When the GTX 980 and GTX 970 launched, EVGA had a whole heap of cards in its lineup, but there were two cards that we didn't see: the GTX 980 Classified and the GTX 980 HydroCopper. Now, a report on VideoCardz.com has shined some light on the duo.
The Classified and HydroCopper cards from EVGA are the most prestigious graphics cards that the company makes. "Classified"-labelled cards come with huge air coolers, a custom PCB design, cherry-picked GPUs and massive factory overclocks. Despite the huge cooler, though, EVGA builds the Classified cards for hardcore overclocking with liquid nitrogen.
The HydroCopper cards are reference models that come with a water block made by EKWB. Despite the fact that it will still overclock very well under liquid nitrogen, if you're buying a HydroCopper graphics card, it's because you want to water-cool it without voiding your warranty by mounting a water block to it by yourself.
The cards that VideoCardz.com has shown off make no exception to the Classified and HydroCopper designs. The GTX 980 Classified comes with a massive factory overclock, bringing the base frequency up to 1291 MHz, and it should boost all the way up to around 1405 MHz. The memory clock is, unfortunately, expected to remain at the reference speed of 7.0 GHz effective. An HDMI port, two DVI ports and a single DisplayPort handle display connectivity, and the card is powered by two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors.
The HydroCopper card is pictured, but the report makes no mention of its clock speeds. Thanks to the reference PCB design, it retains the standard display outputs, giving you one DVI, one HDMI and three DisplayPort interfaces.
Pricing and availability remain unknown, but stay tuned for the actual announcements.
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