Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 & 970: Release Date, price and specs for the new GTX 900 Series graphics cards

Everything you need to know about nVidia's latest GTX 900 graphics cards

By Adam Shepherd | PC Advisor | 19 September 14

Nvidia today unveiled its latest GPUs – the GeForce GTX 980 and 970. Based on the company’s 10th-generation Maxwell chip architecture, they are designed to overcome ‘some of the most complex lighting and graphics challenges in visual computing’.Here's what you need to know about release date price and specs in the UK. See also: Group test: what's the best budget graphics card?

They include a battery of new features that Nvidia are hoping will place them back in the top spot for the next generation of PC gaming. Nvidia has also incorporated support for the growing number of VR devices making their way to market, including the Oculus Rift. See also: AMD Radeon R9 280X vs nVidia GeForce GTX 770 comparison review.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 & 970: Release date

The GeForce GTX 980 and 970 are both available now. However, industry insiders warn that supplies are selling out very quickly due to high demand and popularity. They will be available from card makers including Asus, EVGA, Gainward, Galax, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac.

At time of writing, they are still available at Scan.co.uk, but UK stocks may quickly deplete. Nvidia says other stockists include Overclockers, PC Specialist, CyberPower and Chillblast.Read: Radeon HD 7970 vs GTX 770 graphics card comparison review.

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Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 & 970: Price

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 is aimed at the upper end of the PC gaming market, and is expected to be priced at a fairly hefty £429. The GTX 970, by comparison, is significantly more affordable, with a price tag of £259.

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Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 & 970: Features and specs

The new cards employ nVidia’s new Voxel Global Illumination technology, a technique that nVidia claims will revolutionise graphics by ‘offering real-time, dynamic indirect lighting’, including diffuse and specular lighting and reflections.

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Multi-Frame Anti-Aliasing has also been introduced. This technique claims to offer faster, better-quality anti-aliasing by spreading sample patterns across pixels through both individual and multiple frames.

Another new feature is Dynamic Super Resolution, which renders graphics at resolutions of up to 4K, and then scales them back down to the monitor’s native resolution. This purportedly results in a higher-fidelity experience even when not using a high-end 4K gaming monitor.

The GTX 900 Series has also been developed with virtual reality devices in mind. They offer higher performance and lower latency in order to improve the speed and quality of VR graphics in games on devices such as the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR.

GTX 980 full specs

GTX 980 Engine Specs:
2048 CUDA Cores
1126 Base Clock (MHz)
1216 Boost Clock (MHz)
144 Texture Fill Rate (GigaTexels/sec)

GTX 980 Memory Specs:
7.0 Gbps Memory Clock
4 GB Standard Memory Config
GDDR5 Memory Interface
256-bit Memory Interface Width
224 Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)

GTX 980 Technology Support:
NVIDIA SLI Ready
NVIDIA G-Sync-Ready
NVIDIA GameStream-Ready
GeForce ShadowPlay
NVIDIA GPU Boost 2.0
Dynamic Super Resolution
MFAA
NVIDIA GameWorks
Microsoft DirectX 12API
OpenGL 4.4
CUDA
PCI Express 3.0 Bus Support
Windows 8 & 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Linux, FreeBSD x86OS Certification

Display Support:
4096x2160 Maximum Digital Resolution
2048x1536 Maximum VGA Resolution
Dual Link DVI-I, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort 1.2
Multi Monitor 4 displays
HDCP
HDMI
Internal Audio Input for HDMI

GTX 980 Graphics Card Dimensions:
4.376 inches Height
10.5 inches Length
Dual-width Width

Thermal and Power Specs:
98 CMaximum GPU Tempurature (in C)
165 WGraphics Card Power (W)
500 WMinimum System Power Requirement (W)
2x 6-pins

GTX 970 specs full specs

GTX 970 Engine Specs:1664 CUDA Cores
1050 Base Clock (MHz)
1178 Boost Clock (MHz)
109 Texture Fill Rate (GigaTexels/sec)

GTX 970 Memory Specs:
7.0 Gbps Memory Clock
4 GB Standard Memory Config
GDDR5 Memory Interface
256-bit Memory Interface Width
224 Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)

GTX 970 Technology Support:
NVIDIA SLI Ready
NVIDIA G-Sync-Ready
NVIDIA GameStream-Ready
GeForce ShadowPlay
NVIDIA GPU Boost 2.0
Dynamic Super Resolution
MFAA
NVIDIA GameWorks
Microsoft DirectX 12 API
OpenGL 4.4
CUDA
PCI Express 3.0 Bus Support
Windows 8 & 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Linux, FreeBSD x86OS Certification

Display Support:
4096x2160 Maximum Digital Resolution
2048x1536 Maximum VGA Resolution
Dual Link DVI-I, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort 1.2 Standard Display Connectors
Multi Monitor 4 displays
HDCP
HDMI
Internal Audio Input for HDMI

GTX 970 Graphics Card Dimensions:
4.376 inches Height
10.5 inches Length
Dual-width Width

Thermal and Power Specs:
98 C Maximum GPU Tempurature (in C)
145 W Graphics Card Power (W)
500 W Minimum System Power Requirement (W)
2x 6-pins Supplementary Power Connectors