nVidia GTX 980ti Review/Discussion Thread

[rpjkw11]

i think i want one as soon as asus releases the dcu3 version. i never wanted to spend over $500 on a card but damn it looks nice. right now i'm telling myself that cdprojekt is working on a witcher 3 enhanced edition and i'll need 6gb vram but i doubt i'll be able to stop myself from playing it for that long. WHATEVER IT'S SHINY AND I WANT IT.

Same here, Asus DCU3 for sure. Saw somewhere it should be out next month. Well, I've waited this long....

 

[Woomack]

I like GTX980 DCII but they have problems with overclocking if not used on sub 0 cooling and modified/unlocked BIOS. I hope that ASUS won't repeat it in GTX980Ti. All who stuck at ~1500MHz at high voltage on GTX980 know what I mean.

 

[bob4933]

One thing's for sure. As ATMinside and I discussed earlier, this card is gonna put some SERIOUS pressure on AMD... Makes me wonder how they will react with the 390x price wise.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

One thing's for sure. As ATMinside and I discussed earlier, this card is gonna put some SERIOUS pressure on AMD... Makes me wonder how they will react with the 390x price wise.

And to further my earlier comments from chat, I don't see much of a place on the market for the 390X (if it has 4GB) unless it's under $600.

If it does release at 8GB then it should probably still stay under $750 to have a hope of competing.

All of this is even more true if they indeed come with an AIO cooler instead of a heatsink.

 

[Woomack]

Looking at the latest rumors AMD will have a huge problem to compete with Nvidia. Probably all but top model will be refreshed R9 200 series. I guess that price will be the key factor.

So far first GTX980Ti in my local stores cost $900-1100 ... let's say I don't even want to comment that. 7 cards , all reference or reference PCB with better cooler ( for me it's the same ).

 

[Janus67]

And to further my earlier comments from chat, I don't see much of a place on the market for the 390X (if it has 4GB) unless it's under $600.

If it does release at 8GB then it should probably still stay under $750 to have a hope of competing.

All of this is even more true if they indeed come with an AIO cooler instead of a heatsink.

I agree with that. All current information from AMD points it to be limited to 4G due to HB gen1. But maybe the extra bandwidth will make up for that.

They are going to have to come in at or under 600 to be price-competitive. But maybe the information that leaked before is accurate that it can meet or beat the titanx in performance.

 

[CamelCloud]

Hey guys. Do you think I should wait for more manufacturers to release their versions of the GTX 980 Ti, or should I just pull the trigger on the EVGA SC+? I'm really interested in the reference version due to its design, but I've heard it has poor stock-cooling and doesn't OC that well. It's between $870-$945 here in Norway, so I want to make a good choice before spending so much money. The ASUS reference version is the most expensive one, followed by the EVGA SC+.

Thoughts?

 

[Woomack]

The only advantage of reference version is that you can easier find full cover water block. That's all as they have worse power section and since they're new , they're overpriced. Better is to wait for non-reference cards what can bring better overclocking and additional noise reduction.

 

[Brando]

i'm a little behind the times. would it be nuts to just get the evga sc with acx 2.0+ cooler and back plate? i don't care about getting every last drop of overclocking out of the gpu and i imagine the vanilla board will probably not be that far off from upgraded cards like dcu3/windforce etc. the acx 2.0 has fan shutoff under 60c for the silence i want, the cooling seems to be quite good from what i've read, and evga supposedly has good service so i can swap it if the components have to much coil whine compared to upgraded ones on modified pcb's. am i too far off on this?

 

[Woomack]

I have no idea what about coil whine on these cards but some earlier series had louder coil whine that the coolers so exchanging them to new cards was not helping at all. I would wait for any comments about it. On the other hand PCB is close to what we see in reference Titans or GTX980 so you can base on comments from these cards.

 

[Brando]

can anyone here tell from looking if the vanilla board uses quality components? i would like to believe that if they used the same board as a $1000 card they built it with decent parts.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

can anyone here tell from looking if the vanilla board uses quality components? i would like to believe that if they used the same board as a $1000 card they built it with decent parts.
View attachment 164435

What's your concern about the reverence board?
It obviously won't be the very top level of components, but they work plenty well.

 

[EarthDog]

What's your concern about the reverence board?
It obviously won't be the very top level of components, but they work plenty well.

reference is refernce man... don't look that deep into it.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

reference is refernce man... don't look that deep into it.

Did you mean to quote brando?

 

[EarthDog]

Yes.

 

[Witchdoctor]

Reference will be fine for a moderate overclock
It will also give you the best compatibility if you want to get a full coverage block.
For ambient gaming duties reference cards are fine to go.

Just go in knowing the facts, this is not a top top level card like the Classified, Lightning, Matrix
These cards are great and have some nice features, however at the end of the day the lions share of these cards will go to competitive overclockers

 

[Brando]

it's not so much about getting the absolute maximum oc for me as long as i can get 90% as much as the better cards. if the difference is huge i'll probably wait. i know we can't know that yet because the upgraded cards aren't out yet but i'm sure there's an average % of extra headroom people usually get from dcu2/windforce etc but since i've almost always gotten non reference i don't know how crappy the reference ones are in comparison most of the time. there's also the question of whether solid caps and military grade blah blah blah really make the card less noisy. it seems like coil whine was still luck of the draw with 970's and 980's from what i've read even with better components but maybe i just read a couple bad luck stories and blew it out of proportion in my mind. i didn't make a graph or anything so i'm not sure what the odds are for whine issues on reference vs upgraded pcbs. i suppose as long as it's evga they'll keep throwing cards at me until i'm happy. better to not have to deal with it in the first place imo. the only time i've ever had coil whine was with my first ax850 power supply and it was aweful so i know i can't take it. the second one has been perfect ever since. if it's the same with video cards then maybe it's just a matter of getting the right one. decisions.

 

[Witchdoctor]

Well the nice thing about eVGA is their service is very good


I have bought many eVGA reference designs and have been happy
Think it is simply luck of the draw

 

[EarthDog]

as long as i can get 90% as much as the better cards. if the difference is huge i'll probably wait.

Chances are you will reach what they reach... its all a silicon lottery.

 

[Brando]

i'm starting to think they only made 10 of these things. impossible to find.