nVidia GTX 980ti Review/Discussion Thread

EarthDog said:

+1... no idea why you would get a 1.6KW PSU when you rig will be lucky to pull 750W when overclocked to its limits...

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Fighting with noise ? ... On my 1200W for most of the time fan is not spinning at all, even while benching

any chance someone with an acx 2.0 980 ti can give some temp readings with various fan speeds and give an impression of noise at different cooling levels? from what i've read the evga sc model runs about 76c at default everything on load. just wondering what it takes to keep it cool at max clock speed. how loud is 100% and what load temp do you get? what temp can you get within reasonable noise levels with some tweaking? i'm starting to think the acx 2.0 cooler might not be too bad especially after seeing the strix review.

Brando said:

any chance someone with an acx 2.0 980 ti can give some temp readings with various fan speeds and give an impression of noise at different cooling levels? from what i've read the evga sc model runs about 76c at default everything on load. just wondering what it takes to keep it cool at max clock speed. how loud is 100% and what load temp do you get? what temp can you get within reasonable noise levels with some tweaking? i'm starting to think the acx 2.0 cooler might not be too bad especially after seeing the strix review.

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I just recently started overclocking mine. Got a 220mhz bump without artifacts or voltage in the Heaven benchmark 4.0 and haven't attempted higher so I haven't found the ceiling yet, just played a bunch of games and stability is fine. As for temps and fan noise, I don't really know how convey the noise to you, besides my CPU fan is louder. I can do a test for you tomorrow night if you'd like. What kind of fan curve would you like me to try ? I'll set it up and post a video to youtube. I'll be sure to include a run at 100% fan speed.

motherboard1 said:

I just recently started overclocking mine. Got a 220mhz bump without artifacts or voltage in the Heaven benchmark 4.0 and haven't attempted higher so I haven't found the ceiling yet, just played a bunch of games and stability is fine. As for temps and fan noise, I don't really know how convey the noise to you, besides my CPU fan is louder. I can do a test for you tomorrow night if you'd like. What kind of fan curve would you like me to try ? I'll set it up and post a video to youtube. I'll be sure to include a run at 100% fan speed.

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temps and fan speed/noise after 5 minutes of heaven benchmark at default fan profile with maximum oc as well as what that boost speed is and the voltage you're at. then see how much temps go down each notch that you increase fan speed up to 100% and your opinion on what fan speed % starts to sound loud. i'm just trying to figure out if you can max a 980 ti core with the acx 2.0 without having to deal with the sound of a jet engine. i want that evga warranty if i'm going to spend $700 bucks but i need to know the cooler can hack it without driving me nuts. probably gonna get a classified. thank you! btw my definition of loud is the sound my ps4 makes after it warms up. i don't know if you have a ps4 or know someone that has one but it's definitely one notch too loud for me. a few db less than that is acceptable for an overclocked card at full load. it should make less noise than a microwave if that helps. just trying to pick noisy things that lots of people are familiar with.

K. I'm on it !

Btw a couple of my buddies have PS4s, and I've never "noticed" any noise from them...

Edit: 68c Constant, 1.187 V constant, 1434 Core boost unflinching @ 220mhz OC after 5+ minutes Heaven 4.0. (not max OC, but as far as I tried overclocking). Fan speed reached 86 % and jittered a bit naturally.

My personal opinion of the noise level at 86% is that I can drown it out while gaming (and do), but at 100% I dunno, it might bug me, but it's definitely not as loud as I remember my HD 7950 Windforce used to get at reference speeds and no fan curve adjustments.



The audio hole on the camera was placed about 1 foot from the top/back of the computer but in reality, it's louder than your able to perceive from the video.

The second video is the Fan profile forced to 100%

So correct me if I'm wrong, but I've read increasing voltage doesn't help in increasing stability in raising clocks? If so then I guess I can only get +325 stable 4 hour run on heaven and valley...

But watching PX my voltage only maxes at 1.2121 while I've read on OCN that it should be reaching 1.27 with mV control maxed out. Could possibly be that I'm running in SLI also. Definitely not hitting thermal throttling as it's still only hitting max 44c on all benchmarks.

motherboard1 said:

K. I'm on it !

Btw a couple of my buddies have PS4s, and I've never "noticed" any noise from them...

Edit: 68c Constant, 1.187 V constant, 1434 Core boost unflinching @ 220mhz OC after 5+ minutes Heaven 4.0. (not max OC, but as far as I tried overclocking). Fan speed reached 86 % and jittered a bit naturally.

My personal opinion of the noise level at 86% is that I can drown it out while gaming (and do), but at 100% I dunno, it might bug me, but it's definitely not as loud as I remember my HD 7950 Windforce used to get at reference speeds and no fan curve adjustments.

The audio hole on the camera was placed about 1 foot from the top/back of the computer but in reality, it's louder than your able to perceive from the video.




The second video is the Fan profile forced to 100%

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thanks man you're awesome i really appreciate it. 68c load temp is really good for default speed since most reviews show about 76c. whats the load temp in heaven like with the fan at 100%?

edit: i guess i didn't explain myself correctly sorry man. i was hoping for something like this but with temps as well

With the curve @ 100% and 5 minutes into Heaven 4.0 load temps are 62c, but I left it run for an extra 5 minutes after that and they touched the 64c mark briefly here and there. So not much gained between 86% and 100% I would say.

I can make another video mimicking the one you linked with the side panel off the case and whatnot. Won't have time till tomorrow night though.

As for other reviews showing 76c, I don't know, but there are 2 preset fan curves in Precision X16 and no "default" button for fan curves per say. There is Quiet preset, which tops out at 50% fan speed. And there is "aggressive" which is the one I'm assuming is the default, unless everyone else is using the "Quiet" preset. In which case, sorry for any confusion.

motherboard1 said:

With the curve @ 100% and 5 minutes into Heaven 4.0 load temps are 62c, but I left it run for an extra 5 minutes after that and they touched the 64c mark briefly here and there. So not much gained between 86% and 100% I would say.

I can make another video mimicking the one you linked with the side panel off the case and whatnot. Won't have time till tomorrow night though.

As for other reviews showing 76c, I don't know, but there are 2 preset fan curves in Precision X16 and no "default" button for fan curves per say. There is Quiet preset, which tops out at 50% fan speed. And there is "aggressive" which is the one I'm assuming is the default, unless everyone else is using the "Quiet" preset. In which case, sorry for any confusion.

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sounds like the cooler actually does a pretty good job. thanks for everything.

K|NGP|N Edition 980ti info:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/evga-k-ngp-n-gtx-980ti-launch,29636.html#xtor=RSS-181

Interesting blurb:

Along with the K|NGP|N GTX 980 Ti, EVGA has also introduced a new program to custom tailor your purchase to your desires and budget. For the first time ever, EVGA is offering the ability to purchase higher-quality ASIC chips for a higher price. Higher quality doesn’t guarantee a higher overclock, but typically the higher quality of the ASIC translates into a better chance of high overclocking potential.


EVGA is calling this the Ultimate OC Project, and it set four different price tiers for the varying K|NGP|N ASIC qualities: 72%+ for $849, 74%+ for $899 and 76%+ for $999, and the highest quality ASIC (at 80%+) has been priced at $1049.

EVGA’s K|NGP|N GTX 980 Ti will be available on July 22 at 10am PT, but supply is limited. You will also be required to log in to an EVGA account before making the purchase. You can create one here if you don’t already have one.

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I find it somewhat ironic to pay for the higher ASIC quality %, generally a lower ASIC quality % translates to better sub-ambient cooling (which is truly what these cards are made for, not someone to just run on air/water).

The higher the ASIC score the better ambient clocks (according to GPUz), which is what the vast majority does anyway. Makes sense, but holy crap is that a huge premium... for a card that is 'meant' to be taken cold.

Yikes , The Classy / Stix seems to be the better buy

Wonder where the Lightning will land

EarthDog said:

The higher the ASIC score the better ambient clocks (according to GPUz), which is what the vast majority does anyway. Makes sense, but holy crap is that a huge premium... for a card that is 'meant' to be taken cold.

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Yup, but EVGA offering cards this way will make them so much money. Plenty of die hards will be chomping at the bit to buy these. Price is no object to some of these guys. Only a synthetic benchmark score is so they can be the Johnny Holmes of epeen

no doubt!

Its just business... they are there to make a profit, not snuggle up to every consumer and buy what they actually need and not some sweet-as-hell-but-masssive-overkill-for-their-uses prodcut.

Flashed my MSI with a custom bios (1.23v, 135%, 370W)

Previous best Firestrike graphics score was 20700.

With a 78.4% ASIC this card is taking OC like a champ. This is on the stock cooler.




Crushing Witcher 3, GTA V and Project Cars, as expected.