Which GTX 980?

Assuming my relatives and parents are fairly generous this season, i should be able to afford a GTX 980.

I know it will be a side grade to my two 670s, but my 670s are two gens old and have no room for upgrading, they already run pretty hot. Probably wont end up selling them, maybe use one for Physx even tho its massive overkill.

So the question is which to get? I was originally weary of reference coolers based upon my current zotac GTX 670s which have reference coolers, i limit to 75% fan speed as at full tilt they are intolerable even in a system with multiple yate loon high speeds running at full tilt all the time.

However, I hear reference 980s are better for SLI (which I plan to do sometime in the future provided I hit the lottery or something)

What do you think?

Very impressed with my EVGA SuperClocked ACX 2.0

Here's lvcoyote's in-house review as well:
http://www.overclockers.com/evga-gtx980-superclocked-acx2.0-graphics-card-review

Get one with the dual fans for now, assuming you have great case airflow. Get another one with the reference cooler to use as the top card if you want to upgrade to SLI.

The superclocked ACX is like $20 more, worth it or no?

Yes, it's one of the highest clocked models without paying through the nose

Are they binned though? If they're not binned, then that's useless, because you could just overclock the cheaper one (obviously)

Wow... there are used original GTX Titans on Ebay for like $300-$500 that have 6GB VRAM which is better than 4 considering when I play Skyrim it nears 3.6 GB VRAM used...

and there are 'mint condition' Titan Blacks there too... damn, all these choices.

I can't possibly imagine that they are binned. I would guess that all of the stock-overclocked ones that are sold (or virtually all of them) are not binned and just overclocked to what you could reach otherwise. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I can't possibly imagine that they are binned. I would guess that all of the stock-overclocked ones that are sold (or virtually all of them) are not binned and just overclocked to what you could reach otherwise. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Click to expand...

Yep what I figured.

Original Titan, $520.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-EVGA...529?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item19f7742199

Performance vs. GTX 980

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-TITAN-vs-GeForce-GTX-980

Of course, they are older so less room for moar SLI in the future, but damn, that's cheap. and moar VRAM! considering on Skyrim which is an older game, on ultra nearly uses 4GB @ 4k (my resolution).

Ok this is really hard, lol -_- as much as I love shiny new things, used faster things are even better... argh.

None of the GTX970/980 are binned it seems. I guess Classified will be on better chips but it cost much more. Right now best for OC seem ASUS Strix or EVGA Classified. Almost all other GTX980 are just standard with better or worse BIOS profile or different cooler.

The Titan actually isn't faster:
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1060?vs=1351

And the 980 uses 40-50W less power than the Titan.

This "GPUBoss" thing is pretty inaccurate. I'd avoid it if I were you.
The only thing the Titan is faster in is double precision computing, which I don't believe you do any of.

Wow, it even beats a titan black, guess I will go for a 980 after all. Hopefully games won't break 4GB 4k, yikes.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-GeFor...613?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2c91d20a95

Teehee.

Although, the 384 bit memory doesn't make the Titans any faster? Huh.

Culbrelai said:

Wow, it even beats a titan black, guess I will go for a 980 after all. Hopefully games won't break 4GB 4k, yikes.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-GeFor...613?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2c91d20a95

Teehee.

Although, the 384 bit memory doesn't make the Titans any faster? Huh.

Click to expand...

No, NVidia implemented a new compression to get stuff across the memory bus more efficiently. 256-bit is "faster" than it was before.

I wouldn't take the savings of ~$20 to buy that on eBay. Worth having it from a retailer on a purchase this big, IMO.