So if I've decided on a 980TI, is the best one the Zotac 980Ti Amp! Extreme Edition?

[SaltyNuts]

Is this the highest clocked one out there? Any other reasons not to get it? Seems priced in line with the other brands.

Thanks!

 

[Headfoot]

Keep all these questions in the same thread, you've made 3 or 4 in rapid succession

 

[SaltyNuts]

Got it Headfoot. Is this thread closed so that I should post in other one? And I'd like your input if possible - very helpful!

 

[5150Joker]

Is this the highest clocked one out there? Any other reasons not to get it? Seems priced in line with the other brands.

Thanks!

Yes, it's currently the fastest 980 Ti you can purchase. But keep in mind it will also take up a lot of space because of the size of it's cooler so if you plan to go SLI, check that you have adequate clearance.

 

[SaltyNuts]

Thanks 5150 Joker! Will check space - I think I saw it requires 3 slots (?!) per card - that sound right?

And as a side question, any idea how well, if at all, a 960 will SLI with a 950tx for backup computer?

Thanks!

 

[5150Joker]

Thanks 5150 Joker! Will check space - I think I saw it requires 3 slots (?!) per card - that sound right?

And as a side question, any idea how well, if at all, a 960 will SLI with a 950tx for backup computer?

Thanks!

Yep 3 slots is about right. You'll probably see a bit of a CPU bottleneck with the 950 and 960 SLI at 1080p but it should diminish if you scale higher in resolution.

 

[RussianSensation]

Is this the highest clocked one out there? Any other reasons not to get it? Seems priced in line with the other brands.

Thanks!

Almost all 980Ti cards overclock the same and most of them are cool and quiet. Therefore, go for the cheapest after-market model and spend the difference on videogames, or put it aside for a next gen 16nm card.

MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti = $570

 

[SaltyNuts]

Where can I get it for that price russian? Thanks!

 

[4K_shmoorK]

Where can I get it for that price russian? Thanks!

Click the price in his post.

 

[SaltyNuts]

Ah, missed the link as I was on my mobile. See it now, thanks! $599 plus $30 mail in card.

One question. I got the impression from reading various articles, such as this one:

http://techreport.com/review/28685/geforce-gtx-980-ti-cards-compared

That although what russian said is certainly true that the chips likely have the same intrinsic overclockability as between cards, that some of the cards with the more massive cooling systems are more overclockable.

If that's right, I guess I'd have to figure in the respective overclockability into the equation (but even then it would likely point to the cheaper cards).

Thanks!

 

[RussianSensation]

Ah, missed the link as I was on my mobile. See it now, thanks! $599 plus $30 mail in card.

Don't forget either the $15 off $15 Visa Checkout or $25 off $200 AMEX Newegg stacking deals.

As far as overclocking goes, even if one 980Ti reaches 1525mhz and the other just 1450mhz, that's only a 5% difference. That will have no impact on your overall gaming experience. The more $ you can save towards a next GPU upgrade, the more you have to spend on a next gen card. By December 2017, there will be a $650 card that's 60-80% faster than a 980Ti. What's the point of sweating the extra 5% of OCing headroom if you have to spend $70-80 extra for it? I wouldn't do it but that's me.

I mean if you are going to spend extra on a 980Ti, focus on other value-added items.

For example, MSI Gaming 980Ti has a free mousepad thrown in, while the MSI Lightning 980TI LE edition throws in a free copy of Black Ops 3.

At least the 980Ti Lightning LE has one of the best and quietest GPU coolers and it has high-end components. So from that perspective, it's at least somewhat justifiable to spend a bit extra over the card I linked.

The Zotac Extreme was a great card in the beginning of 980Ti's life-cycle but at the current time I don't think it's worth the $650 anymore. If you intend to overclock on your own, I don't see how the MSI Lightning LE could be a worse option but it'll for sure be quieter.

 

[Timmah!]

I was hellbent on MSI Gaming, but it seems it sold out on my e-shop of choice...so i looked on other options they have there and surprisingly, the card which caught my eye i would never consider before, is the Evga Hybrid... is it any good? I saw the watercooling keeps temps in 40s (Celsius degrees) under load even overclocked, which is awesome. Since i intend to use it for GPU archviz rendering, which can take hours, unlike a gaming session here and there, that looks kinda interesting. Granted it wont OC higher than any air-cooled model and its 90 EUROs more expensive than the MSI i wanted to get...

Additionally, i have no experience with watercooling. How does it work anyway. I see on the picture it has standard blower fan on top and then the watercooling equipment with the fan of its own. Does the Hybrid mean one can use it cooled just by air? Do you need the other fan on that radiator or whatever its called connect to the motherboard? Can you replace it for another one? And how do you seat the watercooling stuff inside the case anyway, where do you put it?

Sorry for slightly hijacking the thread.

 

[railven]

I was hellbent on MSI Gaming, but it seems it sold out on my e-shop of choice...so i looked on other options they have there and surprisingly, the card which caught my eye i would never consider before, is the Evga Hybrid... is it any good? I saw the watercooling keeps temps in 40s (Celsius degrees) under load even overclocked, which is awesome. Since i intend to use it for GPU archviz rendering, which can take hours, unlike a gaming session here and there, that looks kinda interesting. Granted it wont OC higher than any air-cooled model and its 90 EUROs more expensive than the MSI i wanted to get...

Additionally, i have no experience with watercooling. How does it work anyway. I see on the picture it has standard blower fan on top and then the watercooling equipment with the fan of its own. Does the Hybrid mean one can use it cooled just by air? Do you need the other fan on that radiator or whatever its called connect to the motherboard? Can you replace it for another one? And how do you seat the watercooling stuff inside the case anyway, where do you put it?

Sorry for slightly hijacking the thread.

If you are catching that awesome deal for the HYbrid, I would highly recommend it. I bought a Zotac Reference in June with the intentions of slapping on the HG10 N980 bracket that was expected to launch in August. Come October and the bracket still hadn't released but the EVGA Hybrid kit was on sale ($20 off with $20 rebate) so I snagged it.

My card's ambient is 20-22C and full load with +300 core/+300 mem has yet to break into the 50C, highest I saw was 47C. (Room temp is probably 21-23C).

I'm not using anything fancy, just the kit (which is the same kit slapped on the EVGA Hybrid 980 Ti). My only complaint is the stock fan is a little loud for my preference (and by loud I don't mean it's making me go deaf, just that it is noticeable over my entire rig and I aimed for quiet). I'm just going to replace it with a spare Corsair SP120 and have it run off my Fan controller. I expect temps to stay similar or go up 1-2C due to the fan most likely running at 1/3 the current speed.

 

[Timmah!]

Thanks!

I would not call it awesome deal, its still 800 EUROs with VAT. But the MSI used to cost as much not so long ago, nowadays its at 713...at that point i was not even looking at this Evga cause it was probably 900 or more... what exact clocks do you run again? 300+ over what? Naturally i would want it OCed as much as it can go, since faster = pictures rendered faster. Its actually pretty annoying to wait hours for it to happen, during that period i cant do nothing with the computer, since the GPU doubles both as display adapter and does its GPGPU thing, it makes the whole machine useless even for basic web browsing. So fastest card possible = win.

EDIT: Oh you said Zotac reference, so probably 300+ over reference card´s clocks i assume.

 

[Jaydip]

Why no one is considering it ?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=asus_gtx_980_ti-_-14-121-979-_-Product

 

[Timmah!]

Why no one is considering it ?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=asus_gtx_980_ti-_-14-121-979-_-Product

cause its 853 EUROs where i live...and its too long for my case, would need to get rid of som HDD trays or something - simply do some fixes to my case and i dont feel like it.

 

[Jaydip]

cause its 853 EUROs where i live...and its too long for my case, would need to get rid of som HDD trays or something - simply do some fixes to my case and i dont feel like it.

Ha ha I was j/king as I got that one recently but man that is a dead silent card and boosts to 1392 out of the box without any oc.

 

[railven]

Thanks!

I would not call it awesome deal, its still 800 EUROs with VAT. But the MSI used to cost as much not so long ago, nowadays its at 713...at that point i was not even looking at this Evga cause it was probably 900 or more... what exact clocks do you run again? 300+ over what? Naturally i would want it OCed as much as it can go, since faster = pictures rendered faster. Its actually pretty annoying to wait hours for it to happen, during that period i cant do nothing with the computer, since the GPU doubles both as display adapter and does its GPGPU thing, it makes the whole machine useless even for basic web browsing. So fastest card possible = win.

EDIT: Oh you said Zotac reference, so probably 300+ over reference card´s clocks i assume.

Sorry at work, and lunch break. Yeah, +300 over stock clocks.

Normal CPU clocks are in the 1460-1504mhz range.
Mem sit at 3800mhz.

With power limit @ 106% and mvolts at stock. I'm pretty sure I'm power limited by the stock bios, I've been debating using a custom bios just to see where I can go, but honestly none of the games I'm currently playing need me to go any further.

 

[Timmah!]

Sorry at work, and lunch break. Yeah, +300 over stock clocks.

Normal CPU clocks are in the 1460-1504mhz range.
Mem sit at 3800mhz.

With power limit @ 106% and mvolts at stock. I'm pretty sure I'm power limited by the stock bios, I've been debating using a custom bios just to see where I can go, but honestly none of the games I'm currently playing need me to go any further.

1460 - 1504 sounds great. Pretty much max as you can get with stock bios/allowed overvolting AFAIK.

@Jaydip - i see now you have it in your sig, did not spot it before. I am sure its great card, if it was slightly cheaper, i would very likely consider it. Even if i needed to customize my case cause of it.

 

[RussianSensation]

Since i intend to use it for GPU archviz rendering, which can take hours, unlike a gaming session here and there, that looks kinda interesting.

Have you actually seen benchmarks for the GPU archiving program/app you use between 780/780Ti/970/980/980TI?

For some GPU compute/application specific tasks, 980Ti might not even be worth it. Maybe a 780Ti/970/290X will be almost as fast. It just depends on the app.

As far as the EVGA Hybrid goes, here is a review.

I do find it hard to recommend anyone to spend 800 Euro on what is now going to be a 6 months old 980Ti card. The older flagship cards get, it becomes that much harder to justify paying close to MSRP prices for them. Something else to consider if your CPU. What that means is for archiving purposes, you could also benefit from a 6-core 5820K OC.

 

[Timmah!]

Have you actually seen benchmarks for the GPU archiving program/app you use between 780/780Ti/970/980/980TI?

For some GPU compute/application specific tasks, 980Ti might not even be worth it. Maybe a 780Ti/970/290X will be almost as fast. It just depends on the app.

As far as the EVGA Hybrid goes, here is a review.

I do find it hard to recommend anyone to spend 800 Euro on what is now going to be a 6 months old 980Ti card. The older flagship cards get, it becomes that much harder to justify paying close to MSRP prices for them. Something else to consider if your CPU. What that means is for archiving purposes, you could also benefit from a 6-core 5820K OC.

Thanks.

I am more or less sure for my particular app, which is akin to Cycles tested in that sweoverclockers review, the 980Ti is improvement over other possibilities you mentioned. See here:

https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/results.php

780Ti 102 points, 980Ti 126 and that is very possibly not OC performance. I have read with OC the result should be more like 140 or more.

Granted, the difference in performance may not be reflected in price difference. I am not sure what 780Ti goes for these days, if its even on sale...but i sort of refuse to buy Kepler at this point anyway. AMD cards are not option to me, since my app is CUDA based, at least for now. OpenCL support is planned, but it may still be some time until that happens. Same goes for Intel hexacore CPU, which i own btw, although the oldish 980x rather than 5820k, its irrelevant though, since Octane is strictly GPU based renderer.

I understand your hesitation though, actually i hesitate myself. I did not plan to get 980Ti, but my hand is sort of forced by circumstances, cause my own GPU - GTX590 - broke. I got it fixed and still dont know the result, it may still be successful, but it did not seem that way last time i spoke with the guy who is fixing it for me. Anyway, the 590 got 110 result in Octane bench, so you can guess i am not that high to pay 800 EUROs to get max 20 percent performance increase. But what can i do...i can technically wait until Pascal hits, i have borrowed replacement card (GTX 580) and i can keep it in the meantime - but i am not sure if i am willing to wait until then. If there was guaranteed double increase in performance, i would for sure. But judging from your own posts, i guess we both expect more like 30 percent over GTX980Ti for those 800 EUROs...and that will be most likely in games. I mean seeing how 980Ti is pretty much 2,5x faster than GTX580 in my app and similar ones, while in games its more like 5x. Anyway, i can maybe live with having those 30 percent less of performance, if i can have it now and god knows when next year.

EDIT: i am interested in that dual-chip maxwell card. I suppose there is no chance in hell it would be sold for something like 1000, i guess it will be 1500 and even then we can consider ourselves lucky its not 3000, but if it was 1000, i would be all over it. Now that would be proper replacement for my 590.

 

[tential]

cause its 853 EUROs where i live...and its too long for my case, would need to get rid of som HDD trays or something - simply do some fixes to my case and i dont feel like it.

Remove the hdd trays if you don't use them. I removed all of the junk out of my r4 case from fd an now my pc is far quieter an run far cooler than before. Night and day difference. I went from massive fan speeds to keep my 7950 cool to no worries at all to keep my r9 290 cool. Fans don't even ramp up often.

It took my a couple of hours to take all my hdd trays out, velcro my ssd to my mobo tray, and clean up my pc inside but it definitely is worth it, especially when you're getting these cards about the 200 mark.

Protect your investment!

 

[RussianSensation]

Anyway, the 590 got 110 result in Octane bench, so you can guess i am not that high to pay 800 EUROs to get max 20 percent performance increase. But what can i do...i can technically wait until Pascal hits, i have borrowed replacement card (GTX 580) and i can keep it in the meantime - but i am not sure if i am willing to wait until then. If there was guaranteed double increase in performance, i would for sure. But judging from your own posts, i guess we both expect more like 30 percent over GTX980Ti for those 800 EUROs...and that will be most likely in games.

If the primary purpose of this rig is Octane, not games, the choice cannot be more obvious: Buy as many NV GPUs as possible that your mobo / PSU can handle over a single 800 EURO 980Ti.

Look at this:

3xGTX780Ti = 310 points (WOW, 2.5X faster than a 980Ti)
3xGTX980 = 296 points
3xGTX780 = 236 points
2xGTX780Ti = 201 points
2xGTX780 = 167 points
2xGTX970 = 161 points
2xGTX580 = 127 points
1x980Ti = 124 points (800 EURO = what a rip-off for Octane)
2xGTX770 = 114 points
2x GTX560Ti = 102

You should be able to easily purchase 3xGTX780s or 2xGTX780Tis or even 3xGTX780Tis for 850 EURO and they would obliterate a 980Ti for Octane. 980Ti is pretty much the worst possible option here since even dual GTX580s are faster and a GTX580 is a $100 US videocard today. I mean go on eBay. It should be very easy to find 780/780Ti cards on sale. 850-900 EURO would help you pick up a lot of these cards.

 

[Timmah!]

If the primary purpose of this rig is Octane, not games, the choice cannot be more obvious: Buy as many NV GPUs as possible that your mobo / PSU can handle over a single 800 EURO 980Ti.

Look at this:

3xGTX780Ti = 310 points (WOW, 2.5X faster than a 980Ti)
3xGTX980 = 296 points
3xGTX780 = 236 points
2xGTX780Ti = 201 points
2xGTX780 = 167 points
2xGTX970 = 161 points
2xGTX580 = 127 points
1x980Ti = 124 points (800 EURO = what a rip-off for Octane)
2xGTX770 = 114 points
2x GTX560Ti = 102

You should be able to easily purchase 3xGTX780s or 2xGTX780Tis or even 3xGTX780Tis for 850 EURO and they would obliterate a 980Ti for Octane. 980Ti is pretty much the worst possible option here since even dual GTX580s are faster and a GTX580 is a $100 US videocard today. I mean go on eBay. It should be very easy to find 780/780Ti cards on sale. 850-900 EURO would help you pick up a lot of these cards.

Thats the thing, i cant have 2 or more cards, cause i made a strategic mistake when i built this computer 5 years ago. I got combo of gigabyte x58a ud7 and fractal design r2. Both great products on their own merit, but combined together = not so good. The only way i can have multiple cards is next to each other, no empty space between them - i actually tried and never more. Thats why i ended with 590 and would prefer dual-chip card, if its price did not rise 5x in the meantime (when comparing 590 with Titan Z)

Next computer i build, if it ever happens, will have 1x PCI-E slot between the those 16x for sure.

Additionally, i have only 750W PSU (Seasonic mind), so i guess i would need stronger one for multiple GPUs, if it was option.

Finally, the gaming is a concern too. I suppose i would be fine gaming even with single 780, since it would be fair upgrade on the 590 (i never ran any game in SLI mode with it, used both GPUs only for Octane), not to mention the only graphically intensive game i play (or care to play) nowadays is Ashes of the Singularity...still, even though Octane is the primary concern, this is not strictly working computer. I would not invest 800 EUROs into GPU just for gaming though.

@ Tential> you are right indeed. I have 2 HDDs and 2 SSDs and it would probably require to re-position them. I am kinda lazy to do that:-D Especially if easier solution is just to buy shorter card.
Anyway, i would understand if this was between Strix and the MSI Gaming i planned to get initially. But comparing Strix to hybrid Evga, is the Evga not better choice? Strix may provide awesome cooling performance for air-cooled card, but still wont hold a candle to liquid cooled GPU...which is 50 EUROs cheaper on top of that... And i suppose the cooler is pretty much the only reason to get Strix over other alternatives, since all the other stuff is pretty much the same... or am i wrong?

 

[RussianSensation]

Next computer i build, if it ever happens, will have 1x PCI-E slot between the those 16x for sure.

Additionally, i have only 750W PSU (Seasonic mind), so i guess i would need stronger one for multiple GPUs, if it was option.

Seasonic makes top notch PSUs. 750W Seasonic = 750W @ 24/7 100% load

That PSU should easily handle 2xGTX780/780Tis maxed out. If you buy reference blowers with the Titan cooler, they do not need any space between them. They'll run perfectly fine at 82-83*C.

The blower 780/Tis are specifically designed to function 24/7 100% load under this scenario.

If you were happy with GTX590, I'd try to find 2 780/780Ti and go that route. Your PSU can handle it and your gaming performance will be more than satisfactory while your Octane performance will be much better than a single 980Ti. Alternatively, even a single used 780Ti would be a better investment for you than an 800 EURO 980Ti. Then when Pascal comes out, you can check its performance in Octane and upgrade again. I mean from what I am seeing there is no way I would buy an 800-850 EURO 980Ti based on everything you described. It's just a horrendous price/performance option for your tasks.

Plus, think about this way, 780Ti x 2 are soo much faster in Octane (62% faster than a 980TI), that you can literally downclock them 10-15% to lower noise levels or temperatures and still beat 980Ti easily. Here in Toronto a used 780Ti goes for 270-310 EURO. So I think I am being realistic that in your country it should be possible to find 2 reference 780Tis for 800 EURO.