[HEXUS]Overclocked 980 series big power consumption

[el etro]

Do the reference 980s throttle often and these aftermarket cards sustain their clocks ? I don't think the reference 980s could be throttling much because they run relatively cool.

This. High consumption of the cards while overclocked is caused by very high clocks.

 

[lavaheadache]

Are the clock speeds fluctuating though? It might be hovering around the same wattage because it is at its TDP limit already and is throttling clocks to keep below it.

clock speeds aren't fluctuating once the card reaches operational temperature

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Yep, even thought the chip has tons of OC headroom, NV have decided to have stock speed at the most efficient point. If they had released it at higher speeds (and they easily could), we would have been praising the 780Ti killer and the performance leap, but complained about power use...

I don't think that there would be much complaining unless the power consumption was actually higher than GK110, which its not...

1. price/performance

2. total performance

3. overclocking potential

all come way before how efficient a card is, efficiency is really only icing on the cake for the vast majority of enthusiasts

 

[SperglordActual]

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...Block-Early-Performance-Testing/Overclocking-

Heres an interesting write-up on the EVGA Hydrocopper 980, looks like people are going to have to start flashing their BIOS's to get more voltage and performance out of this thing. I could be wrong though and maybe its the board and not the BIOS?

 

[toyota]

my reference 980 with +200 MHz core OC is barely showing any increase in power consumption over stock. It looks to be in the range of 10-15 watts if that. I'm comparing over repeated metro LL bench runs with a warmed up card

yeah reference 980 cards seem VERY efficient. my 970 sips power too and barely goes up 10-12 watts with a 150 mhz oc. the Gaming version of my card is a power hog though.

 

[RussianSensation]

I

People really care about 50 watts in a gaming PC?? Give me moar speed! Double the speed and IDC if the GPU pulls 500 watts. Ill deal with the heat and PSU. Just give me speed.

Thank you! I would have much preferred NV release 250W 980 with 1.45Ghz boost clocks out of the box than a 175-180W reference card, or if AMD released a 7970 with 1.15Ghz clocks instead of 925mhz. This is one of the reasons I want next gen reference cards to have water cooling stock so that these cards can be pushed 98% to the max out of the box, while solving the noise and temperature issues.

If I wanted to save money on my electricity bill, I would get a clothes dry rack and hang all my laundry on it all year, or I would game on a console that uses a fraction of the power of a high end PC. The whole point of a DIY PC is I get cutting edge graphics, mods, latest tech, unique games and a wide variety of games. For all of these advantages trying to save $25 on annual electicity cost when depreciation on high end GPUs is $200-300 every 2 years is not worth it to me. Otherwise I would just get PS4+XB1+WiiU and they would still use less power in aggregate than my PC.

Also, the highest cost of owning a PC by far comes from depreciation of GPUs and SSDs, not electicity costs. People complain that 780Ti/290X use too much power but don't account that EVGA Classy 780Ti goes for only $420 while new it was $750! Much the same way, 980's high price for a mid-range card is overlooked because it's more energy efficient. Yet, 980 would have been way better if it was 25-30% faster than 780Ti at 250W. Hopefully GM200/390X deliver a real next generation leap in absolute performance, not a 7-10% improvement 11 months later. In 2 years 980's performance could be bought for $200-250 or cards 40-50% faster for $550 will come out. In the grand scheme of things for a gamer buying $550 GPUs if 980 uses 170W or 250W, it's irrelevant. What matters are features, absolute performance and performance/$. The reason people want to talk about performance/watt so much now is becaus NV absolutely crushes AMD in this metric. But when the same was true for AMD/ATI vs. NV, it was hardly relevant, or it was a side bonus, not the primary point of discussion or motivation to upgrade - that is certain.

 

[sontin]

You can buy custom GTX980 cards which boost up to 1450MHz while even using less than 250W... :\

For example the Gigabyte card which is boosting to 1389MHz:
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/928-6/gigabyte-gtx-980-970-g1-gaming.html

 

[amenx]

Thank you! I would have much preferred NV release 250W 980 with 1.45Ghz boost clocks out of the box than a 175-180W reference card, or if AMD released a 7970 with 1.15Ghz clocks instead of 925mhz. This is one of the reasons I want next gen reference cards to have water cooling stock so that these cards can be pushed 98% to the max out of the box, while solving the noise and temperature issues.

If I wanted to save money on my electricity bill, I would get a clothes dry rack and hang all my laundry on it all year, or I would game on a console that uses a fraction of the power of a high end PC. The whole point of a DIY PC is I get cutting edge graphics, mods, latest tech, unique games and wide variety and for all of these advantages, trying to save $25 on annual electicity cost is not worth it to me. Otherwise I would just get PS4+XB1+WiiU and they would still use less power in aggregate than my PC.

Tbh, I doubt most people looking at power draw do so for the economy, but rather in the recognition that generally less power = less heat = less noise and probably less issues (unless you water cool and part of the 1 percent club). Quite certain that many buyers in the $300-350 range will ignore a slightly cheaper 290/x in favor of a 970 because of that. Whats funny is that despite the closeness in performance, I've seen many existing 290/x and even 780 owners dump their cards for the 970, which I cant help but think the power draw question may have been an influence in their decision.

 

[Erenhardt]

Power consumption is the most important metric of gpu since .... Kepler.
Some time ago there was even and EU legislation attempt to reduce and regulate gpu power consumption.

 

[RussianSensation]

You can buy custom GTX980 cards which boost up to 1450MHz while even using less than 250W... :\

For example the Gigabyte card which is boosting to 1389MHz:
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/928-6/gigabyte-gtx-980-970-g1-gaming.html

And that card is still barely faster than an after-market 780Ti. It's pointless to compare when 780Ti scales well with overclocking too. In other words, while 970 presents a new benchmark for price/performance at $330, the 980 hardly does anything to move absolute performance from 780Ti 11 months later and it also fails hard at doing much at new price/performance. 980 should have been 25-30% faster than 780Ti at $550, or a $400-449 card. You will see next year once AMD and NV launch real powerhouse flagship cards how overpriced 980 was at $550-580. I called it with Titan and I know I will be right again because when a mid-range card is priced at that level, it's an obvious attempt to milk the market until competition shows up. But even without competition, I don't need to see GM200/390X performance to know that 980 at $550-580 is overpriced.

Looking at 470 vs. 480 or 570 vs. 580 shows this. The price discrepancy between after market 980 and 970 is far higher, while 980 is not faster than 970 by anything more than 480 was over 470 or 580 was over 570. It even doesn't have more VRAM either. It's one of the most overpriced cards in years because it's essentially mid-range next gen performance priced like a high end 280/480/580 card, minus next generation flagship performance. 970 is what's really carrying most of the Maxwell momentum. With the 970, 980 alone would have been a major disappointment for an X80 part.

 

[RussianSensation]

Tbh, I doubt most people looking at power draw do so for the economy, but rather in the recognition that generally less power = less heat = less noise and probably less issues (unless you water cool and part of the 1 percent club). Quite certain that many buyers in the $300-350 range will ignore a slightly cheaper 290/x in favor of a 970 because of that. Whats funny is that despite the closeness in performance, I've seen many existing 290/x and even 780 owners dump their cards for the 970, which I cant help but think the power draw question may have been an influence in their decision.

Aftermaket 290/780 solve both temperature and noise levels. There are plenty of models such as Sapphire Tri-X 290/X or MSI Gaming 780 which are quieter and cooler than a reference 980 or EVGA 970 but who complains about their noise levels and temperatures?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-and-290x,3728-8.html

It would be true for a certain group who ran reference 290 or had tightly compact mobo/ smaller case where the aftermarket versions of said cards don't have enough airflow.

Most who upgraded form 290/780/290X to 970/980 lost a lot in depreciation which will never be made up in power usage savings in games. People mostly upgrade now because it's fun and they want to play with new tech. Even in latest games like Mordor,290/780 play well at 1440p. Outside of our forum and similar tech forums, the target market for 970/980 users are more 470/580/570/580/670/680 owners and similar gen AMD cards. Upgrading from a 290/780 to 970 or from 780Ti to 980 is just a waste of money unless you got a nice resale value. This is because next year there will be a $650 card which will mop the floor with a 980 by 25-30%.

If there was an NV/AMD card 20-30% faster at $650 alongside the 980, and even if it used 250-300W, almost no high end gamer would care for the 980's performance/watt on the desktop. 980's performance/watt is more interesting to forecast how fast GM200 will be at 250-275W power usage and due to GM204 in the mobile segment. However, for a flagship card, most high end gamers would prefer more performance even if it meant water-cooled reference card and 250-300W power usage. I predict that those who are buying 980 fall into 3 groups:

1) They either upgrade to the latest and greatest GPU;
2) They upgrade to the latest NV GPU;
3) They never intended to buy a flagship Maxwell for $650+.

The same people who ran 780Ti or 290X would have no problem using a flagship 275W GPU again if the cooling solution was good enough to solve temperature and noise levels. With water-cooled reference cards, this would be instantly solved.

So now if temperature and noise levels were to be solved, would you really care if a flagship card used 180W or 275W?

Unfortunately 980 does nothing to really improve gaming performance at 4K. As more and more gamers start considering moving to 4K in the next 2-3 years, the steep graphics power requirement will move price/performance and absolute performance above performance/watt. See performance per watt is nice on paper but 980 / SLI does little to provide a major leap in 4K gaming performance over 1 year old solutions. The leap from 690/7990 at 4K for 980SLI is hardly amazing after nearly 3 years since 7970 came out:
http://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980_SLI/20.html

^ It's nowhere near double and it's already October 2014! And if you have 290/290X in CF, 980 SLI at 4K isn't even an upgrade you will feel.

You see 970 and 970 SLI completely fill the void for 1080p/1440p/1600p gaming. Yet the 980 and 980 SLI is not faster than 970/970 SLI enough to make 4K any more playable. 980 sits in no man's land, mostly appealing because it's new, and thus "cool" but will be forgotten next year as an overpriced mid-range next gen card. That's why I can't wait for NV to bring out GM200 and AMD to bring out a card that crushes the 290X by more than a mere 20-21%. Hopefully they don't disappoint. And if NV waits to 2H of 2015 and gives us a 20nm GM200, that would be amazing.

Some tech journalists share my opinion that AMD and NV need to bring out faster cards for 4K revolution to take place. 980 is not it - it's too expensive and too slow for 4K adoption to take place:
http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2014/09/30/amd-and-nvidia-need-to-step-up-to-the-4k-ch/

1440 and 1600p never gained traction on the PC but once 4K monitors drop even more in price, gamers will want to upgrade from 1920x1200 and below and skip 1440/1600p entirely. That's why AMD and NV need to maximize power to get as much performance as possible. For this reason, high end gamers won't even blink at a faster card than 980 with 250-300W usage because 4K will force them to prioritize performance and price/performance (for multiple GPUs) over performance/watt.

 

[Enigmoid]

I

Thank you! I would have much preferred NV release 250W 980 with 1.45Ghz boost clocks out of the box than a 175-180W reference card, or if AMD released a 7970 with 1.15Ghz clocks instead of 925mhz. This is one of the reasons I want next gen reference cards to have water cooling stock so that these cards can be pushed 98% to the max out of the box, while solving the noise and temperature issues.

Just buy a non-reference card with boost that high.

If Nvidia sold their cards like that the cost would be significantly higher, yields would be lower, and all in all they would probably have fewer sales.

 

[SperglordActual]

Aftermaket 290/780 solve both temperature and noise levels. There are plenty of models such as Sapphire Tri-X 290/X or MSI Gaming 780 which are quieter and cooler than a reference 980 or EVGA 970 but who complains about their noise levels and temperatures?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-and-290x,3728-8.html

It would be true for a certain group who ran reference 290 or had tightly compact mobo/ smaller case where the aftermarket versions of said cards don't have enough airflow.

Most who upgraded form 290/780/290X to 970/980 lost a lot in depreciation which will never be made up in power usage savings in games. People mostly upgrade now because it's fun and they want to play with new tech. Even in latest games like Mordor,290/780 play well at 1440p. Outside of our forum and similar tech forums, the target market for 970/980 users are more 470/580/570/580/670/680 owners and similar gen AMD cards. Upgrading from a 290/780 to 970 or from 780Ti to 980 is just a waste of money unless you got a nice resale value. This is because next year there will be a $650 card which will mop the floor with a 980 by 25-30%.

If there was an NV/AMD card 20-30% faster at $650 alongside the 980, and even if it used 250-300W, almost no high end gamer would care for the 980's performance/watt on the desktop. 980's performance/watt is more interesting to forecast how fast GM200 will be at 250-275W power usage and due to GM204 in the mobile segment. However, for a flagship card, most high end gamers would prefer more performance even if it meant water-cooled reference card and 250-300W power usage. I predict that those who are buying 980 fall into 3 groups:

1) They either upgrade to the latest and greatest GPU;
2) They upgrade to the latest NV GPU;
3) They never intended to buy a flagship Maxwell for $650+.

The same people who ran 780Ti or 290X would have no problem using a flagship 275W GPU again if the cooling solution was good enough to solve temperature and noise levels. With water-cooled reference cards, this would be instantly solved.

So now if temperature and noise levels were to be solved, would you really care if a flagship card used 180W or 275W?

Unfortunately 980 does nothing to really improve gaming performance at 4K. As more and more gamers start considering moving to 4K in the next 2-3 years, the steep graphics power requirement will move price/performance and absolute performance above performance/watt. See performance per watt is nice on paper but 980 / SLI does little to provide a major leap in 4K gaming performance over 1 year old solutions. The leap from 690/7990 at 4K for 980SLI is hardly amazing after nearly 3 years since 7970 came out:
http://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980_SLI/20.html

^ It's nowhere near double and it's already October 2014! And if you have 290/290X in CF, 980 SLI at 4K isn't even an upgrade you will feel.

You see 970 and 970 SLI completely fill the void for 1080p/1440p/1600p gaming. Yet the 980 and 980 SLI is not faster than 970/970 SLI enough to make 4K any more playable. 980 sits in no man's land, mostly appealing because it's new, and thus "cool" but will be forgotten next year as an overpriced mid-range next gen card. That's why I can't wait for NV to bring out GM200 and AMD to bring out a card that crushes the 290X by more than a mere 20-21%. Hopefully they don't disappoint. And if NV waits to 2H of 2015 and gives us a 20nm GM200, that would be amazing.

Some tech journalists share my opinion that AMD and NV need to bring out faster cards for 4K revolution to take place. 980 is not it - it's too expensive and too slow for 4K adoption to take place:
http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2014/09/30/amd-and-nvidia-need-to-step-up-to-the-4k-ch/

1440 and 1600p never gained traction on the PC but once 4K monitors drop even more in price, gamers will want to upgrade from 1920x1200 and below and skip 1440/1600p entirely. That's why AMD and NV need to maximize power to get as much performance as possible. For this reason, high end gamers won't even blink at a faster card than 980 with 250-300W usage because 4K will force them to prioritize performance and price/performance (for multiple GPUs) over performance/watt.

Excellent point. So then, do you think with the 390x/990/980ti crowd next year we will finally start seeing excellent 4k solutions?

 

[tviceman]

I

Thank you! I would have much preferred NV release 250W 980 with 1.45Ghz boost clocks out of the box than a 175-180W reference card, or if AMD released a 7970 with 1.15Ghz clocks instead of 925mhz. This is one of the reasons I want next gen reference cards to have water cooling stock so that these cards can be pushed 98% to the max out of the box, while solving the noise and temperature issues.

Then get an aftermarket card and overclock it to 1.45ghz. It will still be quiet and I haven't seen a single user report having issues (with properly working cards) getting over 1400mhz. Not everyone lives where it feels like winter 8 months out of the year. Most people in civilized society live in much warmer environments than you do. And water cooling isn't the answer to everything because it adds more costs, more size, and still dumps heat into the room when ambient temps may already be 80F (26.5-27C) I don't want to see the TDP boundaries pushed any further than they already are, I don't want to see a more expensive cooling solution become standard (the same goes with Titan-style coolers.... I don't care about aluminum shroud.... bigger fan? Yes. Extra bling? No thanks), and I don't want to see computer components grow larger in size.

I wasn't exactly blown away by GM204's performance, either. I wish Nvidia would have targeted a slightly higher TDP, too. But it's plain as day that GM200 is coming, they left room for GM200 to comfortably outperform GM204, and it's how they keep their business thriving. While EVERYTHING electronic is getting more efficient, smaller, and quieter, the hardcore PC gaming crowd wants to stick with 2001's massive full-sized cases with half a dozen fans and needless 850+ watt PSU's. People on forums see half-sized video cards and think it's a worthless POS because it isn't 9+ inches long (that's what she said). I just don't get the mentality. The 295x2 worked great with water cooling, but it clearly NEEDED water cooling. I don't want that precedent set where a product exists but REQUIRES water cooling to work in a consumer box. If it requires water cooling, then it's 1000x more the POS that a half-sized card is.

EDIT: I fully realize that I am in the minority around the PC-enthusiast forums in much of my arguing on this particular subject matter.

 

[Sohaltang]

Excellent point. So then, do you think with the 390x/990/980ti crowd next year we will finally start seeing excellent 4k solutions?

How do you define excellent? Personally Im addicted to 120hz @ 1440P. I doubt I upgrade until we have 4K 120 hz monitors. I doubt 2 or 3 maybe even 4 980ti's can max out new games @ 4K AND deliver 120fps.

 

[SperglordActual]

How do you define excellent? Personally Im addicted to 120hz @ 1440P. I doubt I upgrade until we have 4K 120 hz monitors. I doubt 2 or 3 maybe even 4 980ti's can max out new games @ 4K AND deliver 120fps.

for now i would define excellent as 60-80 fps on ultra @4k... on a single card. ive never gamed on 120hz though so i cant speak to how it looks and feels, ive always been on 59-60 hz monitors

 

[ocre]

releasing Maxwell on 28nm was possible but its not completely without any drawbacks.

The gm204 stock boost and speeds are already approaching the limits of the node. Even with the most painstaking engineering on a very mature process, there is always a limit to how far you push the node.

I think the gm204 is pushed way up in clocks. Then you are at the mercy of the binning. Pushing the clocks much further will see consumption start spike.

Vendors OC models are allowing higher tdp so that a larger amount of chips boost very high.

The gm204 is limited by the 28nm node.

 

[el etro]

Excellent point. So then, do you think with the 390x/990/980ti crowd next year we will finally start seeing excellent 4k solutions?

Wait on 395x2 for it. Perfect 4k with very high details(current 295x2 allows 4k medium-high details).



BTW, it always seem that "mid-range" cards like GTX 680 or R9 280x is the best buy.

 

[RussianSensation]

Just buy a non-reference card with boost that high.

You mean pay $610 for a mid-range next gen card with only 4GB of VRAM? Not sure if serious when 780Ti goes for $420 and you can get dual 970s for $660.

If Nvidia sold their cards like that the cost would be significantly higher, yields would be lower, and all in all they would probably have fewer sales.

I am not looking at it from NV's point of view but from gamer's point of view. There is a certain group on our forum that constantly complains about power usage by grasping for 70W power differences between a 180W and a 250W card for example. NV has already shown that the Titan cooler can easily dissipate 250W and even more (Titan Black). So even if you have a miniITX system, as long as you can fit an NV card with a Titan cooler, it doesn't matter. And if you are already willing to spend $550 on a 980 that will drop like a rock in value in 1.5 years, one sure as hell shouldn't worry about electricity costs either or this gamer don't understand the concept of TCO (total cost of ownership).

Once GM200/210 launches next year and AMD releases its next gen, as long as these cards smoke the 980, no one is going to care at all about $550-600 980's performance/watt on the desktop or the fact that after-market 980's use > 200W of power. If one is spending $550+ on a desktop GPU he/she should care about about performance and features. Power comes into play if AMD and NV both have similar performing and priced GPUs (for example 970 is clearly superior overall to 290/290X for this reason). In this case, pick a GPU that uses less power. Otherwise, it's largely irrelevant for high-end desktop PC gaming. If AMD magically released a 100W 390X but Maxwell GM200 beat that card by 30% with 300W usage, the high-end market would buy GM200 because performance and features rule the high-end desktop PC space.

You know what PC gamers wanted the most from NV in a next gen mobile GPU? Desktop gaming performance. The main reasons 980's performance/watt is talked about right now is because it's on the same 28nm and well there isn't much else to talk about since it's hardly better than a 780Ti, so the justification is that well it's 7-10% faster but uses less power. Not very exciting.

Excellent point. So then, do you think with the 390x/990/980ti crowd next year we will finally start seeing excellent 4k solutions?

I don't know how fast 390X or 980Ti will be. I don't think 990 will be a game changer since I bet it'll cost more than a 970 SLI without being much better considering 980 SLI is barely better than 970 SLI.

I think 4K will really take off when a $249-349 GPU can play modern games, so probably around Pascal time. We would need 970 SLI performance at that price.

 

[RussianSensation]

Then get an aftermarket card and overclock it to 1.45ghz. It will still be quiet and I haven't seen a single user report having issues (with properly working cards) getting over 1400mhz. Not everyone lives where it feels like winter 8 months out of the year. Most people in civilized society live in much warmer environments than you do.

So you think it's cold/winter 4 months out of the year in Toronto, Canada? That's like saying Seattle, Chicago or New York is in winter for 8 months of the year. I don't live in the North Pole. My point is 250W of power for a flagship card is not a lot. We had that level of power for years with 480/580/780/780Ti/7970GE. All of a sudden flagship cards should only use 170-180W because....980 is like that? You know the answer -- flagship cards don't use 170-180W because 980 is a mid-range Maxwell and the 250W flagship will come later, and once it does, it will be awesome

And water cooling isn't the answer to everything because it adds more costs, more size, and still dumps heat into the room when ambient temps may already be 80F (26.5-27C)

Not exactly. 295X2 doesn't cost much more than buying 2 stand-alone 290Xs with waterblocks. You realize that a single 120mm rad like H50/55/60 will blow the doors off any air cooled solution for not much more $? Why wouldn't I want that? This way I can go SLI/CF and have both GPUs exhaust all heat out of my case. Unless your PC is in a very small room, the difference in temperatures won't be material between having a 180W vs 250W GPU, considering a lot of us run overclocked i5 / i7 CPUs already. Extra 70W of power on a 300-350W rig is not much. It's not as if 70-100W less used by 980 is going to change your comfort level in the room when you upgrade from an overclocked 780.

On the issue of space, I don't see how it's a factor since if anything you could make a GM200 dual-GPU card with water-cooling. Otherwise, you'll have to settle for much slower GM204 dual GPU card in a small chassis. A water-cooled GM200 dual-GPU card similar to 295X2 would sell like hot cakes.

I don't want to see the TDP boundaries pushed any further than they already are, I don't want to see a more expensive cooling solution become standard (the same goes with Titan-style coolers.... I don't care about aluminum shroud.... bigger fan? Yes. Extra bling? No thanks), and I don't want to see computer components grow larger in size.

What difference does it make if you are already willing to buy a $550 mid-range product with a cheaper cooling solution vs. waiting for a flagship GPU with more expensive cooling solution for barely more $? It's not as if cards like 980 cost $399. We are talking about a $550 card. There is no reason a water-cooled 120mm rad 980 can't cost $580-600 when NV's AIBs easily charge that for after-market 980.

Secondly, if TDP grows to 300W with water-cooling as standard, no one will force you to buy those cards. There will be 170-180W cards with lower performance for users such as yourself. Why should the high-end flagship GPU market suffer because 170-180W should become the new standard? That's the point of mid-range cards - mid-range power usage. But since 4K monitors are dropping in price very quickly, and GPU makers aren't able to move to lower nodes as quickly at cost effective wafer prices, they need to start using as much TDP headroom as possible or we'll start facing stagnation. One way to continue the performance curve is raising TDP to 300W and/or going water-cooling standard.

There is no need for computers to grow in size either. You can get a Micro-ATX case such as Lian-Li V359 that fits 2x 120mm rads for dual flagship GPUs and enough room for a Swiftech H220-X 2x120mm rad for the CPU! Try doing that with 2 after-market 980s and it's going to be a far worse solution. If anything, water-cooling will allow even more people to move to Micro-ATX. Right now with air cooled GPUs, it's very hard to do with SLI/CF. With a bit more engineering, Lian Li could build a case barely larger that would fit dual 295X2 and a 280mm radiator for the CPU. That would mean dual-GM200 in a small case with 5960X overclocked to 4.5Ghz in a Micro-ATX chassis. Try doing that with Quad-SLI reference 980s....

I wasn't exactly blown away by GM204's performance, either. I wish Nvidia would have targeted a slightly higher TDP, too. But it's plain as day that GM200 is coming, they left room for GM200 to comfortably outperform GM204, and it's how they keep their business thriving.

Right but if a card is flagship, to me having water-cooling is a premium feature, not a negative as you make it sound. If GM200 ships with a radiator, that's way better for high-end enthusiasts who overclock. Why am I paying $600+ for a card that is gimped with a reference or OK after-market cooler when AMD has shown that water-cooling is far superior with the 295X2? I want NV and AMD to use water-cooling for flagship cards at least as an option because it instantly solves temperature and noise levels.

While EVERYTHING electronic is getting more efficient, smaller, and quieter, the hardcore PC gaming crowd wants to stick with 2001's massive full-sized cases with half a dozen fans and needless 850+ watt PSU's.

People buy 800+ Watt PSU because PSU prices have come down so much that the price difference between a 600W and an 850W is too small. If you later decide to go 6-core CPU or SLI/CF, it'll cost more to get a new PSU than to spend $20 extra upfront to get the 800W. LEPA 800W Gold is only $100 and Rosewill 750W Gold is $80. That's cheap. If one is buying $550 GPUs, $100 Gold rated 800W power supply is a non-issue.

People on forums see half-sized video cards and think it's a worthless POS because it isn't 9+ inches long (that's what she said). I just don't get the mentality.

What small card do you know that can perform and overclock as well as a 970/980 Gigabyte G1 gaming or Zotac AMP! Extreme 970/980? Small sized videocards = compromised components and worse overclocking, worse cooler which means higher temperatures and often noise levels.

The 295x2 worked great with water cooling, but it clearly NEEDED water cooling. I don't want that precedent set where a product exists but REQUIRES water cooling to work in a consumer box. If it requires water cooling, then it's 1000x more the POS that a half-sized card is.

But hold on, we are talking about the high-end $550+ GPU card segment. What would you prefer a pretty looking air cooled heatsink that throttles the GPU to 700mhz like Titan Z or runs hot and loud like HD6990?

Look at companies such as Cooler Master, Thermaltake, Asetek, Corsair - they have seen a rise in popularity of AIO LC for CPUs and old popular firms such as Noctua or Thermalright are nowhere near as popular as 5-10 years ago. Why were PC gamers so excited about AIO LC for CPUs but are opposed to AIO LC for GPUs -- it's ironic because most AIO LC for CPUs lose to flagship air cooled CPU coolers but AIO LC on a GPU destroys air cooling. It should be the opposite - liquid cooling helps the most on GPUs, not CPUs and because GPUs use a lot more power, and liquid cooling is a lot more beneficial at dissipating large amounts of heat when air cooling is maxed out!

And as I showed you with Lian Li V359, going LC with GPUs will actually encourage more gamers to consider small PC chassis because right now you would prefer a mid-size to larger case if you want to SLI/CF for after-market air cooled cards. Again, having 250-300W flagship water-cooled GPUs won't suddenly end the market of 170-180W mid-range cards. But if GPU makers limit TDP to only 180W for flagship, that's a huge step back in performance and it will take even longer for GPU performance to evolve.

I think the opposite of you -> water-cooling to me solves temperature and noise level issues and at the same time allows me to go SLI/CF or even 2x Dual-GPU cards like dual 295X2 in a Micro-ATX chassis and accommodate an overclocked 6-core X99 CPU - something you can only dream of right now with air cooled components. That's why I am amazed it took until 295X2 for anyone to include water-cooling as standard.

 

[tviceman]

Russian, you are probably the most non-biased, consumer advocate friendly, fact driven person on this forum. But sometimes we don't have to always agree on everything.

It's clear that we do agree on some things, and not on others. It's also clear we have a very different mindset on how we see things and what we want by our feet. Given that, I'll just have to agree to disagree.

Off topic, my AMD stock is tanking pretty hard. :/

 

[Venomous]

Then get an aftermarket card and overclock it to 1.45ghz. It will still be quiet and I haven't seen a single user report having issues (with properly working cards) getting over 1400mhz. Not everyone lives where it feels like winter 8 months out of the year. Most people in civilized society live in much warmer environments than you do. And water cooling isn't the answer to everything because it adds more costs, more size, and still dumps heat into the room when ambient temps may already be 80F (26.5-27C) I don't want to see the TDP boundaries pushed any further than they already are, I don't want to see a more expensive cooling solution become standard (the same goes with Titan-style coolers.... I don't care about aluminum shroud.... bigger fan? Yes. Extra bling? No thanks), and I don't want to see computer components grow larger in size.

I wasn't exactly blown away by GM204's performance, either. I wish Nvidia would have targeted a slightly higher TDP, too. But it's plain as day that GM200 is coming, they left room for GM200 to comfortably outperform GM204, and it's how they keep their business thriving. While EVERYTHING electronic is getting more efficient, smaller, and quieter, the hardcore PC gaming crowd wants to stick with 2001's massive full-sized cases with half a dozen fans and needless 850+ watt PSU's. People on forums see half-sized video cards and think it's a worthless POS because it isn't 9+ inches long (that's what she said). I just don't get the mentality. The 295x2 worked great with water cooling, but it clearly NEEDED water cooling. I don't want that precedent set where a product exists but REQUIRES water cooling to work in a consumer box. If it requires water cooling, then it's 1000x more the POS that a half-sized card is.

EDIT: I fully realize that I am in the minority around the PC-enthusiast forums in much of my arguing on this particular subject matter.

This is why Mac's exist...

 

[Enigmoid]

You mean pay $610 for a mid-range next gen card with only 4GB of VRAM? Not sure if serious when 780Ti goes for $420 and you can get dual 970s for $660.

I am not looking at it from NV's point of view but from gamer's point of view. There is a certain group on our forum that constantly complains about power usage by grasping for 70W power differences between a 180W and a 250W card for example. NV has already shown that the Titan cooler can easily dissipate 250W and even more (Titan Black). So even if you have a miniITX system, as long as you can fit an NV card with a Titan cooler, it doesn't matter. And if you are already willing to spend $550 on a 980 that will drop like a rock in value in 1.5 years, one sure as hell shouldn't worry about electricity costs either or this gamer don't understand the concept of TCO (total cost of ownership).

Once GM200/210 launches next year and AMD releases its next gen, as long as these cards smoke the 980, no one is going to care at all about $550-600 980's performance/watt on the desktop or the fact that after-market 980's use > 200W of power. If one is spending $550+ on a desktop GPU he/she should care about about performance and features. Power comes into play if AMD and NV both have similar performing and priced GPUs (for example 970 is clearly superior overall to 290/290X for this reason). In this case, pick a GPU that uses less power. Otherwise, it's largely irrelevant for high-end desktop PC gaming. If AMD magically released a 100W 390X but Maxwell GM200 beat that card by 30% with 300W usage, the high-end market would buy GM200 because performance and features rule the high-end desktop PC space.

You know what PC gamers wanted the most from NV in a next gen mobile GPU? Desktop gaming performance. The main reasons 980's performance/watt is talked about right now is because it's on the same 28nm and well there isn't much else to talk about since it's hardly better than a 780Ti, so the justification is that well it's 7-10% faster but uses less power. Not very exciting.

I realize the clock speeds are 26 mhz slower but lets use this card for comparison.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814487079

The card is $30 or 5.5% more than the reference card. However it is more than 5.5% faster. Even the zotac card you linked is 11% more expensive and likely averages just over 11% more in performance. I'm not sure why that is a bad value for someone who values perf/$.

Second I didn't intend that for solely the 980. The 970 is a similar position. If you want a 780 TI go buy one. You can complain about Vram all you want but the 970/980 offer more vram than previous nvidia cards and do so a lower prices. There are few cards with more Vram on the market. As you said and keep moaning about the 980 and 970 aren't enough for 4K and then complain that they don't have the Vram necessary for 4K. And what about the R290 and 290X? Only slightly slower than the 980 (max 20%) if the 980 has problems the R290 and 290X are going to have the same problems. In fact if you want to moan about 4 GB not being enough, there is no reference card on the market with more vram save the titan and some 6GB GK110 or Hawii cards. The fact remains that the cost for the high quality GDDR5 nvidia is using on their cards is something like $12-15/GB. Upping Vram to 8GB would cost something like $48-$60 and benefit something like the top 0.01% of the people who bought the card. You can always buy a 8 GB card when it becomes available.

Undoubtedly upping the clocks to 1450 mhz would decrease yields. It would require a more beefy cooler and better power delivery and would cost more.

Now I can understand what you are saying but it makes no sense for Nvidia. GM200 will be out in a few months and if you want more performance its always there for you. Nvidia already learned their lesson with Fermi; they will be focusing on efficiency for the near future. Efficiency drives their notebook shipments and tegra products and on the desktop allows for better scaling of the designs available.

As it stands the 980 and especially the 970 seem to do exactly what the R290 and 290X did. Move existing performance to a lower price while keeping absolute performance constant. Look at it this way. It did far better to the competition than the 290 and 290X did or the 285 by lowering power.

 

[RussianSensation]

Russian, you are probably the most non-biased, consumer advocate friendly, fact driven person on this forum. But sometimes we don't have to always agree on everything.

It's clear that we do agree on some things, and not on others. It's also clear we have a very different mindset on how we see things and what we want by our feet. Given that, I'll just have to agree to disagree.

Off topic, my AMD stock is tanking pretty hard. :/

I like debating with you too since you never take it personally. Thanks for the complement. I just think if we have options for reference water-cooling, 250W TDP GPUs and after-market open air cooled cards, this way consumers have more to choose from. This way, the market satisfies users such as yourself and myself. :thumbsup:

As far as AMD stock tanking, I think AMD didn't properly communicate to the market that RR was a transitional CEO. Right now it seems he is stepping down right before the earnings results and it's a signal that AMD will miss their earnings horribly.

 

[SirPauly]

I would have much preferred NV release 250W 980 with 1.45Ghz boost clocks out of the box than a 175-180W reference card, or if AMD released a 7970 with 1.15Ghz clocks instead of 925mhz

I have trouble understanding you at times -- you basically have these options with AIB differentiation?

On water cooling or liquid cooling becoming reference -- drive up costs for all -- why not ask the IHV's to focus on efficiency? And ya still have that choice of water or liquid cooled if one desires!

On Summer heat? Why not use air conditioning for one's office or home?