Nvidia GTX 980 Owners Thread

ICEx21 · 11 Feb 2015 at 09:19

Which 980 do you have?

dessimpson · 11 Feb 2015 at 09:20

Well. Sent back my 970's. Got two 290x 8gb. Couldn't get the to run properly in crossfire. Just got a gigabyte 980.
Haven't set it up yet but I'm looking forward to having a play tonight.
Depending on what I get when I sell the 290's I may go sli.

Neil79 · 11 Feb 2015 at 09:32

JamesM said:
Right this is my 980 SOC bios

Nice one James, so what was your previous clocks compared to now?

dessimpson said:
Well. Sent back my 970's. Got two 290x 8gb. Couldn't get the to run properly in crossfire. Just got a gigabyte 980.
Haven't set it up yet but I'm looking forward to having a play tonight.
Depending on what I get when I sell the 290's I may go sli.

I had a 280X crossfire and it was **** awful

JamesM · 11 Feb 2015 at 09:34

Everything I tried I was being limited according to GPUz.

Think I reached around 1570.

It's more peace of mind knowing that the card is getting it's full power load. With the bios mod it ran 1630 core but i'm still trying to find a good core/memory balance.

Neil79 · 11 Feb 2015 at 09:34

Bluntwrapped said:
Might be TDP limited rather than voltage. What does your power target reach while benching?

My reference 980 is a power hog and needs a higher TDP to stop throttling back. My new Bios is 240w @ 1.25v and while running Fire Strike the power target still reaches mid to high 90's for 1506/3800. Can't wait to get it under water to see if it improves things.

Sounds about right

JAMI31000 · 11 Feb 2015 at 09:39

As of in morning i will be with Green team, with my new OcUK Ref 980, just quick one thanks to rich at overclocks uk, for given me free Delivery this morning

NOW THAT WHAT CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE

Skiddley · 11 Feb 2015 at 11:44

On that, who's the person to speak to re. discount on large orders? (few £K)

mysticsniper · 11 Feb 2015 at 12:29

I sent back my Gigabyte G1 970 GTX, and picked up the 980 version today.

Neil79 · 11 Feb 2015 at 12:41

Nice choice, Gigabyte are fantastic! I didn't go for the G1 on the 980 GTX because it was just too much

ChrisD. · 11 Feb 2015 at 12:43

Guys, this card:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-003-GX&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1812

Is it a reference PCB underneath?

mysticsniper · 11 Feb 2015 at 12:48

Neil79 said:
Nice choice, Gigabyte are fantastic! I didn't go for the G1 on the 980 GTX because it was just too much

Cheers, but I know what you mean about the extra £££, but I think it's worth it. Gigabyte do make great cards.

StrongSad · 11 Feb 2015 at 12:53

Hello

I am wondering if anybody has had the GPU crash out (artefacts etc) as opposed to the driver crashing.

On my 970 the card buckled before the drivers and whilst I had a great stable overclock, it was the card that told me I was at the ceiling.

On my 980 it's just the drivers.
Fire Strike is by far the worst, the power target is always hit regardless of OC or stock as a result I can't get more than a 150 Clock and 210 mem.
Heaven I can get 168/250 before I start getting issue with the driver.

I am also sure I have the volt issues (will check today when my sight is a bit better) others are reporting as the higher CC is not producing the same performance increase that I expected. In fact there is a deterioration as the OC is increased. My inno3d only has a Max 109% power target as its stock is 1367

Vimes · 11 Feb 2015 at 12:57

mysticsniper said:
Cheers, but I know what you mean about the extra £££, but I think it's worth it. Gigabyte do make great cards.

Couldn't imagine it being £100 is so better than the KFA2 980 I bought. But add long as you are making an informed choice and happy that is good.
You do get an extra years warranty with the Gigabyte though.?

AtreuS · 11 Feb 2015 at 12:57

mysticsniper said:
I sent back my Gigabyte G1 970 GTX, and picked up the 980 version today.

I got that one after taking my msi 970 back... the G1 is very quiet, once you update the BIOS to stop full speed fan before windows kicks in.

I left it running valley all night and didnt go above 70oC in my air 540 case with all the fans on a controller on lowest. Its a very fast card and very quiet while gaming..... very happy. Also no coil whine worth mentioning.. ( a tiny bit when on char screen in WoW... when its prob doing 400 fps+ ).

I also got the free keyboard, Unity AND it only cost £479.99... that was on monday ( in person at the ocuk shop ).... i see they have gone up!

I bought a 1300W superflower psu on MM and i now have a practically SILENT system even when gaming... i can hear the mechanical hard drives clicking away!!... sadly due the huge size of my films and steam folders going SSD for all storage just isnt practical at the moment.

JamesM · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:04

The SOC has also gone up £10

varkanoid · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:07

Vimes said:
Couldn't imagine it being £100 is so better than the KFA2 980 I bought. But add long as you are making an informed choice and happy that is good.
You do get an extra years warranty with the Gigabyte though.?

extra ££££ for a free keyboard !

Vimes · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:25

Must be a mechanical keyboard for that price. Lol

The SOC was £399 when I bought it, but yeah it has gone up now in price.

carrot1401 · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:27

Guessing we're losing out to the dollar?

Sent my cards back yesterday, going to run with my mates spare GTX 570 for now and see what happens in the next few weeks...

Neil79 · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:32

carrot1401 said:
Guessing we're losing out to the dollar?

Sent my cards back yesterday, going to run with my mates spare GTX 570 for now and see what happens in the next few weeks...

My cards arrived this morning at OCUK going by the tracking details, but still no word of a refund or acknowledgement they arrived.

Bluntwrapped · 11 Feb 2015 at 14:08

Strudders said:
Hello

I am wondering if anybody has had the GPU crash out (artefacts etc) as opposed to the driver crashing.

On my 970 the card buckled before the drivers and whilst I had a great stable overclock, it was the card that told me I was at the ceiling.

On my 980 it's just the drivers.
Fire Strike is by far the worst, the power target is always hit regardless of OC or stock as a result I can't get more than a 150 Clock and 210 mem.
Heaven I can get 168/250 before I start getting issue with the driver.

I am also sure I have the volt issues (will check today when my sight is a bit better) others are reporting as the higher CC is not producing the same performance increase that I expected. In fact there is a deterioration as the OC is increased. My inno3d only has a Max 109% power target as its stock is 1367

Usually you will start seeing artifacts before driver crash but it depends on how close you are between almost stable and totally unstable.

Unless you have a particularly energy efficient card anything above stock boost will likely cause you to hit the TDP limit when running the Fire Strike benchmark. The likelihood of this increases further if there is any bump to voltage. My reference 980 even with stock clocks hits it's TDP running Fire Strike and needs up to 115% power target to stop it from throttling. Are you overclocking with stock voltage? If not drop it back down and see if headroom improves. I've found as I increase voltage I lose ram stability and I'm able to get another 10Mhz or so out the core if I drop my voltage back to stock.

The only way to get around your max power target is by editing the Bios to allow a higher power draw. I have my 100% power target set to 240w which allows my 1506/7600 overclock to run through Fire Strike without throttling.