Clock speeds; everyone always forgets clock speeds. GM200 custom models should easily hit 1.4-1.5 GHz at least with, what, 1.15-1.2 GHz boost speeds even on stock reference designs? If Fiji's anything like the 285 and 290X, it won't overclock to nearly the same level as easily (average for those is where, about 1.1-1.15 GHz?).
I don't think you've been following the posts on Fiji for the last 6 months on this sub-forum if you are making statements how gamers here forgot about clocks. One of the major things we have repeatedly talked about is how even if Fiji beats the 980Ti / Titan X by 5%, 980Tis overclock 20%+ and do so at a small penalty in power usage. So no one here is forgetting clock speeds at all, in fact the opposite. Many have predicted that even if Fiji beats the Titan X, with GM200's overclocking headroom, it could easily be the faster card in OC vs. OC scenarios, not to mention we also discussed the possibility of NV releasing a fully unlocked GM200 980Ti Black Edition with 1200mhz clocks by the fall.
If Fiji can't overclock well, 980Ti OC could easily win this contest since then are we are talking about getting 50% extra VRAM as a 'bonus.'
Gentle Typhoon confirmed then, more or less. Lack of braiding on the AIO CLC fan/tubes looks cheap though.
EVGA did a far better job with
Hybrid 980/980Ti cards.
Since the Hybrid 980Ti costs
$750, and it can hit 1.45-1.50Ghz boost clocks with overclocking, a Fiji XT that's only 5% faster than a reference 980Ti isn't going to fly for $850, unless it overclocks like mad.
Fiji is going to have to compete against custom 980Ti that boost to 1.3+ ghz out of box and OC to 1.45ghz boost.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_980_ti_g1_gaming_soc_review,25.html
The competitor isn't Titan X, it's really a dud held back by the blower and overpriced. These custom 980Ti going for $699 that offer Titan X + 10% performance is the major threat.
That is one seriously impressive 980Ti. What many of us talked about is coming true:
1) Titan X will be obsoleted by a 980Ti and after-market 980Ti will beat the Titan X while running way cooler and quieter for $300 less - CHECK! (despite Titan X owners attacking many for suggesting the the TX was a rip-off from day 1 and most of us knew it!)
2) 980Ti reference is the card to skip for anyone not WC or running 3-4 of those as after-market 980Ti cards will crush it in performance, noise levels, temperatures and quality components for only $30-50 more - CHECK!
3) 980 at $550 was a giant rip-off for the last 9 months, just as many of us called it. An after-market 980Ti just crushes a 980 in demanding situations, it's not even close, yet 980 owners kept saying how waiting for GM200/Fiji wasn't worth waiting for...... right! - CHECK!
After-market $690 980Ti >>>> $1100 980 SLI in The Witcher 3 Another example why buying a single flagship card is often better than 2x mid-range chips.
Also note, nearly perfect scaling with overclocking (1477mhz vs. 1202 reference 980Ti card and here we see almost a 22% increase in performance). 2.8X faster than a 7970Ghz and 2.14X faster than a reference 780Ti, and 87.5% faster than an R9 290X -
Just WOW!
*** I never recall any NV generation where they had a situation where no card between $330 and $650 was worth buying and the gap between the top cards (980Ti/TX) and the 2nd tier (980) was THIS massive. 980 really is a 560Ti/680 successor in Maxwell's stack and it's becoming more a more obvious based on how the 980Ti just
crushes it. $499 for 980 is waaaaaaaay too much seeing these benches. The true potential of the 980Ti vs. 980 doesn't come out until GM200 is overclocked. At that point GM200's TMUs, ROP, CUDA core and memory bandwidth advantage shows up in spades!
4) AMD has a mountain to overcome - 6GB VRAM + 22-23% (1202mhz reference vs. 1477 Gigabyte G1 980Ti) overclocking in after-market 980Tis that cost $690, all while being able to turn off the fans at idle up to 60*C and power usage doesn't go up much for the 980Ti in overclocked states. This point could seal the fate of Fiji XT WCE.
I feel AMD needs to price Fiji PRO and Fiji XT air cooled very aggressively because I am starting to doubt Fiji XT WCE will beat the incredible performance of that 980Ti 1291mhz Boost card you just linked.
Also, a lot of NV AIBs have 3 year warranties, while a lot of AMD's have just 2 year (looking at you PowerColor and Sapphire). Extra year of warranty when spending $600+ could be a factor.
Welcome to AT TaintedSquirrel!
Thanks for your leaks. If XFX now only has Lifetime Warranty if bought from BestBuy, that's a big disappointment.
Must be fake but the radiator and fan are the same.
Detail oriented AIBs should jump on this immediately and use this as a differentiator. The non-sleeved fan connector looks bad on a $600+ videocard.