What 980 GTX fit best for me?

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Kzylorda

Kzylorda

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I need to pick a 980 GTX, but the lack of benchmark comparison between brands leaves me stranded.
Money are not a big deal in my case, but I would try to stay close to 1200€, or 1500€ if I need to upgrade the PSU as well.
I was thinking about a dual SLI with 980 GTX.
The problem is that there are many brands and overclocked versions.
The brand I want to stick with are EVGA, MSI, Gigabyte and Asus.
I was interested mostly in the overclocked version, but I don't know what is the best among those.
However I want a stable and secure solution, f.e. a 50% overclock that will last for 2 weeks before burning is not what I want. At that point a default version would be better. Quality first.
Also I need to know the wattage, because I'm afraid that with my i7-3820 I will need to upgrade from 800W to something more. I'm not asking tip on how to calculate the wattage I need, just the GPU consumption.
Please only answer if you can do it with a supporting professional article or benchmarks, avoid 12y old like spam similar to: "imho zotac amp! 970 quad sli is the be55t!! because I <3<3 Zotac", thanks.
 
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faalin
If you can find one i would go with the Evga 04G-P4-2982-KR GTX 980 Superclocked, still has the reference cooler and its stock clock is still faster then a reference cards boost speed.

Two things the SC has going for it, 1) it is rated at those speeds 2) its only $20 then a stock card. To me that is a good deal to get a already fast card even faster and under warranty if it cant hold those speeds. I only wish i had held out 1 more week to get the FTW card that was just released. But at the time it was the only Evga 980 card in stock, built a new system around that card and am loving it ever since.
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RobCrezz

RobCrezz

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If you plan to SLI, then any of the reference editions would be fine (with the blower coolers). I wouldnt pay any attention to factory overclocks, they are all minimal and easily achieved with 5mins in MSI afterburner.

Go for whatever reference version you can find cheapest.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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For sli GTX980, you will need about a 850w psu:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm
There are some GTX980 variants that are highly overclocked and need more than the normal 2 6 pin connectors.
I would avoid them.
If your 800w psu is of good quality and has 4 or more 6 pin leads, it is probably ok.
Each 6 pin connector can deliver 75w, and each slot can deliver 75w. That makes a max of only 450w delivered to the cards.
The rest of your pc will use perhaps 150-200w at most.

For sli, I would use a card with a reference titan cooler.
They are designed for sli and will get the heat directly out the back of your case.
Other aftermarket coolers do a good job of cooling the vga chip in an open testbed.
But in a case, they just dump hot air back into the case where case cooling has to deal with it.
That heats up both the graphics card AND the cpu..... not good.

Graphics card vendors are wise to overclocking. They bin their chips and use the best ones in their factory overclocked cards and sell them for a premium.
My take is that you get fair value from a superclocked factory warranted version. I would look for one and forget about any extra overclocks. These cards are strong enough already.

As to brands, it probably does not matter much. Nvidia makes the guts of all of them.
I might prefer EVGA for their good forum support.




 
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faalin

faalin

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If you can find one i would go with the Evga 04G-P4-2982-KR GTX 980 Superclocked, still has the reference cooler and its stock clock is still faster then a reference cards boost speed.

Two things the SC has going for it, 1) it is rated at those speeds 2) its only $20 then a stock card. To me that is a good deal to get a already fast card even faster and under warranty if it cant hold those speeds. I only wish i had held out 1 more week to get the FTW card that was just released. But at the time it was the only Evga 980 card in stock, built a new system around that card and am loving it ever since.
 
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Kzylorda

Kzylorda

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@faalin for now it is my first choice as well, however before spending some good cash I would really like to see some numbers from the experts.

@Geofelt I got a good Corsair PSU, but considering a ZxR, several SSD, HD and DVD reader 16GB ram etc. for how little individually they count, in the end I get scary close tbh. Most likely I do not need to upgrade, but I'm so on the ledge that I don't feel comfortable and either I'll be cheap while waiting for a decent 4K monitor / Oculus Rift to be released and I buy a single GPU, or I'll go for a Corsair AX1500i to support the power consumption properly. The last thing I want is the PC suddenly turning off when stressed, but as you said probably I do not really need to, I will do it to keep my mind healty.

@RobCrezz and Geofelt part 2, I understand what you are trying to say, but I'm about to spend a lot of money, and I won't to do it untill I have a clear idea of what I'm doing. I don't take the "pick the cheapest and that's it, they are powerful enough" approach, if I would I wouldn't even have bothered to ask in the first place. It's a big investment for me, and I want to choose wisely. From my point of view, your comments unsupported by numbers do not contribute to the discussion.

@RobCrezz MSI afterburner states that it works only for MSI card, is that not true? However I admit that I'm not interested in using it. I want a professionals made safe solution, I want something that will work fine without troubles out of the box, letting the experts decide how much the GPU can be stressed, I do not want to waste time trying to figure out failures caused by misbehavior or proper know-how with overclocking, or even have to bother with it. And I want to understand what is the best card under these circumstances.

@all so far, Thank you anyway.
 
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RobCrezz

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All the reference cards will be more or less the same, there should be no reason why one might be better than another, they are built to nvidias specs.

MSI Afterburner can be used on any GPU, not just msi cards. I understand your concerns about overclocking and testing, but the "factory overclocks" are so small, you can guarantee that any card can achieve this. Of course if you want to pay the premium for this factory overclock that is fine, but it is essentially money for nothing.
 
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faalin

faalin

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Actually most manufactures bin their chips so the better chips go to their (EVGA) SC or FTW cards or equivalent.

Not sure what answer you want. Your last part to Rob you talk about overclocking, I could run home tonight and OC my 980 to the max and post what volts and speeds i got but no two computer parts are alike. So your card might reach what mine can do, it might surpass it, it may not even come close. But one thing you will know is that it will run at the factory OC speeds and if not you can rma it back to the manufacture.

As to your comments to Geofelt it sounds like your build the same system that i just got done building in my signature. About the only thing i would change is going from 2133 CAS9 to 2400 CAS10 ram but you wouldnt know the difference.

For stock cards your kinda doing a crap shoot when you get them. Back when the 580's came out i bought two EVGA stock cards, 1 would do 1000mhz while the 2nd one would only pull in the 920's. I know its bad but i sent the second card back to newegg 4 times till i found another card that got close to the first one, settling on 995MHz on the core. Really did i need to do this, no i wasted a lot of money with shipping and restocking fees, but in the end i was trying to get a extreme overclocking system. Now a days i dont have time to spend weeks trying to squeeze out ever last mhz out of the cpu and gpu. A stock i5-4670k and 980 SC are fast enough for me.
 
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geofelt

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If you want a stable and secure graphics configuration, stick with factory specs, either stock or overclocked cards.
As to power requirements, you cpu has a maxtdp of 130w.
Add to 450w max for two GTX980 cards you get 220w left over for minor components like drives.
No way are you going to overload a good corsair 800w psu.
 
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Kzylorda

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@Faalin What I have is a pretty old setup that I have upgraded time to time.
I have an Asus Rampage IV mother board, Creative Sound Blaster ZxR, 4*4GB DDR3 CL9 2133mhtz ram, i7-3820 clocked @4.5ghtz with Corsair H100 watercooler, all in a Corsair Case ATX full tower Obsidian Series 750D, 2*1TB samsung evo SSD, 1*260GB OCZ agility 3, (3 storage HD + DVD read write stuff /care), and I was wrong in my PSU, it's a Corsair HX850W, not 800. Actually I'm running on a 760GTX, but I bought it only because my old Zotac AMP! 480 burned this February, I was waiting for the 800 series and I got tired waiting. And that's a good reason why I do not want anymore trouble with GPUs. I want the most powerful affordable solution that won't let me down again.
Again, the SC seems a neat solution, and I guess that there isn't any benchmark comparing manufacturers and OC version, as I've never seen much about it. So it is likely the best shot.
 
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Kzylorda

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Also it is 850W, not 800. So I guess I'm ok.
Thanks!
 
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faalin

faalin

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lol the good old zotac 480 amp, had two of those till i upgraded to two EVGA 580's. Handed the 480's down to my brother who is still using them today.

To be truthful any electronic device is a luck of the draw. At any point in time they can just fail for no reason

I ran a i7-950 @ 4.8ghz and the two 580's @ 990ghz for 3 years 24/7 never shutting my computer down, and abused the carp out of it running benchmark runs and weeks on end of gaming. Up until last week when the upgrade bug bit me it was all running fine, pulled the HDD's out and left the hole computer in the case just thrown off in the corner of the room and built the new one.
 
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HighEndGaming

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Personally, the Gigabyte GTX 980 G1 Gaming http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NH2D5DC is the best available GTX 980 option out there. The Gigabyte model has excellent cooling as well as a nice custom PCB and they've finally put a great backplate on their aftermarket models. They also included the best video output setup you can have on a modern graphics card. Check out the review from Linus...

http://youtu.be/MK6AYFcSxCs
 
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geofelt

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The gigabyte referenced above is a good example of waste.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125682
For performance, it has already been overclocked to give a boost clock of 1329 for $630.
Compare that to a evga GTX980 superclock with a stock titan coolar.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487068
You get a boost clock of 1342, actually more with a smaller price of $570.
Plus, you get a blower cooler which is the only way to go if you contemplate sli.

If I have any problem with the evga unit is that two 1440P monitors may be difficult to attach. It seems to be optimized for dp connection.
 
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Maximilian Holmberg

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Reading this comments from top to bottom guys made me decide finally for the GTX980 EVGA reference SC... thanks, just thanks. I know since your comments and now has paste quite some time... but just couldnt decide, wanted always the reference design, but all this OC aftermarket marketing crap made me look other cards too... but im done, fck this shit, I go for the reference design card which is even overclocked, hell yeah!!
 
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