GeForce GTX 980
Nvidia graphics card · GeForce 900 series · launched September 2014
Check the price on AmazonAffiliate link. Street prices move; the figures on this page are launch prices.
Launch price in today's dollars
The GeForce GTX 980 launched at $549 in 2014. Adjusted with the U.S. Consumer Price Index, that is about $767 in 2026 dollars (7-month average), a 40% rise over 12 years. At its launch price that is 54 Blender points per $100.
Method: launch price × (CPI 2026 average ÷ CPI 2014 average), calendar-year averages of BLS series CPIAUCSL. 2026 covers 7 months so far.
Blender rendering score
Median score 296 (middle half of runs 278–354) across 18 community runs on Blender 4.x with the OPTIX backend. That is #88 of 103 graphics cards in our dataset with a score, and #3 of 6 in the GeForce 900 series.
This is a rendering benchmark (samples per minute over the monster, junkshop and classroom scenes), not a gaming benchmark. It says how fast the part renders in Blender's Cycles engine and nothing about frame rates. Source: Blender Open Data, CC0, snapshot 2026-09-06.
Specifications
| Vendor | Nvidia |
|---|---|
| Series | GeForce 900 series |
| Launched | September 2014 |
| Launch price | $549 |
| Architecture | Maxwell |
| Chip | GM204-400-A1 |
| Memory | 4 GB |
| Memory type | GDDR5 |
| Memory bus | 256-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 224.4 GB/s |
| Core clock | 1,127 MHz (boost 1,216 MHz) |
| FP32 compute | 4.98 TFLOPS |
| Rated power | 165 W (TDP) |
| Transistors | 5.2 billion |
| Die size | 398 mm² |
| Tier | 80-class |
The Nvidia 80-class over time
Nvidia graphics cards in the same tier around this one, oldest first, re-releases left out. Prices in launch dollars and in 2026 dollars; scores are Blender 4.x medians where they exist.
| Part | Year | Launch price | In 2026 $ | Blender |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce 9800 GT Rebrand | 2008 | $159 | $244 | — |
| GeForce GTX 285 | 2009 | $359 | $554 | — |
| GeForce GTX 285 X2 | 2009 | $1,399 | $2,157 | — |
| GeForce GTX 480 | 2010 | $499 | $757 | — |
| GeForce GTX 580 | 2010 | $499 | $757 | — |
| GeForce GTX 680 | 2012 | $499 | $719 | — |
| GeForce GTX 780 | 2013 | $649 | $922 | — |
| GeForce GTX 780 Ti | 2013 | $699 | $993 | — |
| GeForce GTX 980 | 2014 | $549 | $767 | 296 |
| GeForce GTX 980 Ti | 2015 | $649 | $906 | 505 |
| GeForce GTX 1080 | 2016 | $599 | $826 | 577 |
| GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | 2017 | $699 | $944 | 828 |
| GeForce RTX 2080 | 2018 | $699 | $921 | 2,236 |
| GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | 2018 | $999 | $1,316 | 2,835 |
| GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER | 2019 | $699 | $905 | 2,321 |
| GeForce RTX 3080 | 2020 | $699 | $893 | 4,516 |
Compare with
- GeForce GTX 970 · 2014 · $329 · 257
- GeForce GTX 760 X2 · 2013 · $600
- GeForce GTX 780 · 2013 · $649
- GeForce GTX 780 Rev. 2 · 2013 · $649
- GeForce GTX 780 Ti · 2013 · $699
- GeForce GTX 980 Ti · 2015 · $649 · 505
- GeForce GTX TITAN · 2013 · $999 · 380
- Radeon R9 290X · 2013 · $549
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