EVGA GeForce GTX 980 TI Classified ACX 2.0+ Designed For Extreme Overclocking
EVGA is after gaming enthusiasts with its new GTX 980 Ti, which is designed for extreme overclocking and features an aggressive power design and an efficient dual-fan cooler.
The GTX 980 Ti has been out for a little while now, but that doesn't mean board manufacturers aren't still competing to be the best GTX 980 Ti on the market. With the ability to change clock speed, RAM quality, fans, heatsinks, power phases and other factors, there can be a sizeable gap between the fastest GTX 980 Ti and the slowest one.
Ultimately, to get the fastest GTX 980 Ti, you need to overclock, and to get the most out of your overclock, you need a GPU that is optimized to handle the extra heat and power overclocking creates.
Although we haven't performed any tests to know how well the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Classified ACX 2.0+ stacks up against the others, on paper the card has lots of overclocking potential. The card uses an aggregate 14+3 power phase design with a fully digital VRM. Compared to the 6+2 power phases used on the reference design GTX 980 Ti, EVGA's solution should offer significantly improved power regulation.
Power phases work in tandem with each other, and all power in the GPU flows through them. If you have too few, they can overheat, which can cause your GPU to throttle, or in severe cases the GPU can die from it. Having many power phases decreases the chance of overheating and helps to extend the life of your GPU.
So that you can take advantage of this improved power design, EVGA also went with two 8-pin PCI-E power connections instead of the reference card's one 8-pin and one 6-pin power connections. As a result, instead of being limited to 300 W of power that the GPU can pull from the system, this one can pull 375 W.
Some extreme overclockers will want to modify the BIOS on their GPU in order to enable better overclocking and higher clock speeds without the use of third-party overclocking programs. This is a dangerous operation on most GPUs, and a mistake can render the GPU useless, but EVGA prepared for that by loading the GPU up with two BIOS chips. With the flick of a switch, you can move between the primary or secondary BIOS in the event that the primary BIOS stops functioning.
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Finally, EVGA implemented a comprehensive cooling solution across the GPU to prevent the card from overheating while overclocked. EVGA utilized a metal back plate on the back of the card, in addition to placing cooling plates on the memory MOSFET, which it claimed reduces the MOSFET temperature up to 13 percent. Straight heat pipes are also utilized, which EVGA claimed nets an additional 5 degrees C drop in GPU temperature.
The heat pipes go through a dense aluminum heat sink, which in turn is actively cooled by a pair of double ball bearing fans with optimized fan blades. The fan motors are designed for ultra low power consumption, using a separate 3-phase power design, which EVGA claimed delivers 250 percent lower power consumption than other GPU fans. Although for extreme overclocking, many users will want to move to a liquid cooling system, as far as air coolers go, this one looks to be well designed and should effectively cool the GPU.
| EVGA Geforce GTX 980 Ti Classified ACX 2.0+ | |
|---|---|
| Cores | 2816 CUDA |
| Base Clock | 1190 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1291 MHz |
| Memory | 6 GB GDDR5 |
| Bit Width | 384-Bit |
| Memory Clock | 7010 MHz |
| Memory Speed | 0.28 ns |
| Memory Bandwidth | 336.5 GB/s |
Currently, there is no word on availability or price.
Update, 7/1/15, 12:17pm PT: EVGA got back with us to add that the GPU is available starting today with a MSRP of $699.99.
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junkeymonkey am I missing something here ??Reply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%208000%20600565061&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&CompareItemList=48%7C14%2D487%2D146%5E14%2D487%2D146%2D01%23%2C14%2D125%2D787%5E14%2D125%2D787%2DTS%2C14%2D127%2D889%5E14%2D127%2D889%2DTS%2C14%2D500%2D379%5E14%2D500%2D379%2D03%23&percm=14%2D487%2D146%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B14%2D125%2D787%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B14%2D127%2D889%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B14%2D500%2D379%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24
for a evga card they seem to not excel in the 980ti as they do with the rest as a higher clock for a lower price point ??
seems with the 980ti evga has the slower cards ??? -
agentbb007 Reply16162355 said:am I missing something here ??
for a evga card they seem to not excel in the 980ti as they do with the rest as a higher clock for a lower price point ??
seems with the 980ti evga has the slower cards ???
That is just the stock OC, the card has a 14+3 Power Phase Design which should allow it to overclock much higher than those other cards and the dual bios is nice to have as a backup. We will just have to wait for a full review to find out how much further it can be pushed. -
skit75 Reply16162355 said:am I missing something here ??
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%208000%20600565061&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&CompareItemList=48%7C14%2D487%2D146%5E14%2D487%2D146%2D01%23%2C14%2D125%2D787%5E14%2D125%2D787%2DTS%2C14%2D127%2D889%5E14%2D127%2D889%2DTS%2C14%2D500%2D379%5E14%2D500%2D379%2D03%23&percm=14%2D487%2D146%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B14%2D125%2D787%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B14%2D127%2D889%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B14%2D500%2D379%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24
for a evga card they seem to not excel in the 980ti as they do with the rest as a higher clock for a lower price point ??
seems with the 980ti evga has the slower cards ???
It looks like it has equal or better clocks out of the box, same as the others with the exception of the anomaly Zotac clocks. With 14 power phases and finally, a back-plate, EVGA appears to be sprinting for the OC title, if you ask me. -
Quarkzquarkz Listen, I've been dying to post something regarding the gtx 980 Ti. I just got one from newegg and it's EVGA for 2 weeks now and I have to say, it's not much of a difference from 2x GTX 670 in SLI; We're talking 10-15% increase in fps at best.Reply
Yes granted, if you have the choice always go for single GPU as SLI will always suffer from micro-stuttering but I just don't see how it's worth paying 660-700 US Dollars for such a small increase in performance.
I'm running in 1440p with i7-3770K + ssd and the works and I'm just bummed out that's all (and I have no desire to run 4k anytime soon). I've had this SLI setup since end of 2012 and it's still good as of July 2015. Heck, if you can wait it even longer for the GTX 1080 or 1080 Ti then please do because it's just not worth it in my book. -
agentbb007 Reply
I found some old benchmarks and it was a 52% improvement on Battlefield 3 @2560x1440 4xAA.16162803 said:it's not much of a difference from 2x GTX 670 in SLI; We're talking 10-15% increase in fps at best.
Gigabyte GTX GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming - 118.5 FPS
GTX 670 SLI - 77.8 FPS
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_670_SLI/6.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_980_Ti_G1_Gaming/9.html
To be honest you only have yourself to blame if the performance isn't what you expected from your 980 Ti. There are tons of sites that post FPS benchmarks from lots of different games. Compare these results to your current FPS with the same resolution and settings, if the FPS increase is worth it in your mind then it's worth an upgrade. -
TechyInAZ Interesting, so is the GTX 980 TI classified filling the slots of both the Classified AND the K|NGP|N editions?Reply -
junkeymonkey thing is look how low clocked all evga 980 ti's are compared to the rest. ''14+3 Power Phase Design '' and don't forget NVidia limitations so I'm sure you would need to risk/ flash a mod bios - 50 phase 3 phase ??? msi is 10 phase , right ? for the same money as said the zotac it ready right out of the box . no tampering and being the for now top evga card I feel its lacking .. then I guess its in the hopes the one you get don't come with elpida memory .. I'm sure the test cards have the Hynix ..Reply
that's all - sorry -
tom10167 Quick, someone tell me what "250% lower" actually means. From what I can tell this thing is actually generating electricity.Reply -
skit75 I dunno... seems about par for the course, to me. EVGA and MSI models are sold out in your example while the Gigabyte and Zotac linger.Reply
I think people are skeptical(myself included) about Zotac's recent aggressively spec'd releases. Perhaps they are playing a little loose in the longevity department for short term gains? Some people wouldn't mind a card that runs hard, fast and hot for a year until it burns out and then get another. I like my GPU's to last a minimum of 18 months.