ASUS is working on a new graphics card based on the GTX 980 Ti. The Strix Gaming ICE will be fitted with a Bitspower waterblock and for the bling effect, built in RGB configurable LEDs. The card will get two clock profiles, one default based on the BIOS and one additional OC boost through their software (which then is mandatory).
For the OC profile the base-clock will be 1216 MHz with a 1317 boost, and thus requires their software to be active at all times. In gaming mode (the default BIOS clocks) that's a bit more shy 1190 and 1291 MHz respectively. A reference GTX 980 Ti is clocked at 1002 MHz (core) and 1076 MHz (boost) respectively (to compare to). These clocks are considered mild since you connect this unit to your liquid cooling loop. We tested dozens of GTX 980 Ti cards and no-matter what cooling you use, they all reach roughly 1500 MHz on the turbo clock with a bit a deviation here and there.
| GeForce GTX | 780 Ti | 970 | 980 | 980 Ti | 980 Ti Strix Gaming ICE | Titan Black | Titan X | Titan Z |
| Stream (Shader) Processors | 2880 | 1664 | 2048 | 2816 | 2816 | 2880 | 3072 | 5760 |
| Core Clock (MHz) | 875 | 1050 | 1126 | 1002 | 1190 | 889 | 1002 | 705 |
| Boost Clock | 928 | 1178 | 1216 | 1076 | 1291 | 980 | 1076 | 876 |
| Memory Clock (effective MHz) | 7000 | 7000 | 7000 | 7000 | 7200 | 7000 | 7000 | 7000 |
| Memory amount | 3072 | 4096 | 4096 | 6144 | 6144 | 6144 | 12288 | 12288 |
| Memory Interface | 384-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
The Samsung based gDDR5 memory obviously is 6GB in volume size, which is boosted from 7.0 Gbps towards 7.2 Gbps (effective data-rate). The cooling block is embedded with the ROG logo and will light up with LEDs. An official announcement of this product isn't released just yet. The pricing would be in the 1000 EURO marker / 900 USD with SKU code STRIX-GTX 980TI-P-GAMING-ICE. It's kind of weird to see a new GTX 980 Ti SKU this late ? Nvidia's new architecture Pascal is getting closer and closer.
The photos are courtesy of Zol.com.cn (see source link).
ASUS gives GTX 980 Ti Strix Gaming ICE a RGB waterblock
