GeForce GTX 1080 vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 980, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1126 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1080		21942 points
GeForce GTX 980		13552 points
	Difference: 8390 (62%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 1080		553 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 980		408 Sol/s
	Difference: 145 (36%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 1080		20 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
	Difference: 0 (0%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
GeForce GTX 1080		180 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 1080 will be 46% quicker than the GeForce GTX 980 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		327680 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 103680 (46%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 is much (about 78%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 980. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		257120 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 112992 (78%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1080 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		102848 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30784 (43%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.