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What are 980 reference coolers like?

Goose

Goose

Goose

Soldato
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I'm thinking of ditching my 280x Xfire setup for all manner of reasons (heat, noise, dodgy drivers) and getting a 980 from the MM. I'm just wondering if the reference coolers are loud and/or poor performing compared to most 3rd party coolers.

Thanks
 
Works very well on the 980 as they run pretty cool anyway. As long as you aren't sitting in 30c room with crap case airflow lol.
 
Someone was/is selling a Galax in the MM with a ref cooler which is why I asked. Looks the same as the OCUK one but whether that means they are the same is beyond my knowledge.
 
Goose said:
Someone was/is selling a Galax in the MM with a ref cooler which is why I asked. Looks the same as the OCUK one but whether that means they are the same is beyond my knowledge.
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My eVGA 980 Superclocked ACX 2.0 cards are going on the MM in the morning for not much more and are an excellent cooler with transferable 5 year warranty ;)

Keep an eye out!
 
JediFragger said:
My eVGA 980 Superclocked ACX 2.0 cards are going on the MM in the morning for not much more and are an excellent cooler with transferable 5 year warranty ;)

Keep an eye out!
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Transferable 5 year warranty? I thought EVGA limited second hand owner's warranty to three years from original owner's purchase?
 
EVGA offers an transferable warranty for products shipped new from EVGA on or after July 1, 2011 so long as the product is in its original factory condition and retains all of the factory labels and stickers. The transferred warranty will not exceed 3 years from the products shipping date from EVGA and will also not exceed the original warranty offered on the product.
 
Goose said:
I'm thinking of ditching my 280x Xfire setup for all manner of reasons (heat, noise, dodgy drivers) and getting a 980 from the MM. I'm just wondering if the reference coolers are loud and/or poor performing compared to most 3rd party coolers.

Thanks
Click to expand...

If you don't like the noise of a 280X then you aren't going to like the noise of a reference GTX980.
 
980 sli here, top card can hit 80c in the warmer weather but all the heat gets dumped out the back of the case, noise is ok the fan ramps up to 49% and is not too bad at all
 
ubersonic said:
If you don't like the noise of a 280X then you aren't going to like the noise of a reference GTX980.
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My card sits at idle anywhere between 30-40c depending on room temp and and at that temp the fan is at 27% and is virtually silent.

I can only hear it over my case/AIO(CPU) fans once it gets higher than about 70% fan speed at 60% mine is still virtually silent, but even then it isn't a massive increase in noise its actually hard to describe what it sounds like but its not distracting or anything almost like a hairdryer blowing type sound without the volume though :)

Not like the racket I have heard from some friends AMD cards.

Before I enter any game I manually increase fan speed to 60% and that is as high as it needs and that keeps it at around 65-70c depending on the game ie BF4 1080p Ultra settings 144hz 100Fps

I had mine running at 100% for fun the other day and although I could hear it it was no louder than my 140mm top exhaust fan and I really dont consider my system to be noisy.

Card is running stock clocks.

2 x Antec 120mm intake at front of case
1 x Corsair AF140 top exhaust
2 x Corsair SP120 Rear exhaust push-pull on AIO Rad.
 
mattcrane said:
My card-
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Noise is subjective, something one person finds annoying may not be to another. The OP has stated he doesn't like the noise on his 280X, that's a direct point of reference, as most 280X are similar at idle/load to a reference GTX980 and decent ones are quieter it stands to reason he would probably find the noise from that disagreeable too.
 
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If you are not thinking of going SLI an after market card like the MSI Gaming will be silent at idle and very quiet at load. Your case/CPU temps could be slightly higher than reference but no where near as much heat dumped as crossfire 280X cards.
 
ubersonic said:
as most 280X are similar at idle/load to a reference GTX980 and decent ones are quieter it stands to reason he would probably find the noise from that disagreeable too.
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My wifes PC sat next to me has a MSI 280X in it and it is much louder at idle and under load than my 980, so no in fact they are not comparable at all in any way shape or form.....
 
Goose said:
Its more a case of me not liking the noise of two 280X's sandwiched together.
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Ahh I see, what type of 280X do you have? For reference the GTX980 is slightly louder both at idle and load than a MSI 280X (though it's more noticeable at load). But if it's the SLI heat/noise that's annoying you you may do better with the GTX980.



mattcrane said:
My wifes PC sat next to me has a MSI 280X in it and it is much louder at idle and under load than my 980, so no in fact they are not comparable at all in any way shape or form.....
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That just means you're system has better case cooling than your wife's (or low power components), I have both the MSI 280X and the ref 980 and can tell you in the same system the 980 will be noisier, just like review sites found.
 
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I have a HIS and Sapphire 280x, both have good coolers but when they're both cooking themselves and the fans are at 80% it gets a bit noisy.
 
mururoa said:
The fabled, unofficial "GTX 970 reference model" reviewed here:

http://www.computerbase.de/2014-11/manli-geforce-gtx-970-im-test/

tl;dr: It's hot and loud with no tangible benefits over the non-reference designs with a tightly packed SLI the possible exception; SLI was not tested. Having very little coil whine is its only saving grace but it's beaten there as well by Zotac's better models.
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The GTX970 doesn't run hot enough to actually be worthwhile in measuring heat between ref vs non ref.

I had non ref GTX970s running 68c max because the chip is extremely cool and low tdp .
 
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