Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super Jetstream review (Page 27)

Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super Jetstream review

Graphics cards 1049 Page 27 of 27 Published 2014-10-21 09:44 by Hilbert Hagedoorn

Conclusion

Palit offers a terrific GeForce GTX 980 really. A nice custom PCB that is covered by the red colored Jetstream cooler. This Super Jetstream edition however raises the bar and tweaks the card just above 1.2 GHz at default and 1.3 GHz at the boost frequency. That is very impressive. That Boost frequency is relative as in reality the card at default was performing in the 1.35 GHz range, very impressive. And that shows in performance. The raw game rendering performance is pretty brutal. Overall we feel the build quality is done right as well, and with the Jetstream cooler, this is simply a very well rounded product. And yeah, then there is still plenty of margin left for a nice additional overclock on top of the default clocks. Design wise you either hate or like the looks, nice to see is the included back-plate BTW. You can discuss the functionality of it but it is an option that people truly like these days.

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.

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. Palit improved on that reference design, you can expect the temperature to hover around 75 Degrees C with hefty games. In pale comparison that seems a little higher than the competition, however this was the most silent product we have tested to date. So if you raise fan RPM a notch, which makes the product remain silent, you can easily be in the 65 Degrees C range. See that as an optional choice. Relative to temps remember, this is factory overclocked cooling performance for you. 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. And up-to roughly 67 Degrees C, the fans do not even spin, how is that for sheer silence?

Cooling versus noise levels

We can’t complain, the Jetstream cooler is very quiet. It is way more cooling compared to what this GPU really needs hence it allows exceptional sound pressure values in the 39 dBA range at max under load and warmer circumstances. That's measured 75 CM away from the PC. At best you can slightly hear the card while using it 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 new cards is that they now come standard with 4 GB of DDR5 graphics memory, this means gaming sweetness at 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 those 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 mark. Roughly 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 1516 MHz, which is a crazy clock frequency. But again, our overclock is not a guarantee for your results and if you reverse that, your tweaking results could also be better than ours. The memory is clocked standard at 7.2 GHz, you'll fairly easily achieve 7.5 GHz and we even reached 8.0 GHz stable. My advice is to keep your effective memory data-rate just under 8 GHz for a little more stability, roughly 7962 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

Very fast, good looks and extremely silent is how I can describe the Palit Super-Jetstream GTX 980 the best. Overall the thermals are a little higher than some of the competition, but Palit wanted to keep this product very quiet and certainly succeeded at doing that.

The card comes already factory tweaked for you, and at a Boost frequency of over 1.3GHz, that certainly makes a difference. Overall, overclocking wise we even pushed the card over 1.50 GHz on the boost frequency, definitely worthy of being called a grand overclock still. 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. The mini HDMI and DisplayPort connectors are a bit of a bummer as you will require special cables / converters if you like to use them but really it's the only gripe I can think of.

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. We consider the GeForce GTX 970 and 980 to be a first run in the new high-end performance cards. It is very likely we’ll see a Ti or even Titan version somewhere down the road. 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.

Right time to wrap things up. The Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super-Jetstream is a great choice, and in the GTX 980 space you'll have a-plenty to choose from when shopping for a 980. The model as tested today hovers at roughly 550~575 EURO at the moment of writing. The card shows green lights through-out the book and is a nice little monster in the Full HD and WHQD PC gaming space anno 2014. You will enjoy playing games with the finest image quality settings enabled and get yourself emerged into a quality gaming experience. The Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super-Jetstream is a great choice that comes recommended by Guru3D.com, we are awarding the product with a Top pick award.

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