MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning 6GB Review

1. Introduction2. MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark5. Unigine Heaven Benchmark6. Battlefield 4 (1440P & 4K)7. Bioshock Infinite (1440P & 4K)8. Grand Theft Auto 5 (1440p & 4K)9. Metro: Last Light (1440p & 4K)10. Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (1440p & 4K)11. Tomb Raider (1440p & 4K)12. Temperatures & Thermal Imaging13. Acoustics Performance14. Power Consumption15. Overclocking16. Closing Thoughts17. View All Pages

For the review today we are using the Nvidia 355.60 driver in order to keep test results consistent with competing GTX 980 Ti solutions.

Comparison AMD cards use a mixture of the 15.201.1102 driver and the 15.7.1 driver, each of which were the latest at their respective time of testing.

We will be testing using the 2560×1440 and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions as we feel that most people buying a £600+ graphics card are likely to be gaming at 1440P or above.

We test using the AOC U2868PQU 4K monitor that scored highly in our review that can be found HERE. AOC's 28″ offering is one of the most affordable 4K monitors on the market and makes the realms of 4K gaming more accessible to a wider audience.

Test System

• Processor: Intel Core i7 5960X ES (4.4GHz OC).
• Memory: 16GB (4x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz DDR4.
• Motherboard: Asus X99-Deluxe.
• System Drive: 500GB Samsung 840.
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i.
• Case: NZXT Phantom 630.
• Power Supply: Seasonic Platinum 1000W.
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional with SP1 64-bit.

Comparison Graphics cards:

• AMD R9 295X2 (Catalyst 15.7.1)
• AMD R9 Fury X (Catalyst 15.7.1)
• AMD R9 Nano (Catalyst 15.201.1102 – R9 Nano launch driver)
• Sapphire R9 380 ITX Compact (Catalyst 15.201.1102 – R9 Nano launch driver)
• Nvidia GTX Titan X reference (ForceWare 355.60)
• EVGA GTX 980 Ti Classified ACX 2.0+ (ForceWare 355.60)
• Nvidia GTX 980 Ti reference (ForceWare 355.60)
• Asus GTX 980 STRIX OC (ForceWare 355.82)
• Asus GTX 970 DCU Mini (ForceWare 355.82)

Software:
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark
Fraps
Steam Client
MSI Afterburner
TechPowerUp GPU-Z

Games:
Battlefield 4
Bioshock Infinite
Grand Theft Auto V
Metro: Last Light
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Tomb Raider

Game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.

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