MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming OC Review - Introduction

My-oh-my MSI
MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti gaming OC edition Benchmarked & Reviewed

In this review we benchmark the new MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming (OC edition), a really good product with totally silent, awesome cooling. It comes factory overclocked, and combined with the default variables like the 6 GB graphics memory, this product just breathes gaming performance that seems awe-inspiring.

The GPU that resides on under the hood is big Maxwell, and oh man it's a freak of nature with that kind of game rendering powah! 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 us. 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 MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 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, board partners are going wild with their own custom designs. The all custom MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming (OC edition) for example comes with a default base clock set at 1178 MHz. To keep things cool the MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming (OC edition) comes equipped with the newly revised V TwinFrozr cooler that had minor aesthetic changes and hey, even remains passive when the product is in idle. Yup - the fans remain disabled when the GPU is under a set temperature at light GPU load. On top of it you will spot a Illuminated LED LOGO design, you can pick the animation of that logo like on/of/dim/phase. Then the product is armed with a nice, read very nice back-plate. Have a peek at the photo below, this graphics card 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  Gaming OC edition from MSI