Possibility of 4K gaming appeared not so long ago and hard-core gamers are already all over it. Why wouldn’t they be, considering that UHD allows experiencing your favorite games in much more details, revealing elements that weren’t previously noticeable. Apart from that, the very possibility to enjoy eye-candy graphics was a longtime dream for the majority of gamers, however all GPUs that previously existed were capable of producing only disappointingly low refresh rates that rendered gaming in 4K resolution impossible at that period of time.

Everything changed with the appearance of GPUs that are powerful enough to provide 60 fps or even more if you tweak some of your game settings from “ultra” to “high”. Absolute leaders among GPUs for 4K gaming are currently GeForce GTX 980 Ti and Radeon FURY X, which is why we will compare the two to find out which one is the best. It must also be noted that we’re talking about 4K gaming on UHD monitors that are connected to GPUs through DisplayPort. The majority of 4K TVs simply don’t have this type of input, which is why you’ll be stuck with only option of using HDMI that is unable to provide refresh rates over 30 fps even if you’re using the updated HDMI 2.0 version.

GeForce GTX 980 Ti

Which manufacturer to choose?
At the moment you can find multitude of GTX 980Ti modifications, however all of them are manufactured by three companies: MSI, EVGA and NVidia. For US players it makes sense to buy the EVGA versions as the manufacturer offers an abundance of perks(for example free games) if you make up your mind to shell out around $650 -$700 for its product. For the rest of the world – there actually isn’t much difference.


Depending on modification, one model can be better than another by a hair. Some gamers consider Nvidia to be more efficient (for instance WINDFORCE 3X cooling system modification),but others are practically in love with liquid cooling models. So if by the end of this article you decide that GTX 980 Ti is the one for you – just grab the best deal you’ll find, all three manufacturers are reliable and provide excellent customer support.

GTX 980 Ti Specs

GTX 980 Ti can boast the impressive 6 GB of memory. Of course, some may argue that AMD RadeonR9 295X2 has 8 GB of memory, but keep in mind that it’s a dual-GPU, while 980Ti is a single GPU. Its memory clock speed can reach up to 7100 MHz, it has 8 billion transistors and a superb cooling system, whether its air or in-build water-cooling. Another benefit of GTX 980Ti is an abundance of the necessary connectors: 3 DisplayPorts1.2, HDMI and Dual Link DVI-I. One card can support up to 4 displays and that’s no wonder, considering that its maximum digital resolution is 5120x3200 if you use dual DisplayPort connectors.

Radeon FURY X

AMD entrance to high-end GPUs market
Previous couple of years have been a period of relevant stagnation for AMD. Company mainly focused on affordable GPUs production, not willing to compete for the high-end market with its main rival NVidia. Nevertheless, the recently developed Fiji GPU company got a real shot at soaring to the top in one leap. AMD has always inspired gamers with its ability to make technological wonders with very little, which why Radeon cooling systems FURY X can truly be considered a marvelous and decent claim at the top of high-end GPUs market. Considering that Fury X appeared at the time when the only real competitor was unbelievably expensive NVidia’s Titan X, Fury X would have fitted quite nicely in the 4K and virtual reality niche being the obvious choice in terms of capacity and price.


Alas, NVidia released its 980 Ti just a couple of weeks after Fury X release and placed a price tag, equal to Fury X. Nevertheless, AMD has its devoted following and the amazingly fast Fury X is still considered one of the primary choices of high-end GPUs for 4K gaming and virtual reality rigs.

Radeon FURY X Specs

The obvious gem of Fury X is the innovative water-cooled design that most likely attracted attention of modders. Apart from that, it has even more transistors that GTX980 Ti – 8.9 billion. However, in terms of memory it loses, as it has only 4GB. Fury X can also boast 4096 stream processors and shows more than decent results during benchmark testing. Just like GTX 98 Ti is has 3 DisplayPort connectors and one HDMI, however it’s HDMI 1.4, not 2.0 version like in 980 Ti. It also lacks DVI-I.


Bottom line:
Despite the fact that both GPUs show great results during benchmark testing, GTX 980 Ti wins due to the larger memory capacity and ability to consistently support UHD gaming at 60 fps. Nevertheless, if the games you’re playing in 4K do not require constant 60 fps or more, or in case you scale to 1080 – Fury X does its job perfectly.