Hardware Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 G1 Gaming Review

Since almost all reference cards will clock pretty much as high as this, and do so quietly, I'm not sure that there's as much requirement for exotic coolers on the daddy Maxwell.

 

Unless you simply can't fit two cards in your case or have a complete aversion to SLI, I really don't understand why anybody would not go for 2 x 970 for only about £50 more and have nearly 50% more performance.

£500 for a single card that is only about 20% faster than one costing £200 less just seems absurd.

 

I guess it depends on how quiet is quiet. Do any of the 980 cards (this, other third party coolers and reference) feature the 'silent mode' featured on some 970's where the fans don't spin up until certain temps?

For me personally I would still go for one of either the MSI or ASUS cards. By the way, does anyone know if you can get a back plate that will work with the MSI 9xx cards? Speaking of which, the backplate on this... Not nice, it looks like a Transformer's anus.

 

SLi support, and thus the benefit thereof, is driver dependent. Thus, the actual performance comparison of 2x 970 vs. 1x 980 can be variable. In other words, if the performance of 980 is 100%, 2x 970 can vary between 75% and 150% at the whim of the game devs and nVidia drivers.

People wanting consistency, therefore, usually go for the single card option...

 

Four reasons I went for a 980:

1. Node 304
2. No SLI issues
3. Noise/heat vs power consumption is epic
4. I really wanted a stock cooler

 

For that price I would like to see at least 6GB VRAM for a bit of 4K future proofing

 

I imagine come Christmas, or whenever AMD release their next cards, we'll see a price drop and also third party cards featuring 8GB. I doubt they will go for 6GB but there will most likely be 8GB cards within the next couple of months.

 

Rumours point to a Feb / March 2015 release date for AMDs next gpus. Nvidia cards seem to have always had similar performance to AMDs cards that have more vram, Would lead one to think they are more efficient with there process.

 

No, it just means that games aren’t taking advantage of the extra vRAM.