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Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Comes With NVTTM Cooler

By - Source: VideoCardz.com | B 61 comments

Were you curious about the GTX 980? Well, today a boatload of new details have surfaced.

By now, it's no secret that the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980 are about to launch, but that doesn't mean rumors aren't interesting, especially considering that we now have a preview of the reference GTX 980. The images come from VideoCardz.com.

At first sight, the GTX 980 looks exactly like some older Nvidia cards, as it's using the same NVTTM cooler – with a couple of changes.

First off, part of the metallic shroud now also covers the I/O connectors from the interior, but more notably, the card will come with a backplate. This backplate has the same design as that of the GTX Titan Z, although it's been adapted for a single-GPU card.

Nvidia might have made some changes to the cooler's performance, but in all honesty, we don't think that happened. The GTX 980 is expected to carry a TDP of 180 W, which is much less than the 250 W TDP of the older GPUs that this cooler used to handle, so there really is no incentive for Nvidia to improve the cooling performance – if anything, it will run more silently.

There have been a few rumors about the display connectivity on the card, and an image from the ChipHell forums appears to settle that debate by showing that the card will have not one, not two, but three DisplayPort outputs, as well as a single HDMI port and a single Dual-Link DVI port. We do not know which versions of the interfaces these connectors are. What we do see is that the expansion bracket will have the same exhaust grille design as the GTX Titan Z, which appears to be a wee bit less restrictive.

Source: Chiphell Forums. Click for Link.Source: Chiphell Forums. Click for Link.

As far as specifications go, VideoCardz.com also posted that the GTX 980 will carry 2048 CUDA Cores, and will have 4 GB of GDDR5 memory running over a 256-bit memory interface with a bandwidth of 224 GB/s. Calculated benchmark scores predict that the GTX 980 will perform right between the GTX 780 and GTX 780 Ti.

The GTX 970 and GTX 980 are expected to launch on September 19th.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

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Top Comments
  • 14 Hide
    Cryoburn101 , September 15, 2014 10:46 AM
    The reference cooler is just as cool as it was in the 700 series.... See what I did there? I'll leave.
Other Comments
  • -3 Hide
    LukaBoki , September 15, 2014 10:42 AM
    Oh.My.God!!!! We've been waiting for sooooooooo much and now we get to see it.
    AMAZING!! And about time,if I may say. :D 
  • 14 Hide
    Cryoburn101 , September 15, 2014 10:46 AM
    The reference cooler is just as cool as it was in the 700 series.... See what I did there? I'll leave.
  • Add your comment Display all 61 comments.
  • 1 Hide
    TechyInAZ , September 15, 2014 10:51 AM
    Sweet!!! WOW, only 180W TDP?? Insane that's really cool.

    I'm also glad they are starting to phase out DVI. But now that it has 5 outputs, I hope you can connect 5 monitors.
  • 7 Hide
    Au_equus , September 15, 2014 10:53 AM
    anybody know whether these upcoming generation of cards (nvidia/amd) support hdmi 2.0/DP 1.3?
  • 2 Hide
    Snipergod87 , September 15, 2014 10:55 AM
    Only interested if it drops prices of current GPU's
  • 2 Hide
    ubercake , September 15, 2014 11:12 AM
    I would expect the next-gen 980 (it is the next-gen right???) would be at least as good as a 780 Ti , not between a 780 and 780 Ti. I guess I'll be waiting for the 980 Ti this time around.
  • 4 Hide
    Innocent_Bystander , September 15, 2014 11:16 AM
    180W? The sweet silence of my gaming PC is about to get even quieter. I'm glad I've been holding off on the upgrade for this.
  • 0 Hide
    10tacle , September 15, 2014 11:29 AM
    Quote:
    Only interested if it drops prices of current GPU's


    Based upon the non-price drop of the 670/680 when the 7-series came out, don't bet on it. Instead of a serious $100+ price drop of those cards, vendors just let the stock run out. I believe the biggest discount of the 680 was about $40.

    With that said, I skipped the 7-series. And based upon the 180W TDP and apparently cooler operation, let alone the improved performance, I'm glad I waited.
  • -7 Hide
    Ninjawithagun , September 15, 2014 11:32 AM
    "the GTX 980 will perform right between the GTX 780 and GTX 780 Ti"

    EPIC FAIL!
  • 0 Hide
    dgingeri , September 15, 2014 11:50 AM
    Compared to my GTX680, that's the same power profile, 1/3 more CUDA cores, and twice the memory. It's really not that impressive, comparatively. I think I'll wait for the next generation to upgrade. My dual 680s have done well so far.
  • 1 Hide
    IInuyasha74 , September 15, 2014 11:56 AM
    That is some amazing power savings, chances are its still 28nm. So its probably going to drop even more in power once 20nm comes.

    I'm also surprised about the performance. I'm not so well read up on the 780 and 780Ti specs but don't they have a lot more cores with more memory bandwidth? 2048 cores might be fine given higher clock rates but 256-bit bandwidth really seems to be cutting performance back too much for this level of card.
  • -1 Hide
    Novuake , September 15, 2014 12:07 PM
    I still don't get why Nvidia and AMD periodically skips a numeral...

    No GTX880? Or were there OEM parts i don't know about.
  • 0 Hide
    Free2play_noobs , September 15, 2014 12:08 PM
    Memory bus is too low, I don't know if it will be enough to sustain such high amount of VRAM . & Then the speed of the memory isn't that much of ground breaking either.
  • 3 Hide
    hardcore_player , September 15, 2014 12:10 PM
    i'll skip this generation till pascal comes in mid or late 2015 , or if 980TI improves over this...
  • 0 Hide
    IInuyasha74 , September 15, 2014 12:13 PM
    Quote:
    I still don't get why Nvidia and AMD periodically skips a numeral...

    No GTX880? Or were there OEM parts i don't know about.


    I heard it was because the 800 series was already doing good on laptops so they decided to skip it. Just seems a stupid idea to me since unless they are going to run two completely different architectures keeping the same numbering scheme helps to keep track.
  • 1 Hide
    hannibal , September 15, 2014 12:25 PM
    Quote:
    anybody know whether these upcoming generation of cards (nvidia/amd) support hdmi 2.0/DP 1.3?


    Noup... HDMI 1.4 and DP 1.2... Maybe in the next generation...
    What I have found out from the leaks, this use cheaper voltage regulators, cheaper memory bus... you got the point. This seems to be cheaper to produce than 780 is, so this is the economy solution. But the power usage seems to be very good, so why complain.
  • -3 Hide
    RCguitarist , September 15, 2014 1:54 PM
    What is the point of this card even existing? If it performs between the 780 and 780Ti, then why doesn't nvidia just continue with those cards as the current generation and work on something that will actually be better than the current generation?

    It's like a tv company making a 36" LED and a 38" LED, then making a big announcement that it is coming out with a 37" LED with the exact same features. I'm pretty sure if the 36" wasn't big enough for you, you probably bought a 38". Who want's the awkward middle child.
  • 2 Hide
    Chris Droste , September 15, 2014 2:16 PM
    crap...looks like I'll need an adaptor for my two DVI/VGA only monitors... I certainly hope a few OEMs like eVGA or ASUS put one of these together with dual DVI ports. i hate adaptors :( 
  • 0 Hide
    dgingeri , September 15, 2014 2:20 PM
    Chris, There is a nice little item that's available pretty cheaply that will fix that problem: a Displayport to DVI adapter. They even make it easier to unhook from the PC.
  • 2 Hide
    bison88 , September 15, 2014 2:33 PM
    We waited 18 months since the GK110 and the best card they can throw out is between a 780 and 780 Ti which are not that big of a difference between each other in performance. Depressing.
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