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Gigabyte GTX 980 WindForce OC

Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 And 980 Review: Maximum Maxwell
By , Igor Wallossek

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.

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  • 0 Hide
    Ce3in , 19 September 2014 13:24
    Excellent Review!

    Looks like The Gtx 980 will become a part of my build family!
  • 0 Hide
    HEXiT , 19 September 2014 20:31
    went to buy 1 form ocuk today as they had around 70 in stock of both the 970 and 980... but by the time i sorted the order (about 10 mis) they were out of stock...
    so roll on next week and hopefully they will have them back in stock...
  • 1 Hide
    Marco Washa , 20 September 2014 06:09
    These cards are really impressive. GG nVidia you have done right this time.
    -Top performance as always
    -Low power consumption
    -A right price this time XD
  • 2 Hide
    Marco Washa , 20 September 2014 06:12
    These cards are really impressive. GG nVidia you have done right this time.
    -Top performance as always
    -Low power consumption
    -A right price this time XD
  • 0 Hide
    shaunwil , 20 September 2014 09:47
    Bought a 980 from scan. By 2pm they had sold almost 300 cards in the day. Looking forward to 4k G-sync with the card now when the monitor comes available.
  • 0 Hide
    Omar101 , 21 September 2014 22:51

    nvidia
  • 0 Hide
    Alpha3031 , 22 September 2014 05:00
    Now, if AMD actually made some progress with power. That should drive prices down too.
  • 0 Hide
    Mahisse , 22 September 2014 11:42
    I fear this may be the beginning of the end for AMD GPU. Seems like Nvidia is beating AMD on any entry level now with a better cost/performance ratio. I want competition not monopoly!
  • 0 Hide
    Alpha3031 , 23 September 2014 03:15
    Triple post?
  • 0 Hide
    Mahisse , 23 September 2014 09:30
    Don't know how that happened but they are deleted now :) 
  • 0 Hide
    Bitty , 9 October 2014 14:51
    Just getting back into gaming after a huge gap. Got a Gigabyte G1 gtx970 (another later) to replace a very well-behaved AMD 9790 GHz. All seemed ok until I hit replay in Grid2 when it froze. Repeatedly it did this with oc or not but temps etc were fine. hmmmmm. Valley worked like a charm with none and big overclocks - no artifacts. Titanfall would freeze too. Asetto Corsa was fine. I looked about and saw a few complaining of similar issues thinking the 344.16 drivers were the cause. I suspec ted that power might be an issue since other factors were okay and not everybody has the issue. I then found this article on power draw and the penny dropped.

    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.
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