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I Need some 980ti buying advice

Jeffro93

Jeffro93

Jeffro93

Associate
Joined
29 Jun 2013
Posts
13
Hi.
Need some advice, I currently have an ASUS gtx780 and I game with triple screens at 5760 x1200. Was looking at getting a zotac 980ti extreme, but have seen that this week the zotac amp is reduced to £499.
Is the extreme worth £100 more for my setup. I don't overclock cards, more the fact not sure what I'm doing:D

I know I would see a different going from the 780 to 980ti but would I really see much going from the amp to the extreme.

I do a lot of Iracing online and currently play dirt rally on med setting and get about 50- 60 fps with the GTX 780 and get a fire strike score of 8450.

My sons just got to the age now when he wants to start playing pc games, and wants battlefront etc for xmas. The cpu we have is i5 4760k over clocked @ 4.3 came with the build from overclockers 2 years back.

Can't push funds to a Titan and want to stay with a single card setup.

Thanks in advance.
 
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I have the extreme version and would not swap it for anything else on the market.

Overclocked to a rock solid 1550mhz with no extra voltage. I did four hours of 4k Witcher 3 last night and it never went over 58c with 68% fan and thats in a small Corsair 200r case (with a lot of fans and fan controler inc a 140mm blowing directly below the GPU).

The only negatives are you are likely to have inconsistant gpu fans ramping up occasionaly (including mine). It can be destracting unless you turn your game volume up or play on headphones. I am willing to put up with it though as I dont want to return a 82.6% asic.
The second issue is sag. a lot of cards suffer with it, but especialy this one due to its size and weight. Luckily the metal shroud design makes it easy to strap it up to prevent this.

The only other card I have and can compare it to is the 980ti hof, which was aweful. But I suspect that was a dodgy card and not a true representation of the brand.

I would personaly pay the extra £80 for superior bining process and for the best air cooling solution iv seen on any 980 ti. Remember, as soon as you card reaches 63c it will begin to throttle, which is why the Amp Extreme does so well at sustaining high clock speeds.
 
Thanks for that info. Did not think about noise as our 780 is lovely and quiet and pc is right next to us in a corsair carbide 500r case. Saw on a review about the sag. How do you go about strapping this up? I see some people just stand a pack of cards underneath, or cable ties looped together, handing inside, from top of case.
 
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It is no noisier than any other card. Its just that the sudden changes in fan speed can catch your attention more than a steady fan noise.

The metal armour is such that it is easy to wrap thread, string or wire around and then connect the other end to a drive bay cage etc to support the weight and stop sag. It doesn't look pretty, but it is functional and stops any damage occurring due to bending of the pcb.
 
Think I got some black string. Which is handy so shouldn't look to bad.
One more thing, what Windows do you run, I'm still on 7, should I be upgrading for these newer cards to Windows 10. Thanks again
 
I personally can't help emphasising the effectiveness of Hybrid solutions. If you're thinking of paying £100 more than a custom version, it's really worth considering. It's very doubtful you will see 60c being reached on the EVGA model and their reputation speaks for itself when it comes to after sales service. Transferable warranty also can add value if you come to sell the card.
 
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Hybrids are a good shout. Its a gamble and trade off with the higher binning process and the chance of getting crazy fans on a custom pcb or guaranteed lower volumes with poorer binning on a reference pcb.
 
GoRedwings19 said:
This has me worried. I saw they were on offer this week so I went for it.:(
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It would bounce off of what ever the max temp was set to and not sustain a clock over 1170 is. It had the same fan issue my current amp extreme has but much worse aswel. It was definitely a dud card, so don't worry. I'm sure yours will be fine. Overclockers were great and very helpful when rma'ing it, so you have nothing to worry about. All manufactures let a few dud ones slip through the net
 
Jeffro93 said:
Think I got some black string. Which is handy so shouldn't look to bad.
One more thing, what Windows do you run, I'm still on 7, should I be upgrading for these newer cards to Windows 10. Thanks again
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If you want to use all the new features of dx12, then you will need to update your windows 7 to Windows 10
 
Just because I got a bad one doesnt make it a bad GPU in general. However, going off of a large sample base you are likely to get one that has fan control issues. It uses the same fan controler as the Amp Extreme apparently.
 
Well got the zotac extreme in the end. All fitted, and gone from 8400 on firestrike with a 780gtx to 15200 with the 980ti..

money well spent. Thanks for the advice.
 
Was £80 in the end, Needed every frame I can get with 5760x 1200 and I don't overclock myself So I'm happy with this plug and play and I don't have to do anything. This card was made for buyers like me.
 
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As you don't oc, the likelihood is they don't bin and just take their chances, could've just flashed the extreme bios onto the amp and saved yourself £80.
 
tommybhoy said:
As you don't oc, the likelihood is they don't bin and just take their chances, could've just flashed the extreme bios onto the amp and saved yourself £80.
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amp to extreme uses different PCB altogether, different voltage regulators etc.

You will get a lot higher clock from the extreme
 
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