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.

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking	224
Place by popularity	not in top-100
Power efficiency	8.44	of 100.00 (Radeon 890M)
Architecture	Maxwell (2014−2017)
Market segment	Laptop
Release date	7 October 2014 (10 years ago)

Detailed specifications

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 21760 (GeForce RTX 5090)
Core clock speed	1038 MHz	of 2670 MHz (Arc B580)
Boost clock speed	1127 MHz	of 3599 MHz (Radeon RX 7990 XTX)
Number of transistors	2x 5200 Million	of 208,000 million (B200 SXM 192 GB)
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	of 3 nm (Arc Graphics 140V)
Power consumption (TDP)	200 Watt	of 2400 Watt (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)

Form factor & compatibility

This section provides details about the physical dimensions of GeForce GTX 980M SLI and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).

Laptop size	large
SLI options	+

VRAM capacity and type

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 294912 (Radeon Instinct MI325X)
Memory bus width	2x 256 Bit	of 8192 Bit (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed	5000 MHz	of 20000 (RTX 5000 Ada Generation Mobile)
Shared memory	-

Supported 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 compatibility

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 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 24.61

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.

GTX 980M SLI 22006

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.

GTX 980M SLI 47841

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.

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.

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.

GTX 980M SLI 210

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 maya-04

GTX 980M SLI 81

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 sw-03

GTX 980M SLI 42

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 snx-02

GTX 980M SLI 5

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 catia-04

GTX 980M SLI 40

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 creo-01

GTX 980M SLI 28

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 medical-01

GTX 980M SLI 22

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 showcase-01

GTX 980M SLI 45

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 energy-01

GTX 980M SLI 2

SPECviewperf 12 - Showcase

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.

GTX 980M SLI 81

SPECviewperf 12 - Catia

GTX 980M SLI 40

SPECviewperf 12 - Solidworks

GTX 980M SLI 42

SPECviewperf 12 - Siemens NX

GTX 980M SLI 5

SPECviewperf 12 - Creo

GTX 980M SLI 28

SPECviewperf 12 - Medical

GTX 980M SLI 22

SPECviewperf 12 - Energy

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

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

40−45

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	50−55
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	40−45
Battlefield 5	80−85
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	50−55
Cyberpunk 2077	40−45
Far Cry 5	55−60
Far Cry New Dawn	65−70
Forza Horizon 4	140−150
Hitman 3	50−55
Horizon Zero Dawn	110−120
Metro Exodus	85−90
Red Dead Redemption 2	60−65
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	80−85
Watch Dogs: Legion	100−110

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	50−55
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	40−45
Battlefield 5	80−85
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	50−55
Cyberpunk 2077	40−45
Far Cry 5	55−60
Far Cry New Dawn	65−70
Forza Horizon 4	140−150
Hitman 3	50−55
Horizon Zero Dawn	110−120
Metro Exodus	85−90
Red Dead Redemption 2	60−65
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	80−85
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	50−55
Watch Dogs: Legion	100−110

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	50−55
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	40−45
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	50−55
Cyberpunk 2077	40−45
Far Cry 5	55−60
Forza Horizon 4	140−150
Hitman 3	50−55
Horizon Zero Dawn	110−120
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	80−85
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	50−55
Watch Dogs: Legion	100−110

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

60−65

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	45−50
Far Cry New Dawn	35−40

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	24−27
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	27−30
Cyberpunk 2077	16−18
Far Cry 5	27−30
Forza Horizon 4	140−150
Hitman 3	30−33
Horizon Zero Dawn	50−55
Metro Exodus	45−50
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	50−55
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	30−33
Watch Dogs: Legion	140−150

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

40−45

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5	24−27
Far Cry New Dawn	18−20
Hitman 3	18−20
Horizon Zero Dawn	120−130
Metro Exodus	27−30
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	27−30

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	14−16
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	12−14
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	14−16
Cyberpunk 2077	6−7
Far Cry 5	14−16
Forza Horizon 4	30−35
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	30−33
Watch Dogs: Legion	10−12

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

21−24

Closest competitors

GeForce GTX 980M SLI's performance relative to its closest rivals among notebook graphics cards.

GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q 102.89

GeForce RTX 3050 6GB Mobile 102.11

Radeon RX 6550M 101.3

GeForce GTX 980M SLI 100

Arc A550M 99.59

GeForce RTX 3050 4GB Mobile 99.51

GeForce GTX 970M SLI 99.15

AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce GTX 980M SLI is Radeon RX 6550M, which is faster by 1% and higher by 8 positions in our ranking.