Looks like a great card, I was waiting for the 8GB cards to surface but I'm half tempted to pick this one up instead.

That is one sweet looking card. If I was looking at getting a 980, this well might be the one.

Hmm. Doesn't look too bad, although I think the Gigabyte's the card to go for cooler wise, at least atm. Maybe later cards (8GB, better voltages and the EVGA classifieds) will change that though. Also, pricing matters, if it's cheaper than the Gigabyte or MSI, it might sell.

I'm sure the 30% mark up justifies the 5% higher clocks you might get. The 900 series cards are voltage limited long before they are temp limited for clocks so elaborate coolers on these cards when you are still limited to a few mv over reference...which reference cards alsp have access to...seems pointless. I doubt 3 blower fans are quieter than a reference cooler so I just don't get it. Is this like LEDs on ram? Extra money for appearance only? After my gtx 680 lightning I know to never bother woth non reference cards again. The overvolting was eventually locked through nvidia drivera and msi updates to just the stock 87mv range and the card was clocked barely faster than a reference card, was loud as hell and wasn't even that cool and it cost me a fortune for the dubious privilege of owning the worst graphics card to date

There might still people not overclocking, or not knowing how to do it. Those people have it easy to choose the cards we see here over reference cards due to the clocks. Also, even the voltage limits may be bendable on some cards. I've heard the more experience users here talk about volt mods, which can't be done on reference PCBs as far as I understood.

I'm sure the 30% mark up justifies the 5% higher clocks you might get. The 900 series cards are voltage limited long before they are temp limited for clocks so elaborate coolers on these cards when you are still limited to a few mv over reference...which reference cards alsp have access to...seems pointless. I doubt 3 blower fans are quieter than a reference cooler so I just don't get it. Is this like LEDs on ram? Extra money for appearance only? After my gtx 680 lightning I know to never bother woth non reference cards again. The overvolting was eventually locked through nvidia drivera and msi updates to just the stock 87mv range and the card was clocked barely faster than a reference card, was loud as hell and wasn't even that cool and it cost me a fortune for the dubious privilege of owning the worst graphics card to date

I think you're just about mistaken in almost every thing you've said there barring your personal experience with the GTX 680 Lightning. Maxwell GPUs are not "voltage" limited. Using air cooling, most silicon will not go above 1600MHz and those are the very good samples. 1,516MHz needs only 1.22V on the EVGA GTX 980 Classified, while this needs 1.23V on the GIGABYTE GTX 980 Gaming G1. Even then, these are variances in silicon quality and not inherent in the card design. It really is a luck of the draw. To stabilize 1,552MHz on the EVGA card needs only 1.22V (with loadline calibration), but for 1,562MHz it needs 1.3V. The relationship between voltage and clock speed is not linear and never has been with any GPU. Want close to 1700MHz and more, you'll need LN2 for that.

I'm sure the 30% mark up justifies the 5% higher clocks you might get. The 900 series cards are voltage limited long before they are temp limited for clocks so elaborate coolers on these cards when you are still limited to a few mv over reference...which reference cards alsp have access to...seems pointless. I doubt 3 blower fans are quieter than a reference cooler so I just don't get it. Is this like LEDs on ram? Extra money for appearance only? After my gtx 680 lightning I know to never bother woth non reference cards again. The overvolting was eventually locked through nvidia drivera and msi updates to just the stock 87mv range and the card was clocked barely faster than a reference card, was loud as hell and wasn't even that cool and it cost me a fortune for the dubious privilege of owning the worst graphics card to date

You are wrong about the ram LEDs being just for appearance only, I've been using the ballistix tracer series for a couple of years now and besides looking great I find the LEDs are a great visual indicator that my ram is being accessed, during heavy loads all the lights come on at once indicating heavy ram usage, this for me is just as useful as the HDD LED on the front of the case.

GALAX? that's the best name they could come up with? Sounds like something you need for constipation.