GTX 980Ti finally launched - MSRP $649 - Reviews

[badb0y]

I used MSI Afterburner to overclock and now my card is boosting to 1472 Mhz no sweat.

 

[2is]

I used MSI Afterburner to overclock and now my card is boosting to 1472 Mhz no sweat.

Is it able to hold that boost?

 

[badb0y]

Is it able to hold that boost?

4 hours of Witcher 3 says yes. I used OSD to monitor my temperaturs/usage/clocks.

 

[2is]

Very nice, did you use a custom fan profile?

 

[badb0y]

Very nice, did you use a custom fan profile?

Kind of, in MSI Afterburner I set my temperature target at 83 degrees Celsius but I kept the fan on auto.

 

[MrK6]

I used MSI Afterburner to overclock and now my card is boosting to 1472 Mhz no sweat.

Great overclock! Looking forward to seeing more results. :thumbsup:

Other thoughts: Kind of makes the 980 at anything more than $450 a joke IMO. Overall nice package, but I'll wait to see aftermarket before I decide to buy.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Newegg has a few reference models in stock accoring to nowinstock.net. Confirmed as I just ordered the asus reference model.

 

[alcoholbob]

Meh @ Newegg tax. $715 is too much for these cards. I'll wait until Tigerdirect stops gouging and I'll use my 10% off coupon. Then I can grab em for around $541 each with Discover discount/Fatwallet Cash + TD Coupon.

 

[flem]

...
Looks like EVGA put the least amount of work into their new lineup this round. Very disappointing especially after they completely dropped the ball last gen with GTX970/980 series. Their Classified 980 cards suffered from poor voltage control and couldn't overclock that well with higher voltage.

I also read the EVGA GTX 980 FTW had voltage issues. I am really torn!!! EVGA has significantly more customer reviews AND an overall better rating on the GTX 980 versus Asus, Gigabyte, and etc. I was leaning towards the EVGA GTX 980 Ti HYBRID but now I don't know what to get?!?!? I liked the Hybrid option since the many 980 owners complained about "coil whine". The Asus Strix 980 ti looks promising but not if it also has coil whine. Any suggestions? Primarily I want a STABLE card. Secondly I want one that isn't going to be too loud.

 

[MrTeal]

I also read the EVGA GTX 980 FTW had voltage issues. I am really torn!!! EVGA has significantly more customer reviews AND an overall better rating on the GTX 980 versus Asus, Gigabyte, and etc. I was leaning towards the EVGA GTX 980 Ti HYBRID but now I don't know what to get?!?!? I liked the Hybrid option since the many 980 owners complained about "coil whine". The Asus Strix 980 ti looks promising but not if it also has coil whine. Any suggestions? Primarily I want a STABLE card. Secondly I want one that isn't going to be too loud.

Coil whine has nothing to do with the cooling. It is the coils of the VRM physically vibrating due to the currents running through them.

 

[iiiankiii]

I used MSI Afterburner to overclock and now my card is boosting to 1472 Mhz no sweat.

WOW. 1472MHZ on the stock blower in SLI without throttle? That's pretty impressive. How loud is the fan? What's the RPM and %? Something tells me the fan is pretty "loud" at those clocks.

 

[RaulF]

WOW. 1472MHZ on the stock blower in SLI without throttle? That's pretty impressive. How loud is the fan? What's the RPM and %? Something tells me the fan is pretty "loud" at those clocks.

I would say that might depend on the chip right? I mean if he got a good sample with not much leakage it might not run too hot and keeping the fan from going too crazy.

 

[iiiankiii]

I would say that might depend on the chip right? I mean if he got a good sample with not much leakage it might not run too hot and keeping the fan from going too crazy.

Yeah, that's why I said it was very impressive. He must have a very special chip (two of them b/c of the SLI) to be able to maintain that clock with the cards squeezed that closely together without having the fan curve go wild. To me, anything over 50% fan speed is loud.

 

[RaulF]

Yeah, that's why I said it was very impressive. He must have a very special chip (two of them b/c of the SLI) to be able to maintain that clock with the cards squeezed that closely together without having the fan curve go wild. To me, anything over 50% fan speed is loud.

To me it depends. It is true that the Nvidia blower is superior to AMD's. I know over 50% on the AMD blower is loud, the Nvidia one you can hear it, but i like the phrase someone else use before "kinder noise".

 

[badb0y]

WOW. 1472MHZ on the stock blower in SLI without throttle? That's pretty impressive. How loud is the fan? What's the RPM and %? Something tells me the fan is pretty "loud" at those clocks.

Nah, it's not in SLI, it's a single card. I couldn't find any additional stock on the day that I bought my GTX 980 Ti but messing around with it today I think I am going to hold off on SLI for now and maybe pick up another one later on.

As for the heat, I set my temperature target at 83 degrees Celsius and it does get loud but not unbearable.

 

[moonbogg]

Got them in. I'll say that even with a single 980ti, even though FPS was kind of similar to 670SLI is some situations, the 980ti felt much smoother. 670's had hitching and skipping issues, likely due to Vram crapping out. I benched what I had time for. Maybe I'll do Crysis 3 and others later. Pics first, a little GPU pron, and then the benchies. Sorry, no fancy graphs. I rushed this to get it done. See firestrike comparisons as well. Ran in standard free demo mode. SLI enabled for both runs with 670's and 980ti's.

BF4 was benched on 64 players servers, active and nearly full. Settings for both games were totally maxed with 4XAA. Far Cry 4 was all Ultra with 4XAA as well. Far Cry 4 was done with a repeatable run through for more consistency. BF4 was repeated in the same areas, but its multiplayer, so this gives you a real world result but not scientific of course, none of the tests were exactly repeated, so there will be some margin or error.

Drivers updated just tonight. Using latest. No overclocks. All stock. CPU at 4.3ghz as shown in sig.

Ugly, but it works!

bf4 (670 sli) paracel
Avg: 72.855 - Min: 43 - Max: 99

bf4 (980ti single) paracel
Avg: 81.046 - Min: 64 - Max: 115

bf4 (980ti sli) paracel
Avg: 124.492 - Min: 96 - Max: 145



FarCry4 (670 sli)
Avg: 46.617 - Min: 27 - Max: 67

FarCry4 (980ti single)
Avg: 48.951 - Min: 39 - Max: 72

FarCry4 (980ti sli)
Avg: 85.060 - Min: 67 - Max: 112


Very badass cards. Love them. Looking forward to giving them a small OC and checking temps, trying other games and all that. WOOT! Over 100% increase. Not bad.

 

[RaulF]

Jesus! that is ugly. Kill it with fire (but before pull up the cards and send them to me)

 

[Cloudfire777]

Zotac out with a GTX 980Ti with 25% overclock

https://www.techpowerup.com/213057/...tx-980-ti-a-massive-25-factory-overclock.html

MSI and Corsair teaming up to build a hybrid water cooled GTX 980Ti. Keep these coming
http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/news/article.php?storyid=12563

 

[antihelten]

bf4 (670 sli) paracel
Avg: 72.855 - Min: 43 - Max: 99

bf4 (980ti single) paracel
Avg: 81.046 - Min: 64 - Max: 115

bf4 (980ti sli) paracel
Avg: 124.492 - Min: 96 - Max: 145



FarCry4 (670 sli)
Avg: 46.617 - Min: 27 - Max: 67

FarCry4 (980ti single)
Avg: 48.951 - Min: 39 - Max: 72

FarCry4 (980ti sli)
Avg: 85.060 - Min: 67 - Max: 112


Very badass cards. Love them. Looking forward to giving them a small OC and checking temps, trying other games and all that. WOOT! Over 100% increase. Not bad.

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but as far as I can tell that's not an over 100% increase, but rather a 70-80% increase?

 

[RussianSensation]

Any suggestions? Primarily I want a STABLE card. Secondly I want one that isn't going to be too loud.

Yes, wait for professional reviews for noise levels, including videos of cards at 50% and 100% fan speeds. These will be available at Computerbase.de for sure. As far as how stable and overclockable a card is, user feedback is the most helpful since it was from actual users that we found out about some of the issues with early GTX980 Classifieds.

I would say Gigabyte G1 Gaming 980Ti, Zotac AMP! GTX980Ti Extreme and MSI Gaming 980Ti should be at the top of your list for cool and quiet 980Tis without breaking the bank. Both the Gigabyte G1 and MSI Gaming G6 will turn off the fans completely up to 65*C. I skipped suggesting you the Asus Strix because their U.S. RMA is a disaster in case your card goes bad > 30 days. I would look at Asus cards last for that reason but of course if Asus happens to be a monster overclocker, that could change things.

If you want the best balance of 2D and 3D noise levels, especially if you consider overclocking and you still desire lower temperatures do not get the reference card. As far as EVGA Hybrid 980Ti goes, JaysTwoCents will have the world's first online video review - exclusively on YouTube. So be on the look out for that as that card has a chance to hit 1.58-1.6Ghz. His 980 Hybrid did.

Very badass cards. Love them. Looking forward to giving them a small OC and checking temps, trying other games and all that. WOOT! Over 100% increase. Not bad.

Nice, congrats!

BTW, you did mention that a single 980Ti felt smoother than 670 SLI which shouldn't be that suprrising but did you test 670 SLI with GSync on as well or only the 980Ti because it would make sense to have an apples-to-apples GSync comparison or otherwise you'd be favouring hte 980Ti too much by giving it GSync

Also, with your 144Hz monitor, there is a chance your 3930K is holding back 10% or so of our cards' potential. I think an i7 6700K @ 4.8Ghz would give you that 10% increase, maybe more when it comes to minimum frames. (IVB -> Haswell let's say 8% increase in IPC, then let's say 15% with Skylake and let's say you get 4.8Ghz overclock on Skylake vs. your IVB's 4.3Ghz -> theoretical increase of nearly 40%. Of course it won't translate linearly like that to games but you should get a boost. With $1,300 worth of cards, it's thinking point that your CPU platform may be holding you back).

 

[amenx]

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but as far as I can tell that's not an over 100% increase, but rather a 70-80% increase?

The minimums are over a 100%... so that probably is the more meaningful gain.

 

[Fire&Blood]

As far as EVGA Hybrid 980Ti goes, JaysTwoCents will have the world's first online video review - exclusively on YouTube. So be on the look out for that as that card has a chance to hit 1.58-1.6Ghz. His 980 Hybrid did.

That's the video I'm waiting for.

If there is any doubt 980TI SLI can do 4K, going past 1.5GHz should remove it.

 

[guskline]

moonbogg: First thank you for the test results and CONGRATS. What monster gpus. Those of us who are honest are jealous and drooling.

I just fired up 3dMark Firestrike and got the scores for my rig below. cpu is at 4.4Ghz but gpus are stock (1000 core/1300 memory).

Sorry for no pictures but I'm lousy at uploading the photos

Overall score =17042
Graphics=21683
Physics=20319
Combined=5986

I also checked my result logs when I had these cards in my 3930k rig at 4.6Ghz and here are the results:

Overall=16673
Graphics=21752
Physics=16514
Combined=6093

This gives you an idea of how really powerful your new gpu combo is. WOW!

 

[guskline]

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but as far as I can tell that's not an over 100% increase, but rather a 70-80% increase?

Still, one HUGE increase.

 

[antihelten]

Still, one HUGE increase.

Absolutely