What are the top GTX 980 cards other than TI? Ive seen evga, Asus strix, MSI ect and wondering what ones are the best?

The difference between different card manufacturers and their designs are variable. If the card is reference (no change in design from Nvidias reference design), there is no difference between vendors. All reference cards are the same and will perform similiarly.

The biggest difference is custom cooling solutions between vendors. EVGA has is ACX 2.0 and Classified cards, MSI has its Gaming and Lightning cards, ASUS with its STRIX solutions; the list goes on. These custom cards have variable amounts of improvements and modifications made to the reference 980 cards. These changes can range from simple fan/heatsink solutions to more complex modifications like additional power phases and TDP de-limiters to allow for advanced overclocking capabilities. Custom cards can also have modified or completely different PCB designs allowing the vendor to change the location of VRMs and memory modules to allow for more efficient cooling and overclocking using their custom fan solutions.

If you are interested in a particular card, try googling a review of the card to find out the specifics of the modifications and changes made to the card.

If I could make a suggestion, I would have a very hard time buying a GTX 980 over a R9 290X or 390X. The 290/390X come very, very close to matching the performance of the 980. AMD has made many optimizations in their driver releases over the past year and have come a long way in handily beating Nvidia in that price segment. If you are interested, take a look at the Sapphire 290X Tri-X on Newegg for $329. It is a monster of a card for the price.

Cheers

you can do a side by side comparison over at newegg.com. But in short the differences between the cards is how high their factory overclock is. So the higher the price would indicate that the card is overclocked more than one with a lower price. This applies to both cards from the same company and cards from different companies.

There will be some other price variation because of the fans used as well but you can see that just by looking at them.

Personally I like EVGA cards. Just ordered a 980 myself from their refurb section. google evga b-stock if you want to take a look.

Sadly, you can only crossfire with card of the same variety (270 with 270, 290x with 290x, etc). Over the 270, YES. You will see a massive improvement in performance. DAYZ performance should be much better as well as ARK, however, ARK is an Unreal Engine 4 game and is still in its early access phase. ARK is known to perform very poorly even on top tier card like the 980 Ti and Fury X. But compared to the 270, the 290X is not even in the same league of performance.

The 270 is actually just a rebrand of the 7870 GHz Edition. So the jump is roughly equal to an entire generation plus a jump up to a flagship level GPU.

If youre looking for the card with the best out of the box performance, the 390x with highest core clock is going to be that card. However if youre willing to overclock a bit, the 290x will match or exceed the performance of the 390x. And save you bit of cash. Keep in mind, 290x is the same chip as the 390x

For the 9xx series, MSI and Gigabyte "rule the roost". If you want to understand why, it's based upon the physical differences in the PCB and just how far each manufacturer goes in beefing up things like chokes, VRMs, memory / VRM cooling. More often than not, GPU OCs are limited by how many phases and how hot the VRM gets.

There's a good 970 roundup article here which goes into detail on just far each manufacturer goes on their non-reference designs. Read the bottom third of pages 2 thru 4 to see how each manufacturer's designs differ for the 9xx series and why MSI consistently outperforms the Asus and EVGA cards. Gigabyte did not submit a card for review but you can tell by their performance that what they have done is comparable or better than MSI from a performance standpoint.

You may want to look at the number of highly negative user reviews on newegg to see what cards have problematic for their users. The EVGA SC series is a bit different than the others as, historically, it's been simply a reference PCB w/ a nice cooler added. The Lightning and Classified cards, (as well as the newer HOF and AMP series) have always brought this level of customization / improvements to a whole new level but due to the restrictions, both legal and physical, that nVidia has in recent generations, the level of performance between these and other cards has shrunk substantially such that the price / performance ratio makes them much less attractive today.

Overclocking

MSI 160.5 fps - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_980_Gaming/28.html
Gigabyte 159.1 - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GeForce_GTX_980_G1_Gaming/30.html
Asus 155.1 - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_980_STRIX_OC/28.html

Highly Negative User reviews

MSI 4% - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127834
EVGA 15% - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487089
Asus 7% - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121905
Gigabyte 13% - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125682

As for the competition from AMD, if you are an "outta the box" guy, the 390 / 390x should certainly be considered. But if you use afterburner or another utility to get the most out of your card, then what AMD has to offer above the x80 level just doesn't compete with nVidia's offerings



Reference 390x (98%) has 7% advantage over the reference 970 (91%)

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/33.html

MSI 390x overclocked has a 7.1 % (90.3 / 84/3) improvement over reference card

98 x (90.3 / 84/3) = 104.98

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/30.html

MSI 970 overclocked has a 17.1 % (133.5 / 114.0) improvement over reference card

91% x (133.5 / 114.0) = 106.57

Again, limited overclocking of the R9 series makes a big difference taking the 970 from a 7% deficit for the reference cards to a virtual tie with the 390x..... the 970 actually still has a 1.6% advantage, but that's small enough that I hesitate to call it a win at 1440p. At 1080p, however, the 970 kicks tail. So if they 390x loses to 970, it can in no way compete with the 980 when both cards are overclocked.



No, overclocking your GFX card with Afterburner or any such utility will not effect the life of the card. Of course if you modify the BIOS or physically modify the card, you can shorten life of the card. But nVidia so strongly limits what vendors can do to allow users to increase voltage that you'd have to work real hard to do damage to a card these days.

Just like Intel expects you to overclock their k series processors, just as just about every build uses overclocked RAM (heck, when you buy a package of RAM that says DDR3-1600, that **is** the overclocked or XMP speed), card manufacturers expect that the GFX cards will be overclocked by the user. This is why every review you will read, will have a section on overclocking the card.

If I was to worry about any card overclocked it would be the EVGA SC with the reference VRM but even then, I have not heard of a fried VRM on an unmodified card since the EVGA 570 SC. You simply can not raise the voltage high enough with Afterburner to do any damage and the thermal throttling prevents any heat damage. nVidia even used thermal throttling on the 970 to keep performance from getting too close to the 980 by setting the throttling point on the 970 18C lower than the max allowable temperature... the 980 Ti by comparison is only 7C lower.

Back in the day, both nVidia and AMD bough had a 20-30% overclocking range. As nVidia started to separate itself performance wise, what AMD did with the R9 series was to take their last generation GPUs and simply overclock them before putting them in the box.

The current R9s have an overclocking headroom of only about 5 - 7% across the model line because they have been very aggressively clocked at the factory. The 9xx series, OTOH, ranges from 17% with the 970 to 25% with the 980 to 31% with the 980 Ti.

Overclocking the card is also a very simple procedure.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_980_g1_gaming_review,26.html

1. Load Afterburner

2. Input these settings

With AfterBurner we applied:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_980_g1_gaming_review,26.html

Temp Target 80 Degrees C
GPU clock +155 MHz
Power limiter 122%
Mem clock +500 MHz
Volatge + 87Mv
FAN RPM default

Click to expand...

That got them a 27% OC (Boost Clock) on that card.

While there is a potential to reduce the lifespan of the card when overclocking, that really only applies when HEAVILY overclocking a card beyond its manufactured limits. Adjusting the cards voltage for instance will dramatically impact the heat and stress the card is subjected to. Liquid cooling and heavy overclocks can stress the core to where the longevity of the card can be compromised.

However, adding something like 50-75 MHz to the core clock of a custom card (important to distinguish between a custom card like Tri-x and a card with the reference cooler) can really help to improve performance and help you to get the most performance for your hard earned cash.

A good rule of thumb on overclocking is to search on google for others who own your specific card or for reviews on your card. Reviews often run very conservative on their overclocks and its very safe to say the clocks *should* not impact the life of the card. I've built 3 PCs so far and have overclocked many components. I've never had a component fail due to overclocking but that is not to say there is not some risk involved.

The safest way is to add +10-15 Mhz to your core clock and memory clocks using MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision X and test the stability with a program like EVGA OC Scanner which will stress the GPU. Repeat the process until you are satisfied with the performance overclock or the GPU fails to remain stable throughout testing. There are many good tutorials out there.

Here is a tutorial on the process:
http://www.maximumpc.com/how-overclock-your-graphics-card-2015/

For reference, techpowerup was able to safely push the 290X Tri X to 1135MHz/1555MHz on the core and memory clocks, respectively. That is 85Mhz more than the stock 390X core clock (1050Mhz). So not only did you save $100 by getting a 290X, you have a card that soundly beats the performance of the 390X rebrand.

Again it is up to you. If the whole process overwhelms you then maybe it would be best to buy the 390X and call it a day. But to me, buying a card and tweaking its performance is part of the fun of gaming/pc building, no?

It really depends on whether or not you are willing to overclock or not. The GTX 970 has come down in price a bit but the 290X is still a bit cheaper. An overclocked 290X will nudge a bit ahead of an overclocked 970, but they are basically equal in terms of gaming performance. However, the GTX 970 will use less power doing it. If that is even an issue for you.

If you'd rather not overclock, and go out of box performance like Jack and I have mentioned, then it would probably be best to identify the number your are most comfortable spending and finding the fastest, best reviewed 290X/390X/970/980 you can find. I'd recommend SAPPHIRE and MSI for AMD cards and MSI and EVGA for Nvidia cards.

Though the GTX 980 is now overpriced, so I would not recommend it.

If you're planning to game at 1920x1080, 4Gb is more than sufficient. 4Gb Vram limitations don't apply unless gaming at resolutions at or above 4K.

As indicated above, if overclocking is something that won't keep you up worrying at night, the R9's just aren't in the discussion. Above the 280x / 380x, I just don't see AMD competing on any level. But it's hard to have this discussion w/o knowing your resolution. Since we did 1440 above, I'll use 1080-p this time and pick a brand that was reviewed by same site for each of the cards.



Here we see a number of things:

1. The reference 970 is 4% faster than the reference 390

2. The Non reference card delivers just 1% more performance

3. Two pages later we see that they were able to OC the card 7.2%

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/27.html

From that we see that the MSI non reference 970 delivers an extra 3% and overclocked, 14% on top of that

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_980_Gaming/25.html

From that we see that the MSI non reference 970 delivers an extra 8% and overclocked, 15% on top of that

So the 390 / 390x can in now way compete with the 970 let alone the 980. And since the 390/390x is simply a 290/290x with a higher factory OC , it's not going to even get in the game either.

The reference 290x got 94% in the image above to the reference 970's 97%

The MSI 970 is 17.1% (133.5 / 114.0) faster than reference overclocked.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/30.html

The MSI 290x is 12.0% (129.8 / 115.9) faster than reference overclocked.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_290X_Gaming/27.html

MSI 970 = 97% reference score x 1.171 = 113.6 or about 7.9% faster than the 290x
MSI 290x = 94% reference score x 1.12 = 105.3

Now cards at different levels overclock substantially different. With AMD cards, the overclocking headroom diminishes the closer you get to the top card. With Vidia, it's the opposite, overclocking headroom increase, rather substantially, the closer you get to the top card.

Fury - X 105.05%
390x 107.12%
390 108.21%

980 Ti 131.38%
980 122.71%
970 117.11%

The 980 has been squeezed by the 980 Ti and the 970 making it the least attractive alternative.

On a performance per dollar standards, this is how they stack up. The numbers mean nothing except in relation to one another.

970 - 3.97
970 SLI - 3.48
980 - 2.63
980 SLI - 2.30
980 Ti - 2.42
980 Ti SLI - 2.11

Now the law of diminishing returns means that you will always see less of a performance increase than you will for the corresponding price increase. But the upgrade from a 970 to a 980 comes at a rather steep reduction in price / performance ration from 3.97 to 2.63 (34% drop) but the upgrade from 980 to a 980 Ti is a rather modes drop from 2.63 to 2.42 (8%).... For that reason, I just don't see the 980 as a great buy at it's current average price of $475.

On the other hand, a pair of 970s is just a 12% drop in price / performance ratio.

If you look at it from a whose buying what perspective, the last I looked, at the end of August

980 Ti - NA
980 - 0.99%
970 - 3.97%
960 - 1.60%

780 Ti - 0.39%
780 - 0.84%
770 - 1.92%
760 - 3.08%

R9 2xx - 1.14%
R7 2xx - 0.58%

R9 Fury - NA
R9 3xx - NA
R7 3xx - NA

So as you can see, there are about twice as many 970-s out there as all R7 and R9 cards combined as of the end of August. Nvidia has been slashing prices on the 980 in recent weeks to try and boost it's sales but at this point two 970s in SLI makes a lot more sense than a 980 delivering about 60% more performance (excluding games that already get over 100 fps w/ 1 card) for about a 35% increase in price.

Of the builds we are involved with, the most typical recommendations are, (in no particular order):

Single 970
Dual 970
980 Ti
380x

According to the numbers, anything above the 280x / 380x just isn't in the game. That's why the entire 2xx line had such dismal sales and why the 970 has sold 3.5 times as many cards combined (amazing in that budget cards sell much more quantities) in half the time on market. Another reason it's hard to recommend the R9 2xx series (other than the 280x) is that being 2 years old, the resale value of the card is already very low.

Since the 980 Ti came out, we haven't been involved in a 980 build. I think the price gotta drop to < $450 for sales on that card to pick up again.

Well I assume you are asking this because you have decided that overclocking is something you are willing to undertake. With this being the criteria, and since I still don't know your resolution or budget, it's hard to be more specific

Do you want to pay $155 (50% more) more for the 980 over the 970 for a 12% increase in performance over the 970 ?... that's a but worse than a 1 to 4 (12/50) return on investment. I am just not seeing it a good ROI there. And if it does make sense, then it would be much easier to justify paying 43% more for a 23% increase in performance which is a bit better than a 1 to 2 ROI.

The R390 is 16% slower than the 970 at the same price with both overclocked so, I can't see the attraction there. And with most of the 290s at $280 - $310, I don't see enough of a discount to make buying a year older card worthwhile. There are reference models down at $270 and even lower but not models I can recommend buying because they are not beefed up in any way to support overclocking.

If playing at 1080p, the 970 is an easy choice. At 1440p, a 980 Ti or twin 970s both work tho the twin 970s is faster and costs less.

I would personally stick with the ASUS Strix NVIDIA GTX 980 as I heard that it is a pretty popular choice for a NVIDIA GTX 980 card!

Here's the thing. The 290X is the most performance per dollar card available right now. You can break down which brand of which variant sold the most in whatever month but that really doesn't matter.

If you don't want to overclock at all, you are going to get less performance for your money. The 290X now edges ahead the GTX 970 in most games at 1080p and 1440p, but not at stock clock speeds. Jack keeps quoting performance charts from initial reviews of the 970 and 290x. This was the case 10-14 months ago but the newest catalyst drivers have improved performance for the R9 2/3XX series drastically.

A custom 290X costs less can can be overclocked to beat the performance of the GTX 970 and 390X (same card, higher clocks). Not to mention, new DX12 benchmarks have shown the GCN architecture benefits a ton. Going forward, especially with so many new releases supporting DX12 features before the release of Pascal/Arctic Islands, GCN and 2/3XX cards are ahead of their Nvidia counterparts.



The R9 series is not as weak as Jack would like you to think. The 290X is a VERY competitive card right now and you can't use 1+ year old performance charts to compare the 970 to the 290X. Nvidia has done very little in terms of driver optimization, the 9xx series performance is mostly the same as when each card was released.

So if you would rather not overclock, grab a GTX 970 from the brands we've previously stated. If you are willing to overclock, the best performance per dollar option out there right now is the 290X. And once DX12 games come out, the GTX 970 will have a hard time keeping up.

From techreport's Fable Beta Bench:


EDIT:
Here is a Powercolor 290X for $275 after $20 mail in rebate. Thats a great price for the performance:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131665&cm_re=r9_290x-_-14-131-665-_-Product

More recent benchmarks from the Fury Nano reviews show how much the R9 series has improved over the last several months:


The whole nano review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9621/the-amd-radeon-r9-nano-review/