocking it as there is so much more performance to be had. Our overclock was extremely easy to achieve and boosted the performance on average by 20% – that’s huge. So while the GTX 980 Ti might have been 4% slower than the Fury X on average, once both graphics cards were overclocked it was 11% faster.
Although I only benchmarked half a dozen games for this article, those tested showed competitive results between the GTX 1070 and Fury X. This should have made for a fair comparison between the 980 Ti and Fury X. Compared to the GTX 1070, the overclocked 980 Ti was on average 7% faster than the Gigabyte G1 Gaming model. So again, perhaps this is why 980 Ti owners are waiting for something faster like the 1080 Ti or Vega before they upgrade. Shopping shortcuts: Today’s cheapest GTX 1070 cards are selling for $375, though I should note that last week Gigabyte’s Mini ITX OC model was selling for as little as $360. Given those prices, I recommend purchasing the Fury X for no more than $300 and since you’ll be buying the 980 Ti second-hand, I don’t recommend spending over $300 on that card either, especially since it probably won’t be warrantied.
