GeForce GTX 860M vs 980
Aggregate performance score
980 outperforms 860M by a whopping 267% based on our aggregate benchmark results.
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in performance ranking | 179 | 488 |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 9.73 | 1.07 |
| Architecture | Maxwell (2014−2018) | Maxwell (2014−2018) |
| GPU code name | GM204 | N15P-GX |
| Market segment | Desktop | Laptop |
| Release date | 19 September 2014 (9 years ago) | 12 March 2014 (10 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $549 | no data |
| Current price | $339 (0.6x MSRP) | $875 |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.
GTX 980 has 809% better value for money than GTX 860M.
Detailed specifications
General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 2048 | 640 |
| CUDA cores | 2048 | 1152 or 640 |
| Core clock speed | 1064 MHz | 797 MHz |
| Boost clock speed | 1216 MHz | 915 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 5,200 million | 1,870 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 165 Watt | 75 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 144 billion/sec | 43.40 |
| Floating-point performance | 4,981 gflops | 1,389 gflops |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on GeForce GTX 980 and GeForce GTX 860M compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility). 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 | no data | medium sized |
| Bus support | PCI Express 3.0 | PCI Express 2.0, PCI Express 3.0 |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | MXM-B (3.0) |
| Length | 10.5" (26.7 cm) | no data |
| Height | 4.376" (11.1 cm) | no data |
| Width | 2-slot | no data |
| Recommended system power (PSU) | 500 Watt | no data |
| Supplementary power connectors | 2x 6-pins | None |
| SLI options | + | + |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 4 GB | 4 GB |
| Standard memory configuration | no data | GDDR5 |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 128 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 7.0 GB/s | Up to 2500 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 224 GB/s | 80.0 GB/s |
| Shared memory | - | - |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | Dual Link DVI-I, HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort 1.2 | No outputs |
| Multi monitor support | 4 displays | no data |
| eDP 1.2 signal support | no data | Up to 3840x2160 |
| LVDS signal support | no data | Up to 1920x1200 |
| VGA аnalog display support | + | Up to 2048x1536 |
| DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) support | + | Up to 3840x2160 |
| HDMI | + | + |
| HDCP | + | no data |
| HDCP content protection | no data | + |
| Maximum VGA resolution | 2048x1536 | no data |
| G-SYNC support | + | no data |
| Audio input for HDMI | Internal | no data |
| 7.1 channel HD audio on HDMI | no data | + |
| TrueHD and DTS-HD audio bitstreaming | no data | + |
Supported technologies
Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| GameStream | + | no data |
| GeForce ShadowPlay | + | no data |
| GPU Boost | 2.0 | no data |
| GameWorks | + | no data |
| H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder | + | + |
| Optimus | + | + |
| BatteryBoost | + | no data |
| Ansel | no data | + |
API compatibility
List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (12_1) | 12 (11_0) |
| Shader Model | 6.4 | 5.1 |
| OpenGL | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | 1.1 |
| Vulkan | 1.1.126 | 1.1.126 |
| CUDA | + | + |
Synthetic benchmark performance
Non-gaming benchmark performance comparison. 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.
980 outperforms 860M by 267% based on our aggregate benchmark results.
Passmark
This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.
Benchmark coverage: 25%
980 outperforms 860M by 266% in Passmark.
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: 17%
980 outperforms 860M by 259% in 3DMark 11 Performance GPU.
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: 17%
980 outperforms 860M by 98% in 3DMark Vantage Performance.
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 made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.
Benchmark coverage: 14%
980 outperforms 860M by 231% in 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics.
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: 14%
980 outperforms 860M by 205% in 3DMark Cloud Gate GPU.
GeekBench 5 OpenCL
Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.
Benchmark coverage: 9%
980 outperforms 860M by 232% in GeekBench 5 OpenCL.
3DMark Ice Storm GPU
Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.
Benchmark coverage: 8%
980 outperforms 860M by 50% in 3DMark Ice Storm GPU.
GeekBench 5 Vulkan
Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses Vulkan API by AMD & Khronos Group.
Benchmark coverage: 5%
980 outperforms 860M by 277% in GeekBench 5 Vulkan.
GeekBench 5 CUDA
Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses CUDA API by NVIDIA.
Benchmark coverage: 4%
980 outperforms 860M by 165% in GeekBench 5 CUDA.
Unigine Heaven 3.0
This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark using Unigine, a 3D game engine by eponymous Russian company. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. Version 3.0 was released in 2012, and in 2013 it was superseded by Heaven 4.0, which introduced several slight improvements, including a newer version of Unigine.
Benchmark coverage: 4%
980 outperforms 860M by 162% in Unigine Heaven 3.0.
Octane Render OctaneBench
This is a special benchmark measuring graphics card performance in OctaneRender, which is a realistic GPU rendering engine by OTOY Inc., available either as a standalone program, or as a plugin for 3DS Max, Cinema 4D and many other apps. It renders four different static scenes, then compares render times with a reference GPU which is currently GeForce GTX 980. This benchmark has nothing to do with gaming and is aimed at professional 3D graphics artists.
Benchmark coverage: 4%
980 outperforms 860M by 220% in Octane Render OctaneBench.
Gaming performance
Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.
Average FPS across all PC games
Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:
| 900p | 300−350
+230%
| 91
−230%
|
| Full HD | 94
+154%
| 37
−154%
|
| 1440p | 51
+325%
| 12−14
−325%
|
| 4K | 40
+186%
| 14
−186%
|
FPS performance in popular games
Full HD
Low Preset
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 45−50
+300%
|
12−14
−300%
|
Full HD
Medium Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 69
+331%
|
16−18
−331%
|
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 50−55
+400%
|
10−11
−400%
|
| Battlefield 5 | 86
+274%
|
21−24
−274%
|
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 60−65
+276%
|
16−18
−276%
|
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 45−50
+300%
|
12−14
−300%
|
| Far Cry 5 | 84
+250%
|
24−27
−250%
|
| Far Cry New Dawn | 77
+267%
|
21−24
−267%
|
| Forza Horizon 4 | 90
+221%
|
27−30
−221%
|
| Hitman 3 | 70−75
+294%
|
18−20
−294%
|
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 100−110
+261%
|
27−30
−261%
|
| Metro Exodus | 80−85
+286%
|
21−24
−286%
|
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 75−80
+241%
|
21−24
−241%
|
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 90−95
+291%
|
21−24
−291%
|
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 50−55
+315%
|
12−14
−315%
|
Full HD
High Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 58
+263%
|
16−18
−263%
|
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 50−55
+400%
|
10−11
−400%
|
| Battlefield 5 | 74
+222%
|
21−24
−222%
|
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 60−65
+276%
|
16−18
−276%
|
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 45−50
+300%
|
12−14
−300%
|
| Far Cry 5 | 65−70
+175%
|
24−27
−175%
|
| Far Cry New Dawn | 31
+47.6%
|
21−24
−47.6%
|
| Forza Horizon 4 | 83
+196%
|
27−30
−196%
|
| Hitman 3 | 70−75
+294%
|
18−20
−294%
|
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 100−110
+261%
|
27−30
−261%
|
| Metro Exodus | 80−85
+286%
|
21−24
−286%
|
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 75−80
+241%
|
21−24
−241%
|
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 26
+13%
|
21−24
−13%
|
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 85
+325%
|
20
−325%
|
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 50−55
+315%
|
12−14
−315%
|
Full HD
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 35
+119%
|
16−18
−119%
|
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 50−55
+400%
|
10−11
−400%
|
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 60−65
+276%
|
16−18
−276%
|
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 45−50
+300%
|
12−14
−300%
|
| Far Cry 5 | 50
+108%
|
24−27
−108%
|
| Forza Horizon 4 | 59
+111%
|
27−30
−111%
|
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 100−110
+261%
|
27−30
−261%
|
| Metro Exodus | 80−85
+286%
|
21−24
−286%
|
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 46
+283%
|
12
−283%
|
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 50−55
+315%
|
12−14
−315%
|
Full HD
Epic Preset
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 75−80
+241%
|
21−24
−241%
|
1440p
High Preset
| Battlefield 5 | 47
+213%
|
14−16
−213%
|
| Far Cry New Dawn | 60−65
+425%
|
12−14
−425%
|
| Hitman 3 | 40−45
+344%
|
9−10
−344%
|
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 21−24
+340%
|
5−6
−340%
|
1440p
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 27
+286%
|
7−8
−286%
|
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 30−33
+900%
|
3−4
−900%
|
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 40−45
+310%
|
10−11
−310%
|
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 20−22
+400%
|
4−5
−400%
|
| Far Cry 5 | 48
+300%
|
12−14
−300%
|
| Forza Horizon 4 | 48
+243%
|
14−16
−243%
|
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 60−65
+253%
|
16−18
−253%
|
| Metro Exodus | 55−60
+450%
|
10−11
−450%
|
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 65−70
+829%
|
7−8
−829%
|
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 35−40
+429%
|
7−8
−429%
|
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 21−24
+475%
|
4−5
−475%
|
4K
High Preset
| Far Cry 5 | 50−55
+168%
|
18−20
−168%
|
| Far Cry New Dawn | 30−35
+467%
|
6−7
−467%
|
| Hitman 3 | 21−24
+475%
|
4−5
−475%
|
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 30−35
+325%
|
8−9
−325%
|
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 17
+467%
|
3−4
−467%
|
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 29
+480%
|
5−6
−480%
|
4K
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 14
+250%
|
4−5
−250%
|
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 16−18
+433%
|
3−4
−433%
|
| Battlefield 5 | 32
+540%
|
5−6
−540%
|
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 24−27
+500%
|
4−5
−500%
|
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 8−9
+700%
|
1−2
−700%
|
| Forza Horizon 4 | 34
+278%
|
9−10
−278%
|
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 30−35
+325%
|
8−9
−325%
|
| Metro Exodus | 27−30
+250%
|
8−9
−250%
|
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 12−14
+333%
|
3−4
−333%
|
4K
Epic Preset
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 24−27
+213%
|
8−9
−213%
|
This is how GTX 980 and GTX 860M compete in popular games:
- GTX 980 is 230% faster in 900p
- GTX 980 is 154% faster in 1080p
- GTX 980 is 325% faster in 1440p
- GTX 980 is 186% faster in 4K
Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:
- in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, with 1440p resolution and the Ultra Preset, the GTX 980 is 900% faster.
All in all, in popular games:
- Without exception, GTX 980 surpassed GTX 860M in all 72 of our tests.
Pros & cons summary
| Performance score | 28.78 | 7.85 |
| Recency | 19 September 2014 | 12 March 2014 |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 165 Watt | 75 Watt |
The GeForce GTX 980 is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce GTX 860M in performance tests.
Be aware that GeForce GTX 980 is a desktop card while GeForce GTX 860M is a notebook one.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
