Now let’s take a look at the technical specifications of Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 980. It’s overclocked from the factory and, according to the manufacturer, uses a low-leakage GPU able to overclock well at lower power consumption. Indeed, our test sample fared particularly well in the power measurements, demonstrating the Maxwell architecture's potential once manufacturing is refined and there's less variance from chip to chip.
A total of six video outputs (of which four can be active at any given time) are great for multi-monitor configurations. Gigabyte keeps the second DVI connector that didn’t make it onto Nvidia's reference design. And HDMI 2.0 support makes the new card a bit more future-proof.
| The Speeds And Feeds | |
|---|---|
| Form Factor | Dual-slot design |
| Length (from Slot Panel to End) | 297 mm |
| Height (from Slot to Top) | 108 mm |
| Depth 1 (from PCB to Front Cover) | 35 mm |
| Depth 2 (from PCB to Back Plate) | 5 mm |
| Weight | 1196 g |
| Connectors | 1x DVI-I, 1x DVI-D, 1x HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort |
| Pros | - GPUs binned for better overclocking and lower power consumption - Total of six video outputs (better connectivity) - Dual-slot design, well-suited for SLI - Lots of cooling headroom |
| Cons | - RPM under full load is too high (BIOS update expected to fix this) |
The 600 W-rated cooler first used on Gigabyte's GeForce GTX Titan Black WindForce OC should be able to handle anything this new card throws at it. After all, it was well-behaved on top of the big GK110 GPU.
Unfortunately, the backplate doesn't help with cooling; its only purpose is stabilizing the PCB.
Air blows up and down, rather than back. That's better than shooting it all toward your hard drives and SSDs, though we'd much rather see a high-end graphics card push its waste heat out of the chassis instead.
Two 8-pin auxiliary power connectors are supposed to provide stable overclocking. The WindForce label lights up in blue.
A total of three DisplayPort connectors, two dual-link DVI connectors, and an HDMI 2.0 connector fill the slot panel almost completely.
- Introducing GM204: There's A New Maxwell In Town
- New Features
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Reference Card
- Gigabyte GTX 980 WindForce OC
- Gigabyte GTX 970 WindForce OC
- EVGA GTX 970 Superclock ACX 2.0
- Test System And Benchmarks
- Results: Battlefield 4 And Thief
- Results: Arma 3 And Grid Autosport
- Results: Assassin's Creed IV, Watchdogs, Far Cry 3
- A New Power Consumption Test Setup
- Power Consumption In Detail
- Power Consumption Overview
- Efficiency
- Temperatures And Noise
- Verdict








Looks like The Gtx 980 will become a part of my build family!
so roll on next week and hopefully they will have them back in stock...
-Top performance as always
-Low power consumption
-A right price this time XD
-Top performance as always
-Low power consumption
-A right price this time XD
nvidia
I have an oldish Antec TP New Series 650 watt modular psu. I had the gtx970 on one 25A 12v rail feeding the 8+6 connectors. It seems this was possibly not enough to cope with the peaks. Not up on psus but with 80% efficiency that 25x12 is not a full 300 watts - more like 240watts. So, I added another 12v rail for the 6pin and hey presto it worked fine no issue.
So anyone with such an issue might try this or get a more powerful psu.