Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile: specs and benchmarks
Summary
NVIDIA started GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile sales 22 September 2015. This is a laptop graphics card based on a Maxwell architecture and made with 28 nm manufacturing process. It is primarily aimed at gamers. 2x 8 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 3.5 GHz are supplied.
Power consumption is at 330 Watt.
It provides good gaming and benchmark performance at 37.98% of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.
General info
Some basic facts about GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile: architecture, market segment, release date etc.
| Place in performance ranking | 99 | |
| Value for money | 69.20 | |
| Architecture | Maxwell (2014−2018) | |
| GPU code name | N16E-GXX SLI | |
| Market segment | Laptop | |
| Release date | 22 September 2015 (8 years old) | |
| Current price | $301 | of 168889 (A100 PCIe 80 GB) |
Value for money
Technical specs
GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 4096 | of 20480 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT) |
| Core clock speed | 1126 MHz | of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT) |
| Boost clock speed | 1228 MHz | of 3599 (Radeon RX 7990 XTX) |
| Number of transistors | 10400 Million | of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile) |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | of 4 (GeForce RTX 4080) |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 330 Watt | of 2400 (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem) |
Size and compatibility
Information on GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile's compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For notebook video cards it's notebook size, connection slot and bus, if the video card is inserted into a slot instead of being soldered to the notebook motherboard.
| Laptop size | large | |
| SLI options | + |
Memory
Parameters of memory installed on GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | |
| Maximum RAM amount | 2x 8 GB | of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | of 19000 (GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB) |
| Memory clock speed | 3500 MHz | of 22400 (GeForce RTX 4080) |
| Shared memory | - |
Video outputs and ports
Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.
| G-SYNC support | + |
API support
APIs supported by GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile, sometimes including their particular versions.
| DirectX | 12_1 | |
| CUDA | + |
Benchmark performance
Synthetic benchmark performance of GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.
Combined synthetic benchmark score
This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.
3DMark Vantage Performance
3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.
Benchmark coverage: 16%
3DMark 11 Performance GPU
3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.
Benchmark coverage: 16%
3DMark Fire Strike Score
Benchmark coverage: 14%
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics
Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature seemingly made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.
Benchmark coverage: 14%
3DMark Cloud Gate GPU
Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
Send in your benchmark results
Send your test results of GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile.
Gaming performance
Let's see how good GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.
Average FPS across all PC games
Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:
| Full HD | 136 | |
| 4K | 64 |
Performance in popular games
Full HD
Low Preset
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 65−70 |
Full HD
Medium Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 65−70 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 65−70 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 110−120 | |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 100−110 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 65−70 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 95−100 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 90−95 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 110−120 | |
| Hitman 3 | 120−130 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 80−85 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 60−65 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 90−95 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 70−75 |
Full HD
High Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 65−70 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 65−70 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 110−120 | |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 100−110 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 65−70 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 95−100 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 90−95 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 110−120 | |
| Hitman 3 | 120−130 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 80−85 | |
| Metro Exodus | 65−70 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 60−65 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 90−95 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 132 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 70−75 |
Full HD
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 65−70 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 65−70 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 110−120 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 65−70 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 95−100 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 90−95 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 110−120 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 74 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 70−75 |
1440p
High Preset
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 60−65 | |
| Hitman 3 | 70−75 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 50−55 | |
| Metro Exodus | 40−45 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 30−33 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 55−60 |
1440p
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 40−45 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 40−45 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 80−85 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 30−33 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 65−70 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 70−75 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 80−85 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 30−35 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 30−35 |
4K
High Preset
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 30−35 | |
| Hitman 3 | 35−40 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 27−30 | |
| Metro Exodus | 24−27 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 20−22 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 30−33 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 51 |
4K
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 24−27 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 21−24 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 45−50 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 12−14 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 35−40 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 35−40 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 50−55 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 18−20 |
Relative perfomance
Overall GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile performance compared to nearest competitors among notebook video cards.
AMD equivalent
According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile is Radeon RX 6700S, which is nearly equal in speed and higher by 1 position in our ranking.
Here are some closest AMD rivals to GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile:
Similar GPUs
Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.
Recommended processors
These processors are most commonly used with GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile according to our statistics.
5.4%
3.6%
3.6%
3.6%
3.6%
3.6%
3.6%
3.6%
1.8%
1.8%
