10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

A mid to low level graphics card, the GeForce GTX 980 4GB is found in budget machines nowadays, struggling to meet AAA system requirements.

Capable of running games with up to a DirectX 12 requirement.

Here is a quick game performance synopsis for the AAA games played in 2021. In particular we focus on how well the GeForce GTX 980 4GB runs at Ultra graphics settings and what frames per second it is getting at 1080p, 1440p and 4K monitor resolutions. 497 games can be played by this graphics card of the 1000 most demanding games being played by PC gamers today.

Running at 1080p this card gets a reasonable frame rate from Days Gone with 49 FPS on Ultra. Then we take a look at Battlefield 2042 which is predicted to return a playable 28 FPS. Another title that we looked at is the popular Dying Light 2 which we predict will get a playable 28 FPS.

Moving screen sizes up to 1440p we ran Days Gone on the GeForce GTX 980 4GB to see that it got a playable set of frame rates. Here are the low to ultra results at 1440p - L: 98FPS, M: 77FPS, H: 52FPS, U: 37FPS. Another popular game to investigate at 1440p with this card was Battlefield 2042 which we predicted will be weak in performance netting an Ultra FPS of 21 FPS. Finally we then took a look at Dying Light 2 where its predicted Ultra 1440p Frame rates were weak at 21 FPS. Getting popular modern games to run at 1440p on the GeForce GTX 980 4GB is a reasonable performance fit for this resolution. Some of the more resource intensive games may well need a few graphical tweak to get the most out of the graphics card at this increased resolution.

How many years will the GeForce GTX 980 4GB graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the GeForce GTX 980 4GB in your PC? This GeForce GTX 980 4GB card has 12 to 18 months of latest AAA game play left in it before upgrading should be considered

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the GeForce GTX 980 4GB? If you are thinking of upgrading this graphics card then we would currently suggest the 20 Series GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q. This PC hardware upgrade performs 35% better and can run 827 of today’s 1000 most demanding PC games.