Six Generations of GeForce GPUs Compared: From GTX 480 to GTX 1080

[Steve]

#ThrowbackThursday With the venerable GeForce GTX 980 having celebrated its third birthday, in the world of GPUs that puts it squarely over the hill. Even the GTX 1080 is over a year old already, however the performance bump in this last generation was very significant. From the GTX 480 to the GTX 1080, how much faster are today's GPUs?

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1191-nvidia-geforce-six-generations-tested/

 

[Squuiid]

Great article, thanks!
Nice to see some benchmarks at 1600p rather than the inferior, but more prevalent 1440p.

 

[ET3D]

I wanted to post a comment on the GeForce history article, but can't see a way to do that.

It's a nice article, and amazing to see how quickly GPU's become obsolete.

One thing I didn't find there was the specs of the benchmark system.

Another things which caught my eye was that the GeForce 980 Ti gets 99 fps in Rise of the Tomb Raider, while in the benchmark article for that game got 75 fps for very high quality, 80 for high and 92 for Pure Hair disabled (and 84 for high in the CPU benchmark, for some reason). Is this a driver change, a settings change, or just something screwy with the benchmark?

Moderator note: Moving.

 

[Steve]

Great article, thanks!
Nice to see some benchmarks at 1600p rather than the inferior, but more prevalent 1440p.

I agree 1600p is much better than 1440p. Sadly I have been forced to test at 1440p for the most part now given it has become the more mainstream resolution.

 

[Kenrick]

Great job in doing this article! I was in grade school when I started to poke the inside of computers. I used tseng labs, cirrus, matrox. Nvidia did a great job in innovating and becoming a market leader in this field.

 

[VitalyT]

It is nice to know that on average my 3-year old GTX 780 is 2 times slower than GTX 1080. Something I will remember when I decide to upgrade next.

Although by that time most likely GTX 1080 Ti will be out

 

[fktech]

Not a gamer... so???

 

[commanderasus]

Why not test these cards using these games: Dirt Rally, Grid, Game Stock Car Extreme to name a few. They are very demanding on frame rates as well as all the other games. Last year racing gamers spend 265 million on games. Never mind how much they spent on computer gear.So they are worthy of being tested.

 

[Raoul Duke]

Very nice series of GPU's Nvidia has. I suppose I stuck with AMD due to familiarity and experience with a Nvidia chipset quite awhile ago. Yes we nitpick, but very impressive cards overall

 

[yukka]

That's a good article. Excellent. It must take a while to get all the cards and do the testing. I am still using a 460GTX and would love to see the same style article but comparing all the budget models instead. 460/560/660 etc. But only because I want to see where my card ranks compared to todays budget cards.

 

[TitoBXNY]

I am ready to retire my GTX 760. While I really want a GTX 1070, I won't eliminate The Radeon RX 480 from consideration. The prices for nVIDIA cards are being exploited right now, and I don't want to wait another month until prices drop.

 

[amstech]

Very informative review with crafty comparisons and information.
The first page showing all the release dates really puts it in perspective.

 

[Steve]

I wanted to post a comment on the GeForce history article, but can't see a way to do that.

It's a nice article, and amazing to see how quickly GPU's become obsolete.

One thing I didn't find there was the specs of the benchmark system.

Another things which caught my eye was that the GeForce 980 Ti gets 99 fps in Rise of the Tomb Raider, while in the benchmark article for that game got 75 fps for very high quality, 80 for high and 92 for Pure Hair disabled (and 84 for high in the CPU benchmark, for some reason). Is this a driver change, a settings change, or just something screwy with the benchmark?

Moderator note: Moving.

The Witcher 3 result goes from 89fps down to 84fps here due to the resolution increase I would say. The rise of The Tomb Raider results aren't comparable as two different sections of the game were tested.

 

[Evernessince]

Price at release for the GTX 1080 is $600 on this chart? Is this just taking all the MSRP prices of the card at launch? If so the 1080 should be $700, that's the price of the founders edition. Wouldn't be fair to compare as non-launch non reference 1080 to other launch reference cards.

 

[Steve]

Price at release for the GTX 1080 is $600 on this chart? Is this just taking all the MSRP prices of the card at launch? If so the 1080 should be $700, that's the price of the founders edition. Wouldn't be fair to compare as non-launch non reference 1080 to other launch reference cards.

The GTX 1080 MSRP is $600. Despite very poor availability we already have cards selling near the MSRP...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487246

If it were $700 you wouldn't find an Evga version for $620 now would you

 

[Evernessince]

The GTX 1080 MSRP is $600. Despite very poor availability we already have cards selling near the MSRP...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487246

If it were $700 you wouldn't find an Evga version for $620 now would you

Yeah, I was wondering whether that was the Founders edition pricing or aftermarket pricing. Thanks for answering it.

 

[Fobus]

Would it be possible to do the testing since the earliest of cards like GeForce 256 and Geforce 2/3? I know it's impossible to test using the same set of games, but using multiple generations of games with overlap in few GPU generations it should be possible to establish a reasonable conclusion on the relative power of GPUs.

I know it would be a lot of work, but it would be just so interesting. Pretty please?

 

[kgh00007]

Is there any chance you could do the Witcher 3 benchmarks with Hair works On since there are no AMD cards being compared here?

I'd really like to see that thanks!

 

[9Nails]

Those line graphs tell a big story. The steep up-turn for the 1080 is very apparent. I wonder if GPU's can keep that momentum in the next generation of cards or will they flatten out in minor evolutionary upgrades as the 780 - 980 did? Only time will tell I suppose. But it's good to see the chips are in a much better place.

 

[aus38ckz]

Really good review.

How about a group shot? Would have been nice to see a picture comparing all the cards (physically).

 

[Steve]

Would it be possible to do the testing since the earliest of cards like GeForce 256 and Geforce 2/3? I know it's impossible to test using the same set of games, but using multiple generations of games with overlap in few GPU generations it should be possible to establish a reasonable conclusion on the relative power of GPUs.

I know it would be a lot of work, but it would be just so interesting. Pretty please?

To what end? I am not sure digging up an old AGP system to show how badly these 16 year old GPU's perform in any game made in the last decade would be good use of my time

 

[ET3D]

The Witcher 3 result goes from 89fps down to 84fps here due to the resolution increase I would say. The rise of The Tomb Raider results aren't comparable as two different sections of the game were tested.

Thanks for the explanation. I also see that the system specs are posted now, and I was happy to learn that these GeForce cards were tested with AMD Crimson Edition 16.6.1 Hotfix.

Also, the Core i7-6700K being run at 4.5GHz does explain some of the difference, as the original benchmarks were run at 4GHz.

 

[ET3D]

I just went to look at the old Then and Now article, and the benchmark results for the cards there look exactly the same. Exactly. As if they haven't been re-tested. I assume from this that all the cards up to the 980 have been tested with a Core i7-4790K @ 3.6 GHz and 344.75 drivers, as opposed to a Core i7-6700K @ 4.5 GHz and 368.39 drivers (plus a different OS, faster RAM). That wouldn't make it an apples to apples comparison.

If that's really the case, and only the 980 Ti and 1080 have been tested for this article, I'd suggest that you at least re-test the 980 to see if performance changes with the newer system.

 

[Steve]

I just went to look at the old Then and Now article, and the benchmark results for the cards there look exactly the same. Exactly. As if they haven't been re-tested. I assume from this that all the cards up to the 980 have been tested with a Core i7-4790K @ 3.6 GHz and 344.75 drivers, as opposed to a Core i7-6700K @ 4.5 GHz and 368.39 drivers (plus a different OS, faster RAM). That wouldn't make it an apples to apples comparison.

If that's really the case, and only the 980 Ti and 1080 have been tested for this article, I'd suggest that you at least re-test the 980 to see if performance changes with the newer system.

No that is incorrect. The 980 and 780 Ti, 780 and so on were re-tested mate, the results were only updated where we found changes. There are a number of changes to most of the games so I am not sure why you are seeing the exact same results. There were a few instances where the 780 Ti and 980 were being bottle-necked on the old system and you will see slightly better performance now, particularly at the lower resolutions.

 

[Fobus]

Would it be possible to do the testing since the earliest of cards like GeForce 256 and Geforce 2/3? I know it's impossible to test using the same set of games, but using multiple generations of games with overlap in few GPU generations it should be possible to establish a reasonable conclusion on the relative power of GPUs.

I know it would be a lot of work, but it would be just so interesting. Pretty please?

To what end? I am not sure digging up an old AGP system to show how badly these 16 year old GPU's perform in any game made in the last decade would be good use of my time

To what end? There's already a reason stated in the article. "Whether you are looking to upgrade from an older GPU or simply appreciate the statistical significance of the data presented, ..."

I haven't see it done anywhere. But wouldn't it help appreciate the advance GPU's have made over all these years? Besides, it's simply interesting. Why else this was done in the first place?