GTX 980Ti finally launched - MSRP $649 - Reviews

[Silverforce11]

who sticks the ear on the "edge of the motherboard" anyway?

I think that makes no sense at all. Zip

You probably never had the displeasure of enduring reference R290/X blowers in action.

Let me assure you, anything above that is LOL-worthy.

Edit: Blowers fall flat above 250W. For such expensive GPUs, people should really expect better.

 

[RussianSensation]

You probably never had the displeasure of enduring reference R290/X blowers in action.

Let me assure you, anything above that is LOL-worthy.

Edit: Blowers fall flat above 250W. For such expensive GPUs, people should really expect better.

Even on a reference overclocked 980, the blower was already performing every poorly, think in the neighbourhood of a reference HD6970/7970 blower, which is universally criticized. I guess some gamers are OK with loud reference blowers, if they are made by NV.

I am pretty sure anyone who used an MSI Gaming 970/980 wouldn't touch a reference 980/980Ti/780/780Ti/Titan/Titan Black with a 30-foot pole.

 

[flopper]

Loud powerhungry why do people buy nvidia?

 

[Silverforce11]

I owned a reference 7970 (for mining), it wasn't that loud, in a closed case, very tolerable. It wasn't until the 7970Ghz and R290/X that it became ridiculously noisy. So any modern graphics card putting out MORE noise than that is not fun to be around.

If you got a 980Ti or Titan X and want to OC, put in on water.

 

[3DVagabond]

What? Are you now defending above R9 290X reference sound levels on an overclocked reference 980Ti? I am pretty sure someone who pays $1300 USD for dual 980Ti cards finds this unacceptable. I know I would. For a $650 card, this cooler is worthless for overclocking, sorry. It's just as bad as the reference 290X that everyone ripped apart.

I want you to go to this video on this page, turn up your speakers and tell me that's acceptable for a $650 videocard:

http://www.computerbase.de/2015-06/geforce-gtx-980-ti-test-nvidia-titan/8/

That's only at 52% fan speed, not 70% or even 100%. That's a disaster for a flagship videocard for anyone who doesn't game with closed headphones or noise cancelling IEMs.

Pretty funny, isn't it? I guess it shows that GM200 requires an AIO.

 

[SirPauly]

What? Are you now defending above R9 290X reference sound levels on an overclocked reference 980Ti? I am pretty sure someone who pays $1300 USD for dual 980Ti cards finds this unacceptable. I know I would. For a $650 card, this cooler is worthless for overclocking, sorry. It's just as bad as the reference 290X that everyone ripped apart.

I want you to go to this video on this page, turn up your speakers and tell me that's acceptable for a $650 videocard:

http://www.computerbase.de/2015-06/geforce-gtx-980-ti-test-nvidia-titan/8/

That's only at 52% fan speed, not 70% or even 100%. That's a disaster for a flagship videocard for anyone who doesn't game with closed headphones or noise cancelling IEMs.

If someone desires to have a more ideal OC experience, there is AIB differentiation choice -- the reference 290x quiet wasn't a disaster -- default uber may of been aggressive for the cooler to defeat Titan performance.

 

[guskline]

moonbogg: First I'm in awe at the power of the dual 980Tis!

I opted to go full bore custom watercooling when I had my 3930k and it has served me well jumping to the 5960x, especially with overclocking ability. In addition to the cpu I knew I was most likely running dual gpus and watercooling really helps when overclocking comes into play - just look at the 980TI hybrid.

In my case, eventhough I bought Sapphire Tri-X R9 290s (bought them slightly used for great prices!) with excellent air coolers, I could keep them real cool and OC them with custom blocks.

I don't know what kind of case you have but with an OC'd 3930k and 2 980TIs if you opt for a custom water cooled setup you could really jack up the speeds and keep the temps AND noise way low.

Obviously some $$$ is involved. You can ditch the Corsair H80 and easily bump the 3930k to 4.5Ghz with reasonable temps (mine ran at 4,6Ghz 24/7 rock solid) AND water cool the 980 TIs in the same loop. EK's Titan X blocks fit perfectly. You should easily be able to run the 980TI hybrid speeds.

My ownly warning is that custom watercooling becomes EXTREMELY addictive ( and expensive).

Just a thought from an admitted water cooling guy.

 

[omeds]

Realistically the reference blower isn't too bad. I could use it without issue. I've owned reference 580's, 680's, 780's, 5870's, 4870's, 7970's, and by all accounts the Ti is quieter than those cards. It's barely louder than 295x2..

OC'd it produces less noise than a stock 290 in "quiet" mode.. "q-u-i-e-t" mode. Or stock 7970, stock 680, or stock 580. They were all not bad. In fact, it's almost the quietest flagship card in a number of generations.. Perhaps the last decade!

Storm in a teacup, move along.

 

[exar333]

Realistically the reference blower isn't too bad. I could use it without issue. I've owned reference 580's, 680's, 780's, 5870's, 4870's, 7970's, and by all accounts the Ti is quieter than those cards. It's barely louder than 295x2..

OC'd it produces less noise than a stock 290 in "quiet" mode.. "q-u-i-e-t" mode. Or stock 7970, stock 680, or stock 580. They were all not bad. In fact, it's almost the quietest flagship card in a number of generations.. Perhaps the last decade!

Storm in a teacup, move along.

Agree. Overclocking on reference coolers has always been rather loud. Thats why custom cards exist...

Reference cards should be adequate for stock speeds and stock boosts. It is like complaining about how loud a CPU stock fan is when overclocking....it wasn't designed for that...

 

[Silverforce11]

OC'd it produces less noise than a stock 290 in "quiet" mode.. "q-u-i-e-t" mode.

290 reference doesn't have a quiet mode. It only has one mode, 47% fan speed. Which is loud.

Reference R290X has quiet, 40% and uber 55%. Uber is very loud.

http://anandtech.com/show/7481/the-amd-radeon-r9-290-review/15

http://anandtech.com/show/7601/sapphire-radeon-r9-290-review-our-first-custom-cooled-290/4

I also owned a reference 5800 series, 7970, & GTX670 all were quieter than the R290. The 5800 was very quiet in comparison. OC 980Ti louder than R290 and approaching R290X Uber isn't quiet unless you are deaf.

 

[Face2Face]

Is the GTX 780 reference cooler any or much different vs. the GTX 980 Ti reference cooler? Back when I had my reference 780, I thought noise levels for a blower card were very acceptable. At 75% fan speed it was just as loud as my HD 7950 with a Arctic Accelero HSF @ 100% - which is known to be fairly quiet. The cooler on my reference 7970 Ghz Edition is much louder by comparison.

 

[moonbogg]

moonbogg: First I'm in awe at the power of the dual 980Tis!

I opted to go full bore custom watercooling when I had my 3930k and it has served me well jumping to the 5960x, especially with overclocking ability. In addition to the cpu I knew I was most likely running dual gpus and watercooling really helps when overclocking comes into play - just look at the 980TI hybrid.

In my case, eventhough I bought Sapphire Tri-X R9 290s (bought them slightly used for great prices!) with excellent air coolers, I could keep them real cool and OC them with custom blocks.

I don't know what kind of case you have but with an OC'd 3930k and 2 980TIs if you opt for a custom water cooled setup you could really jack up the speeds and keep the temps AND noise way low.

Obviously some $$$ is involved. You can ditch the Corsair H80 and easily bump the 3930k to 4.5Ghz with reasonable temps (mine ran at 4,6Ghz 24/7 rock solid) AND water cool the 980 TIs in the same loop. EK's Titan X blocks fit perfectly. You should easily be able to run the 980TI hybrid speeds.

My ownly warning is that custom watercooling becomes EXTREMELY addictive ( and expensive).

Just a thought from an admitted water cooling guy.

I like the idea of a new case, clean cable management, custom water, more performance and less noise and heat. I've thought about doing it just for fun and to take the next step in my rig building. I will consider it. Actually, I will obsess over it until I buy a bunch of crap. I'll keep you posted.
Regarding the 980ti fans...I don't consider them much louder than my 670's were. I actually think these blowers are really nice. The nicest I've ever had by a long shot, that's for sure.
They get louder when overclocking and trying to keep the temps at a set level, but that's kind of expected with out custom air/water I would imagine. I don't expect the fans to perform miracles being a stock device. I don't think anything can make me hate these cards. They are too damn sexy. Too sexy for my case actually, so maybe I'll fix that.

 

[iiiankiii]

Realistically the reference blower isn't too bad. I could use it without issue. I've owned reference 580's, 680's, 780's, 5870's, 4870's, 7970's, and by all accounts the Ti is quieter than those cards. It's barely louder than 295x2..

OC'd it produces less noise than a stock 290 in "quiet" mode.. "q-u-i-e-t" mode. Or stock 7970, stock 680, or stock 580. They were all not bad. In fact, it's almost the quietest flagship card in a number of generations.. Perhaps the last decade!

Storm in a teacup, move along.

That's fine that you feel it's not loud. But don't kid yourself if you think the 290 is loud and hot and go ahead and claim an overclocked gtx 980ti is anything but loud and hot. If you felt the stock 290 is loud and hot; then you have no business overclocking the gtx 980ti and claiming it is all nice and dandy. That would make you a hypocrite.

I know how they sound. I have a Titan X and the stock 290. An overclocked Titan X produces similar noise and heat to the 290. However, if you plan on running the GTX 980ti/Titan X at stock speed, it works just fine. Although, it's a bit hot. That's why it's now under a full water block.

 

[bepo]

What's the chance of a 980ti price drop if Fury X comes in $50 to $100 cheaper with the same performance? And is there any reason to wait for custom pcb's versus just getting the 980ti hybrid if I want to OC a little but not go crazy?

 

[Gryz]

What's the chance of a 980ti price drop if Fury X comes in $50 to $100 cheaper with the same performance?

Zero.

 

[x3sphere]

What's the chance of a 980ti price drop if Fury X comes in $50 to $100 cheaper with the same performance? And is there any reason to wait for custom pcb's versus just getting the 980ti hybrid if I want to OC a little but not go crazy?

It would have to be 5-10% faster PLUS cheaper to get NV to budge on price.

NV likely knew performance of Fury beforehand if these benches are true.

 

[exar333]

It would have to be 5-10% faster PLUS [Significantly] cheaper to get NV to budge on price.

NV likely knew performance of Fury beforehand if these benches are true.

Agree. AMD would need to be at least $100 cheaper and 10%+ faster for NV to budge.

 

[Headfoot]

I'm certain the 980 Ti launched at the price it did because nVidia has the connections and pull in the industry to find out Fiji's performance well before the normal public could. If the 980 Ti could have launched at $750 or $800, I'm sure it would've

 

[bryanW1995]

Spot on. No one spending $1000 on a GPU, or $2000 on 2, etc. is shopping for value. They want the fastest at the time they bought it, and they got what they paid for.

Exactly right on NVidia/AMD as well. If AMD ever decided to beat NVidia to market instead of waiting for NVidia to reveal all their cards, they would be able to charge jacked up prices at release and rake in some quick money on the early adopters who don't care they are getting ripped off, and just want the best as soon as possible. AMD has proven for years now, that always trying to win on value isn't the way to generate profits.

They don't try to win on value b/c they want to, they try that b/c they HAVE to...ie, they can't win on performance in the past several years, and that's even assuming that they are on-time to market (defined as not being months later than the competition).

 

[ocre]

What? Are you now defending above R9 290X reference sound levels on an overclocked reference 980Ti? I am pretty sure someone who pays $1300 USD for dual 980Ti cards finds this unacceptable. I know I would. For a $650 card, this cooler is worthless for overclocking, sorry. It's just as bad as the reference 290X that everyone ripped apart.

I want you to go to this video on this page, turn up your speakers and tell me that's acceptable for a $650 videocard:

http://www.computerbase.de/2015-06/geforce-gtx-980-ti-test-nvidia-titan/8/

That's only at 52% fan speed, not 70% or even 100%. That's a disaster for a flagship videocard for anyone who doesn't game with closed headphones or noise cancelling IEMs.

Dont put words in my mouth.

I am not defending anything. I just know a little more about sound and noise, apparently. You may not know that noise dissipates just like heat. The pitch and frequencies can carry sound further but really all that is pointless to get into because you know that sitting your ear next to the motherboard is nothing like having your GPU in a case and measuring the sound 2-3 ft away from you. See airflow its self makes a lot of noise but that is completely independent of how far that noise will travel. You measure right beside the card, if it is moving a lot of air, it will be loud. There is no way to prevent that. All you can do is try to control pitches and spread, so it dissipates. When you are that close, most of the sound you measure is directly related to airflow, fast moving air. CFM = noise!!!
You cannot get around that fact but a lot can be done in how you manage it.

I am not making any accuses nor am i saying that the 980ti isnt loud. I do not own one, cant speak about it.
But it absolutely makes no sense to record the dBa directly beside the card. This is not representative of anything but the air flow. This sound can only be altered by changing the size or speed of the fan. This is the noise that must be dissipated and the engineering challenge. The way you deal with it, what you do with it, how that air flow is managed, that is what determines how loud it will be to the end user.

Simply put, not all coolers are the same but they all have to move air. CFM. You should know that larger fans can move the same amount of air while moving slower. The same concept when you use multiple fans. The slower rotation from using a larger fan is quieter because.......why? Think about it.

Smaller fans move air faster to get the desired CFM. The sound is more concentrated at the source but it spreads out and dissipates depending on the design. Right beside the card, you only hear the noise without any dissipation.

Unless that is how you plan on running your PC, with your ear at the edge of the motherboard, then that is a totally unreliable method which is absolutely meaningless to the average user. Honestly, i never really looked at the titanX is so loud claims and examples but if you guys are sighting reviews using these kind of next to card methods, I am just blown away

Surely, if you really dont understand what i am saying, then this will totally blow your mind:

Realistically the reference blower isn't too bad. I could use it without issue. I've owned reference 580's, 680's, 780's, 5870's, 4870's, 7970's, and by all accounts the Ti is quieter than those cards. It's barely louder than 295x2..

OC'd it produces less noise than a stock 290 in "quiet" mode.. "q-u-i-e-t" mode. Or stock 7970, stock 680, or stock 580. They were all not bad. In fact, it's almost the quietest flagship card in a number of generations.. Perhaps the last decade!

Storm in a teacup, move along.

Wha wa
UH?

but that review recording dBa right beside the card says its loud.....

yeah, but apparently there is something about sound you dont know. Or you are just trying your best to paint nvidia cards as bad as you can. Like how you listed two reviews to prove how the 980 reference is so bad. You may have missed the 980 was in the TPU charts along with the MSI Gaming card. Why did you purposefully post a separate review that used totally different methods (with drastically different 980 dBa)?
The only answer is to skew the results . Great job!!!!!

 

[bryanW1995]

too early even for Nvidia speculate where Fiji falls in the spectrum. AMD has done some killer lockdown on info this round. agree that this card looks great for the price.

But...why would they lock down the info if it was GOOD info and they could use it to rain on the Green Team parade?

 

[RussianSensation]

Realistically the reference blower isn't too bad. I could use it without issue. I've owned reference 580's, 680's, 780's, 5870's, 4870's, 7970's, and by all accounts the Ti is quieter than those cards. It's barely louder than 295x2..

I think you are talking about stock speeds, no overclocking. I've had a chance to own the 4890 and 6950 that had similar blowers to the 7970. Those cards were not quiet at all at load. Also, countless online reviews, videos and dBA Measurements all prove that 980Ti reference is a loud card at load one overclocked, at least as loud as a reference 290X that most found unbearable. Even in the computerbase video I posted, at 52% fan speed the 980TI is a jet engine. I can't hear my Sapphire 7970 @ 1150mhz overclock. I wouldn't put a reference 980Ti in my rig, it's too loud for someone who is used to quiet cards and my Sapphire is not even as quiet as the awesome Asus Strix or MSI Gaming.

If someone desires to have a more ideal OC experience, there is AIB differentiation choice -- the reference 290x quiet wasn't a disaster -- default uber may of been aggressive for the cooler to defeat Titan performance.

Go check the reviews of a reference 980Ti 42 dBA at TPU vs. 30 dBA for MSI Gaming 980. For a premium product, the blower design has been failing for a long time now. It's not good enough. Sure, NV's design is a lot better than what AMD has been able to make but that it's like comparing what's better a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla vs. a Porsche 911. Even at stock speeds, 980 reference SLI throttled clocks at HardOCP - that's for non-TI versions. I am pretty sure you remember that review.

"We found that with the default settings on GeForce GTX 980 SLI the lowest clock rate it hit while in-game was 1126MHz. That clock speed is actually below the boost clock of 1216MHz for GTX 980. This is the first time we've seen the real-time in-game clock speed clock throttle below the boost clock in SLI in games. It seems GTX 980 SLI is clock throttling in SLI on reference video cards. This is something we did NOT expect, but it is happening with reference cards. This begs the question which we will have to answer another day, "Will this happen with custom cooled video cards?"

We noticed that when the GPUs would hit 80c the thermal throttling in SLI would occur and drop the clock speed from the boost clock. We know that it is strictly temperature that is causing this clock throttling in SLI because we also tried a test by just raising the fans to 100% fan speed. When we did this the in-game clock frequency jumped to 1266MHz consistently without dropping."
HardOCP

That's a 12% higher GPU Boost when thermal throttling isn't an issue. Are you saying it's OK to pay $1300 for dual GPUs and lose 12% of top boost because the blower design is excused? The blower is clearly holding the cards back which is a problem, albeit not as awful as the execution of a 290X Uber mode but it doesn't excuse a premium product from sounding like a jet engine with even a mild overclock.

What's the chance of a 980ti price drop if Fury X comes in $50 to $100 cheaper with the same performance? And is there any reason to wait for custom pcb's versus just getting the 980ti hybrid if I want to OC a little but not go crazy?

I would say the probability is close to 0%. NV had a $80-150 premium on 770 2-4GB against a 280X, they had a $100 premium on the slower 780 even after the $150 price cut from 780's $650 MSRP vs. $399 290. Even if AMD's Fiji PRO is 95% as fast as the 980Ti for $499, NV won't lower the price on a 980Ti. They'll just add a game bundle or engage in more GameWorks initiatives. NV has shown time and time again they don't care about price/performance when it comes to AMD cards. Currently 960s sell for $180-240 and are absolutely destroyed by a $220-250 R9 290. NV doesn't care since some gamers keep buying NV regardless of how bad the performance or VRAM gimped the products are. NV knows that 10% or even 20% isn't enough for their loyal customers to leave the brand which is why they have little incentive to lower prices.

 

[SirPauly]

Go check the reviews of a reference 980Ti 42 dBA at TPU vs. 30 dBA for MSI Gaming 980. For a premium product, the blower design has been failing for a long time now. It's not good enough.

42 dBA is fine for many and if one desires more ideal acoustics there are other choices -- to say 42 dBA is failing is far too extreme.

 

[moonbogg]

Its called "boost clock" for a reason. That's what it "boosts" to if thermals allow. The base clock is what you are guaranteed. No one said boost clocks are a guarantee. If you want to make sure you get the boost clock all the time, then you need to manage thermals and that's on us as the consumer to do that if we so desire.
If I moved to death valley and gamed with the windows open and no AC in the summer, I wouldn't expect my cards to have a stable boost clock with 130f ambient temp.
Raising the bar for the 980ti to operate cool, quiet and with stable boost clocks, all while overclocked high enough to beat a titan X, seems a bit odd to me. To say the reference product fails because it doesn't perform like an after market product is kind of strange I think.
The 980ti is the envy of everyone I talk to while gaming. Failure not found. Now, if the card was loud and ridiculous while operating at its default boost setting, then that would be kind of crappy. That's what the 290x did. That's what the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra did. I'm sure there are others, but the 980ti isn't one of them, not at stock settings.

 

[iiiankiii]

Its called "boost clock" for a reason. That's what it "boosts" to if thermals allow. The base clock is what you are guaranteed. No one said boost clocks are a guarantee. If you want to make sure you get the boost clock all the time, then you need to manage thermals and that's on us as the consumer to do that if we so desire.
If I moved to death valley and gamed with the windows open and no AC in the summer, I wouldn't expect my cards to have a stable boost clock with 130f ambient temp.
Raising the bar for the 980ti to operate cool, quiet and with stable boost clocks, all while overclocked high enough to beat a titan X, seems a bit odd to me. To say the reference product fails because it doesn't perform like an after market product is kind of strange I think.
The 980ti is the envy of everyone I talk to while gaming. Failure not found. Now, if the card was loud and ridiculous while operating at its default boost setting, then that would be kind of crappy. That's what the 290x did. That's what the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra did. I'm sure there are others, but the 980ti isn't one of them, not at stock settings.

Fully agreed. The GTX 980ti is a fine card. Although I wouldn't call it running cool with the reference cooler, it is quiet at stock settings. However, what I found even stranger is the double standards. Lots of people were bashing the Hawaii for being hot and loud (rightfully so) but claim their GTX 980Ti/Titan X isn't loud or hot once overclocked. That's the strange part.

Although, since you're running on reference coolers, you're heavily holding those cards back. There's an easy 20% in performance on the table because of the reference cooler. 20% in performance, if we were to base it on performance segmentation, usually means a jump into another pricing tier of GPUs (ex. GTX 970 to GTX 980 / 280x to 290 etc.). That's a lot of performance being left on the table.