What 980ti should I buy ?!

[chriso132]

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a 980ti from overclockers to replace my 680sli set up. I cannot decide what one to buy though ! As I'm only 1080p at the moment I will not be looking to sli for a while. I was first looking at the Asia strix oc version which is slightly more expensive than the standard strix, but it would be nice to have the stable factory oc instead of me doing it myself. I also seen the msi Seahawk, which is the hybrid watercooled one. I wouldn't be able to sli that if I ever felt the need as I don't think there would be enough room.

Does anyone have any suggestions ?

Thanks

 

[snips86x]

I've got the MSI 6G and I cannot fault it. Fans won't spin unless the card is under load or hits 60c. Even while gaming it's beautifully quiet, so much in fact I cannot hear it while gaming.

Highly Recommended.

 

[setter]

Another msi 6g owner here. I can only echo what snips says about this model. However, if you intend to sli two of theese at some point. Very good spacing between the cards and good case airflow are a must. All non reference cards dump a lot of heat into the case, this can lead to the top card running much hotter than the bottom one.

 

[andybird123]

overclocking is simply a case of moving a slider, save the money and do it yourself
I've got the non-oc version of the strix and it does about 1400 out of the box anyway, it'll do +50 absolutely guaranteed and I use +80 as a 24/7 and +110-120 for benching

similarly the memory should do +400 without any issues

I've also got an MSI 6G which is also a very good card for the money, again has no issues doing 1480mhz and 8000 memory

 

[stulid]

Wait.

New Gigabyte xtreme cards coming soon.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18702190

 

[Credo]

Another msi 6g owner here. I can only echo what snips says about this model. However, if you intend to sli two of theese at some point. Very good spacing between the cards and good case airflow are a must. All non reference cards dump a lot of heat into the case, this can lead to the top card running much hotter than the bottom one.

If non-reference cards dump heat into the case - then if not overclocking does it make sense to just go for a reference card? I'm looking to Black Friday for a potential purchase...

 

[Petelock]

Another G6 owner. I love the card and get 1516 out of it stable.

However, I wasn't happy with the hot air it dumped into the case (although from a noise perspective there was no issue). I changed the cooler to a G10/H55 combo to make it effectively a hybrid card. It's far superior now regarding temps (dropping around 20c GPU temps under load). Obviously having all the heat dump out of the case is positively affecting other temps (particularly CPU ofc).

This would beg the question to go with a hybrid from the outset and is what I would likely do if I could turn back time.

 

[setter]

If non-reference cards dump heat into the case - then if not overclocking does it make sense to just go for a reference card? I'm looking to Black Friday for a potential purchase...

If using one card only, a non reference model is fine. Yes they will still heat up the case a bit compared to a blower style card. But the non reference cooled models are much quieter. It only becomes an issue when you use two in sli/xfire. The heat from the top card just gets recycled back into the fans as it has no exhaust path. In a tightly spaced board this is compounded a bit more.

 

[chriso132]

I realise now that I will just be able to overclock it to higher speeds without any trouble so I think I'll go for one of the cheaper ones. I think it's between the stock one, the evga superclocked and the gigabyte g1 as there all about £540. Which cooler is considered the best out of the three ? As I'd be wanting the one to get the better overclock out of.

My pal said that gigabyte cards have gone downhill a bit and people have had problems with them but I've not seen that anywhere !

 

[Watlinguk]

I realise now that I will just be able to overclock it to higher speeds without any trouble so I think I'll go for one of the cheaper ones. I think it's between the stock one, the evga superclocked and the gigabyte g1 as there all about £540. Which cooler is considered the best out of the three ? As I'd be wanting the one to get the better overclock out of.

My pal said that gigabyte cards have gone downhill a bit and people have had problems with them but I've not seen that anywhere !

I have just bought a second hand G1 and its runs awesome, extremely quiet, cool and overclocks well

 

[MooMoo444]

They're all very similar, so buy on warranty. Don't get one with 2yrs. 2yrs is almost nothing in GPU life.

3yrs minimum.