Nvidia GTX 980 Owners Thread

Dirk Diggler · 4 Feb 2015 at 12:04

For those that may still be undecided, here's some benchmarks for comparison :

Firestrike Extreme, stock settings :

Firestrike Extreme, +150 core +250 mem :

Heaven 4.0, stock settings :

Heaven 4.0, +150 core +250 mem :

Personally, I'm happy with the switch.

Dicehunter · 4 Feb 2015 at 12:07

Legend said:
Which 980 card is considered the 'best', or are they all much of a muchness? I've been back and forth on this the past week, trying to figure out what to do with my 970, get another, get a 980 or go the AMD route. The latter poses issues with power and my case (an H440), so I am wary. So I'm looking again at these 980's, with a view to getting a single card. I don't think SLI is something I can justify though, but who knows in the future if they plummet in price. Wondering if the Reference would be the best move though still (I have the 970 Ref now), or if some of the other higher clocked cards would offer a performance edge?

Well AFAIK the hall of fame edition is meant to be the cream of the crop but so far I've had a play around with a Strix, Matrix, Reference and a Zotac Amp Extreme, I'm pretty sure someone will come along and prove me wrong but from my experience so far the 980's are all the same minus being within 100MHZ of eachother when overclocked and with different housing/coolers.

I'd just go with the one you like the look of best TBH.

Manook · 4 Feb 2015 at 12:12

Ive gone from MSI Gaming 970 SLI to KFA2 SOC 980 SLI and wow what a difference.

FPS are an improvement but the stuttering is gone completely which is what I was after. Cards just work and ive had no issues with the VRAM filled this time and 4gb appears to mean 4gb. I can now push these a lot harder and not have to figure out if its the VRAM being crippled being at fault or another bottleneck.

If you were on the fence then do it if you can afford it.

Dirk Diggler · 4 Feb 2015 at 12:20

What do you all think of the weight of these cards? Mine sits at a slope the further away from the I/O bracket it gets. I just hope the components are designed to take the strain over time!

Legend · 4 Feb 2015 at 12:23

The problem is when I start looking at 980 SLI and the cost implications (£800 minimum), I can't ignore the 290X 8GB Crossfire option which comes in at £200 less than that!

Vimes · 4 Feb 2015 at 12:27

String said:
What do you all think of the weight of these cards? Mine sits at a slope the further away from the I/O bracket it gets. I just hope the components are designed to take the strain over time!

Build a lego (Duplo) tower to support it or get imaginative with a pencil etc. Works wonder s

sativa1874 · 4 Feb 2015 at 12:42

Went from 2 G1 970's to 2 Kf2A soc's.

They run a lot hotter than my Gigabytes, I was hitting 83 on the top and 73 on the bottom last night playing BF Hardline, with a small overclock of 100 on the core and 250 on mem. The top G1 never got over 73.

Games are a lot smoother though, Shadows of Mordor never dropped below 90fps no stutters at all.

Hardline never went below 122 fps playing on 64 man conquest in Dust bowl all maxed out.

Overall happy with the £200 cost as I really had no other option having just bought the ROG swift

markk33nan · 4 Feb 2015 at 12:53

cHk4 said:
The vram issue was becoming apparent on certain games and I game at 1440p and 1600p depending on game, I understand 4GB isn't future proofing myself and will be buying new cards when the Nvidia 8GB vram cards eventually come out. I've not tried Overclocking it yet but think I will give it a whirl over the next few days.

How do you find the 980 HOF cards ? i was planing to go SLI but thats gona set me back over £1000 on the cards alone.

was planing on going with a 28" 4K monitor. im intrested in what you had to say about moving from SLI 970 to a single 980 HOF and your plan to wait to upgrade to the Nvidia 8GB cards if the manage to come out with the 990 which might only be 6GB onboard.

Am i mad going with SLI 980 HOF KFA2 ?

Dirk Diggler · 4 Feb 2015 at 13:11

markk33nan said:
How do you find the 980 HOF cards ? i was planing to go SLI but thats gona set me back over £1000 on the cards alone.

was planing on going with a 28" 4K monitor. im intrested in what you had to say about moving from SLI 970 to a single 980 HOF and your plan to wait to upgrade to the Nvidia 8GB cards if the manage to come out with the 990 which might only be 6GB onboard.

Am i mad going with SLI 980 HOF KFA2 ?

I moved from SLI 970 to single 980, and to be honest the only compromise I have to make is dialling down the AA from time to time.

No more hunting for SLI profiles or forcing single card in my shiny new game is bliss.

I'm happy to wait for nvidia's next card.

StrongSad · 4 Feb 2015 at 13:21

Legend said:
Which 980 card is considered the 'best', or are they all much of a muchness? I've been back and forth on this the past week, trying to figure out what to do with my 970, get another, get a 980 or go the AMD route. The latter poses issues with power and my case (an H440), so I am wary. So I'm looking again at these 980's, with a view to getting a single card. I don't think SLI is something I can justify though, but who knows in the future if they plummet in price. Wondering if the Reference would be the best move though still (I have the 970 Ref now), or if some of the other higher clocked cards would offer a performance edge?

I have the Inno3D GTX 980 "iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra"

I am very very happy with this. the cooler is amazing and I can get a 150 OC

It is a very big card at 300mm but fits my case really well.

Even at my highest OC it never exceeds 64c and that's running heaven for an hour. idles at 29c

SS-89 · 4 Feb 2015 at 13:28

Strudders said:
I have the Inno3D GTX 980 "iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra"

I am very very happy with this. the cooler is amazing and I can get a 150 OC

It is a very big card at 300mm but fits my case really well.

Even at my highest OC it never exceeds 64c and that's running heaven for an hour. idles at 29c

This I've got two in Sli, top card hits 67-70 degrees and bottom 60-63 after a couple of hours dying light.

Got my own bios on there limiting both cards to max voltage of 1.225v and locking the boost clocks at 1506/8000.

I have another bios which I use for benching at 1.312v and have benched at 1591/8300 in sli. Cracking cards.

Best of all I got it on This week only and both came with Pick your path codes which I sold for £15 each so each card only cost me £435. The HOF cards aren't worth the massive premium unless competitive benching(speaking as a former 780 HOF owner)

Rykane · 4 Feb 2015 at 14:04

I can't believe this. I recently RMA'd my 970 and decided to get a MSI 980. I just got it delivered today but it looks like it's dead on arrival or the display ports are not working as the card isn't being recognised. I've tried taking it back out and replacing it but it doesn't seem to do anything. I plug my display and I just have a black screen, yet I can use onboard fine...

Wizzfizz · 4 Feb 2015 at 14:06

Make sure the PCi-E cables are firmly clicked into place

Rykane · 4 Feb 2015 at 14:11

Wizzfizz said:
Make sure the PCi-E cables are firmly clicked into place

By PCI-E cables I'm assuming you mean the DVI/HDMI cables right? I've tried taking them out and making sure they are in correctly yet nothing but a black screen, I can plug the HDMI in onboard too and it's fine. I tried installing the latest nvidia drivers but it says there is no detecting device installed.

fantasticCG · 4 Feb 2015 at 14:19

No the cables that run from the PSU into the front of the card to power it

Wizzfizz · 4 Feb 2015 at 14:20

Rykane said:
By PCI-E cables I'm assuming you mean the DVI/HDMI cables right? I've tried taking them out and making sure they are in correctly yet nothing but a black screen, I can plug the HDMI in onboard too and it's fine. I tried installing the latest nvidia drivers but it says there is no detecting device installed.

No no, I mean:

fantasticCG said:
No the cables that run from the PSU into the front of the card to power it

handsomejesus · 4 Feb 2015 at 14:28

My KFA2 980 SOC arrived today to replace my 970.. And... Coil whine. Ugh, anything I can do to get rid of it?

StrongSad · 4 Feb 2015 at 14:32

Just out of interest. does your card have 6 or 8 pin connections and are you using any adapters?

handsomejesus · 4 Feb 2015 at 14:37

Strudders said:
Just out of interest. does your card have 6 or 8 pin connections and are you using any adapters?

Two 8 pins and I am not using adapters, I will try different combinations when I get back from the gym to see if it makes a difference..

Rykane · 4 Feb 2015 at 14:37

Wizzfizz said:
No no, I mean:

Ah right yeah, sorry I thought you were talking about the display cables, yeah those are fully in. I think I've fixed the issue. It seems like the card wasn't actually fully in the PCI-E slot and I had to force it in a bit. It's was pretty odd, Installing drivers now and hopefully won't have any other issues.