MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming OC review

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Conclusion

Conclusion

As you guys know I am a bigger fan of the GeForce GTX 970 card as they offer more value for money. That being said, if I was on the lookout for a GTX 980, then the MSI gaming OC model would certainly be on my short-list. The performance is insane, the build quality top notch and it just offers sheer silence. Combined with the TWinFrozr V cooler, this 980 is a tweaking marvel as well. It is silent, it cools great and comes factory overclocked at a boost frequency of 1317 MHz already! Combine that with the great looks, the two 8-pin power headers and that all new cooler, and yeah we have a winner here. BTW I noticed some forum messages about people noticing coil whine, I've stressed and listened to the card closely, it does not occur on an audible level at our end. The one other remark we noticed is that people ran into a fan issue. At default the MSI cards come with a sticker on the most left fan, you have to remove it. Unfortunately the initial batch uses a sticker that seems to be nearly glued onto the fan. Take it off with extreme care please, too much pushing and pulling could damage the fan or even worse the card. From what I heard back, MSI already changed that sticker with the new batches.
 

Maxwell GM 204 GPU experience overall

Both the GeForce GTX 970 and 980 leave a very solid impression. One offers good, the other exceptional performance within its range. It’s not heaps faster than the aforementioned 780 series though. So I do not expect Geforce 780 range product owners to upgrade anytime soon. However, if you are in say the GeForce GTX 680 range, then this might be a very nice time to jump on-board with a new card. It is interesting to see that 10 years ago performance per generation nearly doubled. With current release schedules we continuously see 20 to 30% performance increases across the board over the last-gen products. That is still respectable as you need to keep in mind that the GM204 is still on 28nm much like Kepler. Injecting more transistors onto a GPU creates yield issues, heat and high power consumption. The GK110 (GTX Titan / Black), whilst being a true beast of a GPU, is testimony to that. With that in mind Nvidia tried to create a product series that is affordable and plays the most high-end and latest games perfectly fine at an acceptable price level. When you look at it from that point of view the Maxwell release is a successful one. This is probably the maximum that Nvidia should and can do on 28nm in terms of improved performance and power consumption versus price.


 

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Thermals

The reference design of the GTX 970 and 980 are the very same cooling wise. The reference products are set at an offset threshold of 80 degrees C. Once the GPU gets warmer the card will clock down and lower its voltage. That wasn't good enough for MSI, and even with a lower heat wattage, they applied the new TwinFrozr V cooler. It's a good cooler; you can expect the temperature to hover in a 65 to 70 Degrees C with hefty games. Remember, that is factory overclocked cooling performance for you. So MSI shaved off a good 15~20 Degrees C over reference. The cooler looks sturdy and bloke like as well, aesthetically it is a product that is easy on the eyes and will fit any dark and preferably red themed gaming PC quite well. Please do take note of my earlier remark on that fan sticker. BTW up-to 60 Degrees C, the fans do not even spin, how is that for sheer silence ?

Cooling versus noise levels

With the new TwinFrozr revision V cooling we can’t complain, it is drop-dead silent. It is way more cooling compared to what this GPU really needs. Expect sound pressure values in the 39 to maybe 40 dBA range at max under load and warm circumstances. That's measured 75 CM away from the PC. At best you can slightly hear the card while using them heavily. For those that require sheer silence like yours truly, this is the way to go. And in IDLE or normal desktop PC usage, you will not be able to hear this card.

Performance

A nice advantage for the cards is that they now come standard with 4 GB of DDR5 graphics memory, this means gaming sweetness in even the highest resolutions. All games play perfectly at up-to WHQD at 2560x1440, The GeForce GTX 980 is a nice card that certainly offers a nice chunk of performance in that high resolutions, albeit it will fall short here and there if you are at Ultra HD. Overall you can play all the modern and latest games with nice AA levels and excellent image quality, the PC gaming way. GeForce GTX 980 I would recommend with Ultra HD if you can tick off AA, however with upcoming MFAA (pending a driver release) you'll be able to play games quite well with this MSAA equivalent quality AA feature as well. It is a perfect card for gaming up-to 2560x1440.

Tweaking

Without extra voltage tweaking you can expect a 1350~1400 MHz range for the Turbo clock frequency. Depending on how much your board will take and allow, with voltage tweaking you’ll pass the 1450 MHz range. 1500 MHz on our end works with air-cooling, but it might depend per production batch and also variables like your PC stability, power supply and so on. We ended up at a stable 1537 MHz, which is a crazy clock frequency. But again, our overclock is not a guarantee for your results. The memory is clocked standard at 7.0 GHz, you'll fairly easily achieve 7.5 GHz  and we even reached close to 8.0 GHz stable. My advice is to keep your effective memory data-rate just under 8 GHz for a little more stability, 7948 MHz seems to be a sweet-spot for most cards we have tested. Overall you’ll see a nice gain in extra gaming performance. 


Final Words

MSI offers a truly nice factory overclocked product with that Gaming OC model of the GeForce GTX 980. The thermals remain under 70 Degrees C at high load and it is among the most silent cards we tested. If you are not the overclocking kind of end-user, then hey .. this card comes tweaked for you. But it certainly is a grand overclocker as we pushed the sucker over 1.5 GHz on the boost frequency. You guys will probably want to stick at say 1450 MHz for the long term usage, but frequencies that Maxwell can reach are just staggering. The Gaming series OC card is customized, has extra power phases, offers a lovely cooler, and comes at higher default clocks. Next to all that the card still remains silent and at cool temperature levels. The product comes with all the features you'd want, from connectivity for your monitor to the performance cooler, from low noise levels to a nice factory overclock and the sheer aesthetics. Performance increases up-to say ~20% with the 980 compared to a Titan Black. But numbers will vary here and there due to the complexity of having less shaders, but more ROPs and higher clock frequencies and then a narrower memory bus again. A nice plus is the lower power consumption, though that alone would obviously not justify an upgrade from the 780 series, but is testimony to less heat and this results in better clock frequencies and higher overclocking results. The Maxwell architecture is very sound and proves it can deliver big-time whilst remaining in line power consumption, heat and noise wise and we can only imagine what it would have been like on 20nm.

Final words, the MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming OC edition is a terrific choice, and choices you'll have a-plenty when shopping for a 980. The model as tested today costs 600 EURO at the moment of writing. The 980 packs a little extra punch over the 970, so value for money wise the 970 is by far the better deal, and that is the hinest truth. With MSI you get a quality product with overclocking software that runs straight out of the box. Be sure to pick up the latest iteration of MSI AfterBurner as the card is fully supported, and this was the software that drove our card towards the 1500 MHz marker. Overall this is looking good from all viewpoints, the 980 overall is a true beast for Full HD and WHQD PC gaming anno 2014, with the 980 you flick on all finest image quality settings and get yourself emerged into a quality gaming experience. Highly recommended by Guru3D.com and we are awarding the product with a Top pick award.

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