Conclusion
Conclusion
Last week I walked around the exhibition floors of Computex, checking out board partner designs of the GTX 980 Ti. I already got the notion that a 1200 MHz baseclock would be passed, I honestly did not expect to see SKUs clocked this good though. The Gaming G1 SOC edition hauls the proverbial azz when it comes to the clock frequency. I do immediately need to address one side-note though - please keep in mind that at default the product is clocked at a 1152/1241 MHz base/boost clock. That's pretty nice already, but in order to get the 1190/1291 MHz base/boost you are forced to use Gigabyte's OC Guru software. I do dislike that, if you are going to offer an OC mode, then it should be set like that in the BIOS. End users should not be forced to use software. Not using the OC mode will result into slightly lower perf as the clock revert to 1152/1241 MHz. Regardless of my feelings on that, the OC mode results are pretty insane as the card is showing an on average 15% additional performance running up-to 30% in certain more difficult to render scenario's. That means that a card like this (and pardon my French) sodomizes the more expensive Titan X already. These clock frequencies are just massive for a GPU of this size and caliber. So so you really need a card as beefy as the GTX 980 Ti really is? Well no Sir, not at all if you are playing games in the 1080P or 2560x1440 monitor resolution domain. But it does help as you enable any quality settings you desire, next to that slowly becoming popular is DSR (super-sampling), with DSR you render at a higher resolution then sample it back to say 2560x1440, and that adds a level of extra image quality as pixels are calculated and rendered more accurately. We have an example of that in our benchmarks session, Shadow of Mordor which we rendered at a whopping Ultra HD and 5K and then output on 2560x1440. And yeah I know, it's all relative but these are options the truly enthusiast crowd likes. Then there is Ultra HD, that brute resolution of 3840x2160 requires sheer raw horsepower to output its 4x Full HD resolution, and the GTX 980 Ti is one of the two card that can handle this resolution well with very decent image quality settings. Now obviously value for money wise you are way better off with a GeForce GTX 970 or 980, make no mistake about that. But there is and always will be something better in the enthusiast domain, priced accordingly.
Aesthetics
Personally I feel that Gigabyte hit the jackpot with the design of the card. I like the Windforce cooler, the new white accents. Then the overall dark design and the dark PCB combined with three fans and a Windforce logo on top that you can configure to use one of seven colors to match your style of PC. LED fan indicators on the top of the graphics card provide the fan status (silent/stop). I dig it, but everything related to aesthetics is taste and taste is always personal of course.
Cooling & Noise Levels
The reference design of the GTX 980 Ti are set at an offset threshold of 80 degrees C. Once the GPU gets warmer the card will clock down and lower its voltage. Gigabyte however applied the latest iteration of its 600W WindForce cooler. It is a serious flagship cooler that offers way more cooling performance than the GPU really needs. That shows in gaming, you can expect to hover just under 70 Degrees C with hefty games. So Gigabyte shaved off a good 10 to 15 Degrees C over reference. There is one downside though, the G1 gaming is equipped with six monitor connectors, that does not leave any room for the card to exhaust hot air. ALL hot air will be dumped inside the OPC, so you need to make sure you have proper ventilation in a push / pull configuration inside your PC case. Noise wise, we can’t complain about cooling whatsoever. Expect sound pressure values in the 40~41 dBA range at max under load and warm circumstances. That's measured 75 CM away from the PC. This means you can slightly hear the card while using it heavily. Once overclocked with added voltage we do recommend a little more fan RPM, this does increase noise a tiny bit, but it's nothing dramatic by any standard. Overall this is a very sound and solid cooling solution.
Power Consumption
Much like the GM200 Maxwell GPU harbored in Titan X, this GTX 980 Ti is rated as having a 250 Watt TDP, our measurements back that up, bear in mind that this is a peak maximum value under full stress. At this performance level you are looking at a card that consumes roughly 450 Watts for the PC in total, that is okay. We think a 600~650 Watts PSU would be sufficient and, if you go with 2-way SLI, an 850~950 Watts power supply is recommended. Remember when purchasing a PSU, aim to double up in Wattage as your PSU is most efficient when it is under 50% load. Here again keep in mind we measure peak power consumption, the average power consumption is a good notch lower depending on GPU utilization. Also, if you plan to overclock the CPU/memory and / or GPU with added voltage, please do purchase a power supply with enough reserve. People often underestimate it, but if you tweak all three aforementioned variables, you can easily add 200 Watts to your peak power consumption budget.
Game Performance
We can't be any clearer about it, all ranges from 1080P to Ultra HD are very playable for the GeForce GTX 980Ti. Up-to WQHD (2560x1440) this card seems to be a true sweet-spot, however it is very capable of rendering games in Ultra HD as well. You'll be in the 40 FPS on average domain with decent settings and the latest titles mostly, and that's ok.This much game rending horse-power versus the nice 6GB graphics memory helps you in Ultra HD, hefty complex anti-aliasing modes, DSR and of course the latest gaming titles. And that makes this the second viable single GPU solution that allows you to game properly in Ultra HD with some very nice eye candy enabled with a single GPU. Drivers wise we can't complain at all, we did not stumble into any issues. And with a single GPU there's no micro-stuttering to fight off. Performance wise, really there's not one game that won't run seriously good at the very best image quality settings. You must do gaming with a nice 30" monitor of course, at 2560x1440/1600 or Ultra HD.
Overclocking
The boost modes can be configured with temperature targets relative to maximum power draw and your GPU Core frequency offsets. Saying that; I realize it sounds complicated but you'll have your things balanced out quite fast as these products are easy to tweak. This GPU can take a 1300 MHz base clock, add to that the dynamic boost clock and you'll see your games rendering in the 1400 to 1550 MHz domain. The memory you'll be able to get close to roughly 7.5 to 8 GHz effective. This card uses Hynix memory btw. So don't push it too far, and we certainly do not recommend adding voltage to that memory. We are looking out for the board partner cards with 3rd party cooling. The overclock potential is good, the cooler is magic. Don't push it too much with added Voltage on the GPU, a mild 50mV extra was plenty for a nice tweak, whereas +87mV have us issues with down-clocking and crashes.
Concluding
Gigabyte is the first to submit a custom 3rd party cooled GTX 980 Ti, and if this is the level that all Nvidia partners are going to offer then I will have a smile on my face throughout the summer. It is a tremendously nice product that ticks all the right boxes. Heaps of performance, plenty of memory and a freaky experience in tweaking and overclock is what I like. The perf is much faster then a GTX Titan X, yet pricing is much better at MSRP is $689.99 USD plus tax. Fluid framerates is what you'll play your games with. It does so while hardly making any noise and keeps itself at nice temperatures. Compared to the GeForce GTX 980 Ti at 2560x1440 you can expect an increase of up-to 30% performance (over the reference GeForce GTX 980 Ti), at Ultra HD we have seen that number grown the best. I find it interesting to see that a GPU with a reference clock of 1 GHz still has this much room left for it's high clock frequency. So yes, this is an expensive card but hey this is the enthusiast range and at a MSRP of $689.99 USD plus tax let's be honest, the price could have been much worse.
We bow to the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming SOC, it is a fantastic product though I do hope to see the OC mode configuration simply left default at BIOS level, I do not like to be dependant on software. other then that, all lights are green as far as I am concerned from design up-to the great performance this card offers. Nice job Gigabyte.
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** Update - we made corrections to the 3DMark results, with OC Guru II software activated something funky is happening boosting the results a tidbit more opposed what is expected (up-to 5%). For future reviews we will not be using software applications made by AIB partners anymore, we'll test the cards as delivered based on BIOS clocks. our apologies if this created some confusion.
