NVIDIA started GeForce GTX 980M SLI sales 7 October 2014. 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 5 GHz are supplied.

Power consumption is at 200 Watt.

It provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at 24.67% of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.

GeForce RTX4090

Compare

General info

Some basic facts about GeForce GTX 980M SLI: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Place in performance ranking	203
Place by popularity	not in top-100
Value for money	18.80
Architecture	Maxwell (2014−2018)
Market segment	Laptop
Release date	7 October 2014 (9 years old)
Current price	$499	of 168889 (A100 PCIe 80 GB)

Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Technical specs

GeForce GTX 980M SLI's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce GTX 980M SLI's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	3072	of 20480 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)
Core clock speed	1038 MHz	of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT)
Boost clock speed	1127 MHz	of 3599 (Radeon RX 7990 XTX)
Number of transistors	2x 5200 Million	of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile)
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	of 4 (GeForce RTX 4080)
Power consumption (TDP)	200 Watt	of 2400 (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)

Size and compatibility

Information on GeForce GTX 980M SLI'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 980M SLI: 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 192 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Memory bus width	2x 256 Bit	of 19000 (GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB)
Memory clock speed	5000 MHz	of 23000 (GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER)
Shared memory	-

Technologies

Technological solutions and APIs supported by GeForce GTX 980M SLI. You'll probably need this information if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

Optimus

API support

APIs supported by GeForce GTX 980M SLI, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX	12_1
Vulkan	+
CUDA	+

Benchmark performance

Synthetic benchmark performance of GeForce GTX 980M SLI. 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.

GTX 980M SLI 24.67

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%

GTX 980M SLI 47841

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%

GTX 980M SLI 22006

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%

GTX 980M SLI 18632

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%

GTX 980M SLI 124076

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%

GTX 980M SLI 210

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 maya-04

Benchmark coverage: 3%

GTX 980M SLI 81

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 sw-03

Benchmark coverage: 3%

GTX 980M SLI 42

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 snx-02

Benchmark coverage: 3%

GTX 980M SLI 5

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 catia-04

Benchmark coverage: 3%

GTX 980M SLI 40

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 creo-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

GTX 980M SLI 28

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 medical-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

GTX 980M SLI 22

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 showcase-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

GTX 980M SLI 45

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 energy-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

GTX 980M SLI 2

SPECviewperf 12 - Showcase

Benchmark coverage: 2%

GTX 980M SLI 45

SPECviewperf 12 - Maya

This part of SPECviewperf 12 workstation benchmark uses Autodesk Maya 13 engine to render a superhero energy plant static scene consisting of more than 700 thousand polygons, in six different modes.

Benchmark coverage: 2%

GTX 980M SLI 81

SPECviewperf 12 - Catia

Benchmark coverage: 2%

GTX 980M SLI 40

SPECviewperf 12 - Solidworks

Benchmark coverage: 2%

GTX 980M SLI 42

SPECviewperf 12 - Siemens NX

Benchmark coverage: 2%

GTX 980M SLI 5

SPECviewperf 12 - Creo

Benchmark coverage: 2%

GTX 980M SLI 28

SPECviewperf 12 - Medical

Benchmark coverage: 2%

GTX 980M SLI 22

SPECviewperf 12 - Energy

Benchmark coverage: 2%

GTX 980M SLI 2.1

Gaming performance

Let's see how good GeForce GTX 980M SLI 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:

900p	135
Full HD	110

Performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

40−45

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	45−50
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	40−45
Battlefield 5	80−85
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	65−70
Cyberpunk 2077	40−45
Far Cry 5	65−70
Far Cry New Dawn	65−70
Forza Horizon 4	80−85
Hitman 3	70−75
Horizon Zero Dawn	50−55
Red Dead Redemption 2	40−45
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	50−55
Watch Dogs: Legion	45−50

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	45−50
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	40−45
Battlefield 5	80−85
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	65−70
Cyberpunk 2077	40−45
Far Cry 5	65−70
Far Cry New Dawn	65−70
Forza Horizon 4	80−85
Hitman 3	70−75
Horizon Zero Dawn	50−55
Metro Exodus	40−45
Red Dead Redemption 2	40−45
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	50−55
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	55−60
Watch Dogs: Legion	45−50

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	45−50
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	40−45
Battlefield 5	80−85
Cyberpunk 2077	40−45
Far Cry 5	65−70
Far Cry New Dawn	65−70
Forza Horizon 4	80−85
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	55−60
Watch Dogs: Legion	45−50

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	35−40
Hitman 3	40−45
Horizon Zero Dawn	30−35
Metro Exodus	24−27
Red Dead Redemption 2	18−20
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	30−35

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	27−30
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	55−60
Cyberpunk 2077	16−18
Far Cry 5	40−45
Far Cry New Dawn	45−50
Forza Horizon 4	50−55
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	27−30
Watch Dogs: Legion	18−20

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	18−20
Hitman 3	21−24
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18
Metro Exodus	14−16
Red Dead Redemption 2	12−14
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	16−18
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	27−30

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	16−18
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	12−14
Battlefield 5	27−30
Cyberpunk 2077	6−7
Far Cry 5	21−24
Far Cry New Dawn	24−27
Forza Horizon 4	35−40
Watch Dogs: Legion	10−12

Relative perfomance

Overall GeForce GTX 980M SLI performance compared to nearest competitors among notebook video cards.

GeForce RTX 3050 6GB Mobile 101.26

GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile 101.26

GeForce RTX 3050 4GB Mobile 100.61

GeForce GTX 980M SLI 100

GeForce GTX 970M SLI 98.14

Arc A550M 95.99

RTX A1000 Mobile 93.43

AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce GTX 980M SLI is Radeon RX 6550M, which is slower by 7% and lower by 20 positions in our ranking.