Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming SOC Review - Introduction

It's a Stallion Baby!
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 gaming Benchmarked & Reviewed

In this review we take the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming for a test-drive, the product is superb as it has awesome cooling, it's silent, it's factory overclocked (and not a little) and combined with the default variables like the 6 GB graphics memory this product oozes performance and awesomeness. 

And then the GPU that resides on inder the hood, big Maxwell oh man it's a freak of nature with that kind of game rendering powah ! In this review we look deeply into the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 gaming. You'd expect a product with '980' in it to have a similar slightly tweaked GPU, but no Sir. Nvidia shifted a thing or two around, the 980 Ti is based on the BIG Maxwell GPU, the same GPU that is powering the Titan X. Obviously the product has been trimmed down a tiny bit, but trust us when we say, there's plenty performance to be found. This product comes with a luxurious six Gigabytes of graphics memory and with these specs, the GTX 980 Ti should be fetching a lot of interest for the true gamers among is. The GPU empowering the GeForce 980 Ti is big, this one has a massive transistor count; it is a slightly revised GM200 A1 GPU that currently feeds the Titan X its horsepower. So yes, a slightly different iteration of the GM200. The card has five display outputs: three DisplayPorts, HDMI and DVI-I.  Where the GTX 980 has 4 GB, this product has a nice 6 GB frame buffer, and close to a third more shader processors when compared to the GeForce 980, accumulating up-to 2816 of them playing the binary game in a GPU that has a whopping 8 Billion transistors (GeForce GTX 980 has 5 Billion). The card looks pretty identical to previous models with subtle changes here and there and with that familiar cooler shroud. Memory wise NVIDIA equipped its GeForce GTX 980 Ti with 7 Gbps memory, the fastest GDDR5 memory you can find on a graphics card today, that's until HBM (stacked memory) is released by the competition in the near future.

Combined with GPU Boost 2.0 you will see this product is advertised in the 1076 MHz range on its dynamic clock for the reference products. The reference base clock for 980 Ti is 1 GHz. It's not that the card can't go any higher, but it is done to keep the product in line power consumption wise. With a 250W TDP, we are not complaining at all, no Sir. For the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, monitor outputs include DVI, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort, this will vary a little with board partner products that are bound to get released after Computex, based on their own design and cooling. With a card like the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 gaming you will be able to play the hottest games including the Witcher 3 and Grand Theft Auto V at that whopping Ultra HD 8.2 Mpixels at a 3840x2160 resolution with a single card, in fact we are going to check that out in this review. The maximum allowed board design power draw is roughly 250 Watts, not bad considering the caliber of this product.

It doesn't stop there though, the all custom Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 gaming has a default Boost frequency of 1241 MHz (base clock is 1152 MHz). However if you combine it with their OC Guru II software and place it in OC modus, this puppy will default towards 1291 MHz on the Boost clock with a base-clock of 1190 MHz -- hellooohooww ! I say again, 1291 MHz on the Boost clock. We will test this product in that modus, that does require Giogabyte's OC Guru II software to be active at all times though. But let's say hi to our new new friend, the 8-phase based Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 gaming comes equipped with the newly revised 600 Watt WindForce cooler that had minor aesthetic changes. Cooling is based on composite heat pipes: 5 x 8mm and 1 x 6mm. On top of it are three fans blowing silently. The fans remain disabled when the GPU is under a set temperature at light GPU load, meaning it's partly passive. LED fan indicators on the top of the graphics card provide an instant display of fan status. On top of it you will spot a multi-color Illuminated LED LOGO design, you can pick the color of your preference matching the color theme of your PC, you may choose from seven colors. Then the product is armed with a nice backplate. 

Look below, this thing is impressive. Before we fire up this article a small advice, grab a cup of coffee as this review is in-depth and extensive. Next page please. 
  

GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming from Gigabyte