[HaCa]Future 980Ti and Fiji XT owners, take notice - EVGA GTX 980 Hybrid Review

[Cloudfire777]

HardwareCanucks posted a very interesting and good review for EVGA GTX 980 Hybrid a couple of days ago.
With the AMD Fiji XT being water cooled as well as Nvidia allowing AIBs to create custom GTX 980Ti cards which hopefully is also water cooled, this is a highly interesting review worth looking at.

Stock GTX 980:
1216MHz

EVGA Hybrid GTX 980:
1393MHz


Selected graphs:

Source: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/69434-evga-gtx-980-hybrid-review.html

 

[Cloudfire777]

Amazing results! :thumbsup:

I won`t go any other than hybrids for my next card after looking at this review

 

[happy medium]

And it only added 100$ to the cost of a normal gtx980 card at 650$.
If your worried about noise with your gtx980, there are plenty of aftermarket cards that are quiet, much cheaper.
I think this is mostly for cards that are 250 watts plus, r9 280/290 spaceheaters!

 

[alcoholbob]

db meaurements can be somewhat misleading since the human ear is A-weighted and certain frequencies are perceived to be louder than others, sometimes many times so. Also the other issue is water pumps do have mechanical vibration which can cause a case to resonate, so measuring the noise at the fan is not the same as the sound several feet away where case resonance can cause an echo effect. My personal experience was the EVGA 980 AIO sounded significantly louder than the stock Titan X fan at idle.

 

[chimaxi83]

This is why water coolers will never go back to air cooled peasantry

 

[Hitman928]

I am a huge fan of the AIO/Hybrid coolers for GPUs. They do such a better job than an air cooler can. I've never used an AIO for my GPU (yet) but I've used them on CPUs and have never had an issue with pump noise, personally except the H100 when it would regulate properly with supply voltages above 12V. It was an easy fix though and I could never hear the pump over even very low rpm case fans. My next gpu will have AIO cooling, whether it is out of the box, or if I need to install it.

 

[antihelten]

db meaurements can be somewhat misleading since the human ear is A-weighted and certain frequencies are perceived to be louder than others, sometimes many times so. Also the other issue is water pumps do have mechanical vibration which can cause a case to resonate, so measuring the noise at the fan is not the same as the sound several feet away where case resonance can cause an echo effect. My personal experience was the EVGA 980 AIO sounded significantly louder than the stock Titan X fan at idle.

Erm, they measured dB(A) so weighting is already taken in to account, and the measurement was performed at a distance of 18 inches, so hardly measuring next to the fan.

 

[3DVagabond]

db meaurements can be somewhat misleading since the human ear is A-weighted and certain frequencies are perceived to be louder than others, sometimes many times so. Also the other issue is water pumps do have mechanical vibration which can cause a case to resonate, so measuring the noise at the fan is not the same as the sound several feet away where case resonance can cause an echo effect. My personal experience was the EVGA 980 AIO sounded significantly louder than the stock Titan X fan at idle.

The chart is using dba.

Sorry, missed antihelten pointing this out.

 

[railven]

And it only added 100$ to the cost of a normal gtx980 card at 650$.
If your worried about noise with your gtx980, there are plenty of aftermarket cards that are quiet, much cheaper.
I think this is mostly for cards that are 250 watts plus, r9 280/290 spaceheaters!

I'm a tad heart broken that @ $650, this product entices me.

That design though, hrnnnnggggg!

 

[3DVagabond]

It's not like it's the only $650+ 980 on the market. There are others that are aircooled for the same or more.

 

[boozzer]

ehhe, this makes me super curious about 390x aio/clc performance.

 

[gamervivek]

OCs to 1620 on core.

AMD need to get better clockspeeds on their gpus regardless of maxwell's efficiency.

 

[RussianSensation]

And it only added 100$ to the cost of a normal gtx980 card at 650$.

It's $100 for AIO CLC, and overclocking to 1393mhz - all warrantied.

That's a bargain and why cards like EVGA Classified 980 have been dropping to $575 because it's better to get the 980 Hybrid over a $699 EVGA Classified. (that and because 980Ti and 390X are coming)

db meaurements can be somewhat misleading since the human ear is A-weighted and certain frequencies are perceived to be louder than others, sometimes many times so. Also the other issue is water pumps do have mechanical vibration which can cause a case to resonate, so measuring the noise at the fan is not the same as the sound several feet away where case resonance can cause an echo effect. My personal experience was the EVGA 980 AIO sounded significantly louder than the stock Titan X fan at idle.

But one can combat higher idle noise levels by setting up a custom fan curve or replacing the included fan with the AIO CLC. To lower the overall noise of a system, since you no longer require a well-ventilated case (because the AIO exhausts most of the heat out of the case), you can buy something like a Fractal Design R4/5, etc. and line it up with sound dampening material. How am I going to lower the noise levels of a card that runs at 56 dBA at 86C?

Now what about 2 of those in CF/SLI? As a gamer, you are screwed. Your ONLY options are (1) get a high end after-market open air cooler like MSI Lightning or Vapor X, but this is problematic for Tri-GPU or even dual-GPU setup in some cases; (2) go water blocks - most expensive option; (3) buy your own AIO CLC - but then you have nothing warrantied.

JaysTwoCents tested Hybrid 980 and it also overclocked to 1.6Ghz while remaining whisper quiet and temps never exceeding 53*C:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98P_NjK3ft8

Now imagine an AIO CLC on a 275-300W GPU where you are overclocking it, adding another 100W of power. Most GPU air coolers would be struggling. With AIO CLC, the heat from the GPU is exhausted out of the case too.

Also, if you want a minITX or a PCB 30-50% smaller than a Titan X, water-cooling is going to be a requirement.

 

[3DVagabond]

OCs to 1620 on core.

AMD need to get better clockspeeds on their gpus regardless of maxwell's efficiency.

Clock speed in and of itself is no measure of performance between archs. Look at CPU's. AMD runs much higher clocks to approach Intel performance. Even multithreaded.

 

[thilanliyan]

This is why water coolers will never go back to air cooled peasantry

Lol so true. I started my watercooling adventures with a X1800XL a while back, and haven't looked back since!

The temp drops and noise levels are just too good to give up. Plus I usually use universal blocks so don't have to fork out for a new block every time I get a new card.

 

[Silverforce11]

This is why water coolers will never go back to air cooled peasantry

This is very true, before I tried water cooling I thought it was a waste of time, money, effort etc. But now that I've gone water, a new found appreciation for quiet + cooling efficiency + exhausting heat out the case without extra airflow fans, its hard to go back.

 

[Cloudfire777]

The power consumption at these clocks is only 37W below Titan X.
So I think a GTX 980Ti with the same water cooling solution should have the same power consumption and therefor roughly the same TDP. Which means a hybrid 980Ti will run just as cool and quiet.

Does anyone know if you can use a different 120mm fan for the radiator on the cards like this? There are many out there and I think some may push more air and be more quiet than the one EVGA use.

 

[Pandora's Box]

The power consumption at these clocks is only 37W below Titan X.
So I think a GTX 980Ti with the same water cooling solution should have the same power consumption and therefor roughly the same TDP. Which means a hybrid 980Ti will run just as cool and quiet.

Does anyone know if you can use a different 120mm fan for the radiator on the cards like this? There are many out there and I think some may push more air and be more quiet than the one EVGA use.

Yes you can.

Love these EVGA AIO units. I have them installed on both of my Titan X's. Cards are now whisper quiet even under full load. Before the coolers were installed, I had to set a custom fan curve for the stock blower fan. In order to prevent the cards from throttling I had to run 75% fan speed. At this speed we are talking reference 290X noise levels.

 

[MrTeal]

I'm not exactly a water cooling guru as I've never done a custom loop in a case, but I can't imagine even going back from closed loop water to stock blowers. I probably can't justify buying an $850 390X to replace my two 290s if it just ends up being a sidegrade, but the idea of getting a top tier GPU with an integrated full coverage block is extremely appealing.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Yes you can.

Love these EVGA AIO units. I have them installed on both of my Titan X's:

hah cool, you can also buy kits and install them yourself? Beastly setup there buddy

How is the noise level? Did you change the radiator fans?

 

[Pandora's Box]

hah cool, you can also buy kits and install them yourself? Beastly setup there buddy

How is the noise level? Did you change the radiator fans?

Using Noctua NF-F12 fans on the radiators, fans are controlled by my motherboard, running 60% fan speed (700RPM) on them. I can't hear my computer at all.

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=400-HY-H980-B1

It says its for the 980, but it works just fine on the Titan X too. I just used a permanent marker to remove the "980" from the side of the heatsink shroud.

I get 50C load temps on both of my cards, much better than the 84C temps with the stock coolers.

 

[Silverforce11]

hah cool, you can also buy kits and install them yourself? Beastly setup there buddy

How is the noise level? Did you change the radiator fans?

It's been the go-to method for cheap/hassle free water cooling GPUs for awhile.

You can buy the Kraken G10 and that works with almost any off the shelf AIO.

A few other more fancy looking designs like the EVGA Hybrid addon also exist.

Or you can do it very cheap, as per my sig, Ghetto Water Mod.

The difference is amazing. Water is just much better at heat transfer than air, its hard to deny physics.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

So now nvidia has an AIO CLC and it's a great idea. I thought the 390x was a failure if it used one? :hmm:

 

[happy medium]

So now nvidia has an AIO CLC and it's a great idea. I thought the 390x was a failure if it used one? :hmm:

If you have enough people saying how great an Nvidia gtx980 is under a water setup, then when the 390x needs a water setup to run cool because its 300+watts, no one will say it sucks. Get the picture?:thumbsup:

 

[xthetenth]

It's a good precedent for AMD to have. If there's a product establishing that adding an AIO makes a product that could work on a blower work much better then it's not a matter of AMD can't make a card that needs an AIO because it's a giant chernobyl of a card.