Geforce GTX 980 Ti Remorse Thread...

K

KAC

Whatever
Rage3D Subscriber
As the tradition goes. Creating my remorse thread for purchasing GTX 980 Ti SLi setup. My Classified card is still to arrive but I just got my grubby hands on the MSI GTX 980 Ti and needless to say I am happy, excited and disappointed at the same time.

What follows are only some high level results that I managed to bench today. Once my classified ships I will update the thread for more results.

First ofcourse the images.

Z9gd3lQ.jpg


Card is very sturdy and weighs more than my 970 Gaming cards. The cooler fans look fantastic and the backplate is awesome. Also the dragon LED looks cool and stuff. It is one massive card and gave me a hard on when I held it for the first time.

zSSZ9iq.jpg


Here it is compared to my 970 GTX Gaming cards.

Following is the test setup given that I am still only using H80 cooler and didn't get a chance to install the H110i that I have sitting around.

Test setup

Windows 7 Pro X64
Geforce 353.30 graphics driver
5930K @ 4.2 GHz
DDR4 2666 15-15-15-35-1T
GTX 970 G1 Gaming SLi @ 1504/7600 core/memory
GTX 980 Ti Gaming @ 1439/7400 core/memory

Benchmarks

3dmark 11 - P24521 - 970 SLi
3dmark 11 - P22073 - 980 Ti

3dmark Firestrike - 18914 - 970 SLi
3dmark Firestrike - 17108 - 980 Ti

3dmark Firestrike Extreme - 9949 - 970 SLi
3dmark Firestrike Extreme - 8653 - 980 Ti

3dmark Firestrike Ultra - 5423 - 970 SLi
3dmark Firestrike Ultra - 4685 - 980 Ti

Heaven 4.0 Max details 1080P - 101.2 fps - 970 SLi
Heaven 4.0 Max details 1080P - 96.8 fps - 980 Ti

Valley Max details 1080P - 103.5 fps - 970 SLi
Valley Max details 1080P - 96.6 fps - 980 Ti

Mordor 1080P Max details - 133.7 fps - 970 SLi
Mordor 1080P Max details - 123.5 fps - 980 Ti

Mordor 4K Max details - 47.2 fps - 970 SLi
Mordor 4K Max details - 45.3 fps - 980 Ti

Batman Arkham Knight 1080P Max details - 59 fps - 970 SLi (no vsync)
Batman Arkham Knight 1080P Max details - 83 fps - 980 Ti (no vsync)

Heat and noise

Card goes maximum at 80 C with 80% fan speed. At 70% fan speed or higher the card is quite audible. The maximum temperature is only achieved in benchmarks. In game benchmarks the card hovers around 70-75C and usually fan speed throttles accordingly. Less than 70 C the fan remains below 70% and the card has normal sound of air movement. It is not silent for me since I run my monitor at 144 Hz hence, the card is always in 3D mode.

Overclocking

Overall, this is where my disappointment starts. The card is able to hit 1450 MHz for quite a bit but throttles to 1439 MHz most of the time. This is the maximum overclock I have achieved that is game stable. It is quite a pity that I did not hit the 1500 MHz target that I had.

Card defaults to 1140 MHz and boosts to about 1292 with no change in power limit. Increasing power limit to 109% (max allowable) gives a boost of about ~1340 which is quite decent.

Overclock settings that I used were:
+135 on the core
+200 on memory
+87 mv
+109 power limit
91 C temp target

With these settings the card was pegged to 1439/7400 for all benchmarks posted above.

I can't wait to see what the Classified will be capable of. With MSI gaming, I may flash the bios to review bios to achieve a higher overclock but for that to happen the card is starved for both power and voltage. A first for me since my previous cards had little to no impact of increasing power target or voltage in terms of overclocking.

Stay tuned for more. :).
 
So it's basically faster than two reference 970s when overclocked, not bad for a single card from the same generation.
 
Indeed, this card is the answer to the question of moving from an SLi setup to a single card setup.
 
Classified should definitely clock higher than that. Either way youre going to SLI the MSI with the EVGA so single card results dont really matter.

For comparison on Fire Strike my system(which is pretty much the same system as yours) scored 18,108 in normal mode and 9244 in extreme.
 
What clocks are you running the evga card at?
I am guessing if I get windows 8.1 and punch 4.5 on the processor I can possibly match your scores.
 
KAC said:
Indeed, this card is the answer to the question of moving from an SLi setup to a single card setup.
Click to expand...

I dunno man. I am planning to stick to SLI as the results are great overall.
 
I am also sticking with SLI but some people do not want that and for 1440p gaming at 75+ fps this card is quite capable. Something that wasn't possible with the 980.
 
KAC said:
What clocks are you running the evga card at?
I am guessing if I get windows 8.1 and punch 4.5 on the processor I can possibly match your scores.
Click to expand...

+185 on the stock overclocked card which runs a pinned 1501 boost.
+250 on the memory.

I thought you had your CPU overclocked to 4.6-4.7?
 
logical said:
+185 on the stock overclocked card which runs a pinned 1501 boost.
+250 on the memory.

I thought you had your CPU overclocked to 4.6-4.7?
Click to expand...

You try any of those bios' I posted in the 980ti thread? I am hitting 1550mhz without any crashes and havent pushed it any higher yet.
 
logical said:
Classified should definitely clock higher than that. Either way youre going to SLI the MSI with the EVGA so single card results dont really matter.

For comparison on Fire Strike my system(which is pretty much the same system as yours) scored 18,108 in normal mode and 9244 in extreme.
Click to expand...

Not looking good so far from what I see on ocn over the 980ti classified. So far from what I've read from people who got their classy, I can say stay away from it unless you plan on doing ln2 or chilled water.
 
Last edited:
Omega53 said:
You try any of those bios' I posted in the 980ti thread? I am hitting 1550mhz without any crashes and havent pushed it any higher yet.
Click to expand...

Nah, 50 mhz isn't worth my time flashing the bios.



nycdarkness said:
Not looking good so far from what I see on ocn over the 980ti classified. So far from what I've read from people who got their classy, I can say stay away from it unless you plan on doing ln2 or chilled water.
Click to expand...


That sucks the premium you pay for the cards they should be better cards than the rest out of the box.
 
logical said:
Nah, 50 mhz isn't worth my time flashing the bios.






That sucks the premium you pay for the cards they should be better cards than the rest out of the box.
Click to expand...

Cards not scaling well with voltage has been the issue with last classy,kpe and again this time with the classy. Having to pump a ton of voltage to get clocks that other cards get with much lower means higher temps. While the card might be designed to take a lot more voltage than other 980tis. That temp control is not something to take lightly. Unless your going on a very loaded custom loop, I would stay away from the classy. If you just want an easy ocing experience just play the lotto with any other card. Msi, strix, g1 etc..
 
Anyone know of MSI gaming bios that I can use to flash my card? Also some step by step instructions for nvflash. I have used it on my 970s but now completely forgot about it.
 
So the reason my card overclocks like crap is because it has ASIC of 63.1%. Grrr.
 
I am trying to find a buyer for them. It is always a painful exercise to sell them locally since not many people are into PC gaming in this country.

Anyways, flashed to review bios. Card is now punching another 20+ MHz and I can run 1455+ MHz so not bad. Also now defaults to 1178 on the core and 120% power limit. My ASIC is so bad that nothing can be done about it.

A slightly improved firestrike extreme run. 8755
 
Some final thoughts on the bios flash for MSI gaming.
I noticed that fan is quite audible at even 60% with the review bios since the RPMs are higher. Not sure what that is about. With the retail bios my fan would become audible at 70% fan speed.
Also, there is virtually no difference in performance. The 20 or so MHz increase is something I can manage on the retail bios as well. Card boosting is also pretty similar (1305 retail vs. 1342 review).
I do agree that the 120% power limit offers nothing and is a futile exercise. I lost the lotto and hence, with my ASIC the card is best suited for a 1440/7400 overclock which is not bad but also not stellar either. Some guys are unable to hit even 1400 on their cards so at least I am not that guy lol.

The card is quite silent when playing games and stays cool (under 75 C) which is what I was looking for. The card offers that and it is good enough for me.
 
KAC said:
The card is quite silent when playing games and stays cool (under 75 C) which is what I was looking for. The card offers that and it is good enough for me.
Click to expand...

That's what I wanted to hear. I think I'll pick one up, and sell off my 970s when they come back in stock. :up:
 
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