Gadgetory

you know how every time there's a new graphics card release that doesn't quite perform up to the expectations of the fans of graphics card maker a or graphics card maker B the immediate response is will the drivers haven't matured yet so um yeah it's gonna be like way better later we decided to quantify using our trusty GTX 480 just how well NVIDIA supports its products and therefore its customers in the long term actually we've got another really cool graphic centric video coming soon so slam that like button if you want to know how the gtx 980m stacks up against the GTX 980 in a truly apples-to-apples comparison with both running the same desktop 4790k processor wowza so let's start by saying that there are a number of ways that graphics card manufacturers can support end-of-life products they can add new features here's a great example where Nvidia brought DSR support to Fermi based graphics cards like our four eighty over four years after the products release they can address compatibility issues whether it's a rendering bug in a new game or a new operating system that requires a specific driver for your older hardware to work or and this is the one we'll be focused on today since it's the easiest to empirically measure they can improve performance of the product over time as their driver team gets better acquainted with the microarchitecture being used similar to how developers will unlock more of a game consoles potential over time so let me introduce you to our methodology we used our standard test bench a core i7 59 30 K with 16 gigs of DDR 4 memory on the Zeus x99 deluxe motherboard because while that hardware didn't exist at all at the time that people were buying GTX 480 s we wanted to eliminate potential bottlenecks and avoid changing any variables other than the one being tested which is the graphics card driver we ran through a limited but hopefully fairly representative test suite of games at 1080p to triple-a titles that were current when the GTX 480 came out just cause 2 and metro 2033 to see if there's any improvement in those and then two more modern triple-a titles far cry 4 and Witcher 3 to see if the owners who sometimes go to great lengths to obtain their graphics cards right on launch day can expect better performance not only in the games that are being actively optimised but also in future hypothetical games that will definitely be awesome and not disappointing ever which brings us to the last key piece of the puzzle the drivers we picked out five drivers ranging from a month after the release of the GTX 480 so April 2010 - the most current driver as of August 20th 2015 with a span of approximately 16 months in between each of them so then how did Nvidia do well in our first game metro 2033 there doesn't appear to be a strong argument for waiting for driver improvements to get better performance out of your graphics card I mean yes that's a 10% improvement which isn't insignificant when you consider that we base our initial purchase decisions off of less at times but for a demanding game like this it isn't going to be the difference between it limping along and running butter smooth at 60fps in our second game just cause to owners of GTX 480 s got a 16% performance improvement just from waiting 16 months with an additional 10% for waiting another 16 months for a total of over 25 percent from there whether it's because the software team had just extracted as much as they could from the hardware or whether they were simply focused on newer things the improvements taper off but not shabby in Far Cry 4 our first modern title we gained some insight into the optimization process for older cards with the 2014 driver outperforming the 2010 driver by an excellent 20% but interesting note here while a game ready driver was released for far cry 4 later on that year at least for this older card it doesn't appear to have been focused on performance when we jumped forward to our 2015 driver and see that it performs exactly the same finally we get to witcher 3 more evidence for what looks like it's ultimately the conclusion here the improvements being made to your older graphics card seem to come pretty fast and hard in the first three years after release a massive 30 percent for Witcher 3 by the way with support beyond that being more focused on bug fixes and compatibility enhancements which doesn't mean they aren't there I mean seeing the same piece of hardware change so much we're talking measurably and often noticeably to the naked eye better gaming experiences over its usable lifespan is pretty darn impressive which I guess leads us pretty well into the inspiration for today's how have they supported us over the years episode a video that TD Bank made about how they surprised some of their customers with a beautiful look back at the important milestones and changes that they've gone through since first opening their accounts at TD Bank they're actually finding this out for the first time when they're watching this video but my parents actually co-signed and helped me open my first bank account when I was 11 at Canada Trust which merged with TD Bank back in 2000 and while that video is definitely a touch sentimental it really made me reflect back on everything that I've gone through in that time so give it a watch by clicking the little I in the top right corner or at the link in the video description and drop a comment on that video letting them know who Sencha linus army unite so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome again subscribe hit that like button or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon instructions up there buying a cool t-shirt like this one or with the direct monthly contribution through our community forum now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right corner to check out this wicked video where I give away a sick top-of-the-line gaming rig