you know how every time there's a new graphics card released that doesn't
quite perform up to the expectations of the fans of graphics card maker a or
graphics card maker b the immediate responses will um 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 and 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 uh
here's a great example where NVIDIA brought dsr support to fermi-based
graphics cards like our 480 over four years after the product's 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 micro architecture being used
similar to how developers will unlock more of a game console's potential over
time so let me introduce you to our methodology we used our standard test
bench a core i7 5930k with 16 gigs of ddr4 memory on ASUS x99 deluxe
motherboard because while that hardware didn't exist at all at the time that
people were buying gtx 480s 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 two aaa 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 aaa titles far cry 4 and witcher
3 to see if the owners who sometimes go to great length to obtain their graphics
cards right on launch day can expect better performance not only in the games
that are being actively optimized 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 to 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 better smooth at 60 FPS in our second game just cause 2 owners of gtx
480s 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
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 jump
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 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'd 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 sent you Linus army unite
so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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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 right