[QUOTE=fOrTy_7;5116687 So guys, what do you think? Which one is better? Better go for quiet and fairly cold MSI or maybe a better designed ASUS (PCB wise) and downclock it a bit and increase fan speed? Nice post ,,, but why on earth would someone pay all that money and i mean this thing is way more than the reference card , only to have to downclock your card ,,, if it was me it would be the MSI.

Nice post ,,, but why on earth would someone pay all that money and i mean this thing is way more than the reference card , only to have to downclock your card ,,, if it was me it would be the MSI.

Thank you for your opinion. I found on the web Gigabyte 980ti heatsink as well. Bottom line is that Direct CU III heatsink suck donkey balls 😀. I'm not confident of Gigabyte products, so that narrows a choice for me to MSI I guess. And here 980 DirectCU II. There's gonna be 980ti Aniversary Edition with DirectCU II, but I gues it will be hugely overpriced just like the 980 Aniversary edition was.

Stopped reading when I saw the temps, scratch this card of the 'Hmm.. that looks a nice card' list.

why on earth are you running no air through your case? 55C idle is unacceptable.

I just love the total silence, i understand that 55C is a bit on the high side but i doubt that it would do any damage to the gpu. In any case i am planning to eventually buy a second 980Ti along with two waterblocks. The radiators should be able to cool them down better when idle without any fans spinning.

So it: -runs louder than the msi 980 ti gaming -runs hotter than the msi 980 ti gaming -performs pretty much the same as the msi 980 ti gaming -costs 10 bucks more than the msi 980 ti gaming and is also bigger which isn't a bonus as seen by the other factors I am very glad I didn't get this instead of ordering the msi card as I'd be quite disappointed right now. Thankfully it being wider is what turned me off of it. No idea how the review can be so glowing for this card given it doesn't perform better than the competition yet has the above negatives.

So many naysayers,.. I think a lot of people dont understand what Hilbert explained about this hardware. Asus traded a bit of temp (which is still cooler than reference) for a more quiet experience. If you trully want to compare the g1 or MSI lightning with this (which are also excellent products) you'll have to compare them at similar decibals. If ypu dont care about that then simply set the fans past 55%... Make it 100% fan speed, sure you'll feel like you're sitting next to a jet engine but you'll have way better temps.

Uhmmm did you read the review? It has exactly the same dB as the G1 on load for instance with stock fans speeds yet is 10C hotter...lol? EDIT: The MSI is even quieter!? Why would you run the fans at 100%?

I picked up one of these 980 Ti STRIX'S last week. It runs at 70c under full load in a Corsair 780T case with an ambient room temp of 22c, it also remains very very quiet at all times (my case is right next to my monitor). I also have absolutely no coil whine whatsoever. The only thing that annoys me about this card is the pulsing Strix light, I just want to make it stay on! Other than that, i'm very happy with it so far.