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If you are feeling those January winter blues, then we hope to cheer you up today. What better way to start the New Year than with a look at the flagship Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum? This Republic Of Gamers card ships with a customised PCB to target overclockers worldwide. This PCB is based around a 14 phase VRM and Asus have added a special ‘defroster' circuit – if you fancy using the liquid nitrogen that Santa left under your tree at Christmas. This is an expensive solution, priced at £599.95 but it is built to target a very specific audience.
The ASUS GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum is certainly a stonking looking graphics card. The sporty red stripe is very indicative of the Republic Of Gamers brand and each individually designed fan is in place to work together, rather than against each other.
The ASUS ‘defroster' circuit is actually a trace which runs through specific parts of the PCB, heating up – to prevent frost and damp condensation on the card.
| GPU | GeForce GTX 680 (Kepler) | GeForce GTX 980 (Maxwell) | Geforce GTX 970 (Maxwell) |
| Streaming Multiprocessors | 8 | 16 | 13 |
| CUDA Cores | 1536 | 2048 | 1664 |
| Base Clock | 1006 mhz | 1126 mhz | 1050 mhz |
| GPU Boost Clock | 1058 mhz | 1216 mhz | 1178 mhz |
| Total Video memory | 2GB | 4GB | 4GB |
| Texel fill-rate | 129 Gigatexels/Sec | 144.1 Gigatexels/Sec | 109.2 Gigatexels/Sec |
| Memory Clock | 6000 mhz | 7000 mhz | 7000 mhz |
| Memory Bandwidth | 192 GB/sec | 224 GB/sec | 224 GB/s |
| ROPs | 32 | 64 | 64 |
| Manufacturing Process | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm |
| TDP | 195 watts | 165 watts | 145 watts |
The new GM204 GPU is very efficient. The Maxwell SM has been rebalanced so that the CUDA cores are fully utilised more often. Doing so saves power and enhances overall performance. The L2 cache size in the GM204 is 2MB, or four times larger than the GK104. The addition of extra cache means that fewer requests to the GPU memory are needed – again reducing power consumption and pushing more performance.
The Geforce GTX 980 is equipped with 7Gbps memory. Those of you with higher resolution monitors, or running in a multi screen configuration will also be pleased to hear that there is 4GB of GDDR5 memory on the card, not 3GB – this memory will push 224 GB/s sec. Nvidia have added a new compression engine to reduce the demand on DRAM bandwidth.
The Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum has received a core clock enhancement to 1,241mhz, from 1,126mhz on the reference design. The GDDR5 memory is shipped at the default clock speeds of 1,753mhz (7Gbps effective). This card is one of the fastest ‘out of the box' GTX980's we have tested.
The Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum ships in a box featuring the distinctive Republic Of Gamers colours.
The gatefold style box greets the user with a bunch of technical data and information. It can open to expose the card itself behind a protective plastic sheet. Ideal if you still shop within a physical retail store. Not so useful if you don't (like most of us in 2015 I would imagine).
The card ships protected between thick layers of flexible foam. Accessories include several converter cables, literature on the product, and a fancy little adhesive badge for a case.
The Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum is a heavy dual slot card, constructed primarily from metal. There is a backplate in place too which will offer additional cooling and protection over sensitive parts of the PCB.
Asus get bonus points for build quality. They have applied a black coating to the heatpipes, so they appear more attractive.
The card ships with a single dual link DVI connector, three DisplayPort connectors and a single HDMI connector. This HDMI port will handle 4K resolutions at up to 60hz. These are all full sized ports which is much better than having to rely on mini converter cables.
The ASUS GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum takes power from two 8 pin PCI e connectors. These are unfortunately rather fiddly to reach, due to the way Asus have created the PCB and backplate, positioning the headers within the narrower part of the PCB.
The card is fully SLI capable, as we would expect.
The ‘Republic Of Gamers' logo lights up when the card is powered on. Colour states indicate load levels. Blue indicates ‘light' loading. Orange for ‘medium' loading. Red is ‘Heavy' loading. Green indicates ‘safe' mode. A case window seems important, otherwise you wouldn't see this in action at all when using the system.
Asus are using thick 10mm nickel plated heatpipes on the cooler, all of which are coloured black to improve the appearance. Asus have opted to use high grade Samsung GDDR5 memory on the ROG board, which is reassuring to see.
A GPUz overview of the hardware. The GM204 GPU is running at enhanced speeds of 1,241mhz (1,342mhz boost). The memory is set at Nvidia reference speeds of 1,753mhz (7Gbps effective). The card has 2,048 CUDA cores, 64 ROPs and 128 texture units. The 4GB of Samsung GDDR5 is connected via a 256 bit memory interface.
On this page we present some high resolution images of the product taken with a Nikon D810 camera with Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art Lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.
For the review today we are using Nvidia Forceware 347.09 and AMD Catalyst 14.12 drivers. All of the AMD and Nvidia hardware in our reviews today used these drivers, tested within the last two weeks. We are using a test rig supplied by DINOPC and built to our specifications.
If you want to read more about this, or are interested in buying the same Kitguru Test Rig, check out our article with links on this page. We are using an Asus PB287Q 4k and Apple 30 inch Cinema HD monitor for this review today.
Comparison cards:
Gigabyte GTX980 G1 Gaming (1228mhz core / 1,753mhz memory)
Inno3D GTX980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra (1266 mhz core / 1753 mhz memory)
MSI GTX980 Gaming 4G (1216mhz core / 1753 mhz memory)
Asus GTX980 Strix (1178mhz core / 1753 mhz memory)
Asus GTX780 Ti Direct CU II OC (954mhz core / 1750 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX980 Reference (1126 mhz core / 1753mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC (1040 mhz core / 1300 mhz memory)
Galax GTX970 OC Silent ‘Infinity Black Edition' (1178mhz core / 1753mhz memory)
Palit GTX970 Jetstream OC (1152mhz core / 1753 mhz memory)
MSI GTX970 Gaming 4G (1140 mhz core / 1753 mhz memory)
Palit GTX780 6GB (902 mhz core / 1502mhz memory)
Asus GTX970 StriX OC (1114 mhz core / 1753 mhz memory)
Asus R9 290 Direct CU II OC (1000 mhz core / 1260 mhz memory)
OCUK GTX970 ‘Nvidia 970 Cooler Edition’ (1051 mhz core / 1753 mhz memory)
Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
Games:
Grid AutoSport
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light Redux
Thief 2014
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
Game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.
Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.
The Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum scores well in this test, right behind the insanely overclocked Inno3D ‘iChill Air Boss Ultra' GTX980 solution.
3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads. If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.
A final GPU rating of 19,238 points is pretty much how we would expect the ASUS card to score. Interesting to see that the Gigabyte GTX980 G1 Gaming scores a little higher, but the final figures are so close, it is negligible.
3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.
Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.
To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”
The Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum scores just over 14,000 points in the default 3DMark test. This is just a little behind the Inno3D solution and ahead of the Gigabyte GTX980 G1 Gaming card.
Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.
Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk. Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:
- Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
- Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
- Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
- Multicore CPU support
- Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
- Powerful C++ API
- Comprehensive performance profiling system
- Flexible XML-based data structures
We set Quality to ‘High', Tessellation to ‘Normal' and resolution to 1600p.
One of the best results yet, averaging 67.4 frames per second.
Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.
We toggle quality to HIGH, and resolution to 1600p.
Another class leading result from the Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum, achieving an average over 84 frames per second.Grid Autosport (styled as GRID Autosport) is a racing video game by Codemasters and is the sequel to 2008′s Race Driver: Grid and 2013′s Grid 2. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on June 24, 2014. (Wikipedia).
On this page we test at 1080p and 1600p using the ‘Ultra' image quality profile with 8x MSAA.
Super smooth frame rates at these settings when running at both 1080p and 1600p resolutions. Only the Inno3D GTX980 ‘iChill Air Boss Ultra' is faster.
Grid Autosport (styled as GRID Autosport) is a racing video game by Codemasters and is the sequel to 2008′s Race Driver: Grid and 2013′s Grid 2. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on June 24, 2014. (Wikipedia).
We test at Ultra HD 4k with 8MSAA. The Ultra Profile is selected for maximum image quality.
A game which runs well with all the hardware on test today. The Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum scores very well, generating an average of almost 60 frames per second.Thief is set in a dark fantasy world inspired by Victorian, gothic, and steampunk aesthetics. Garrett, a master thief who has been away from his hometown for a long time, returns to it, a place known only as The City, and finds it ruled with an iron grip by a tyrant called The Baron. While The City is ravaged by a plague, the rich continue to live in isolation and good fortune while the poor are forming numerous mobs against the authorities, Garrett intends to use the volatile situation to his favor. (Wikipedia).
We test with the ‘very high' image quality preset at 1080p and 1600p.
This is a much more demanding engine than Grid Autosport. The GTX980 is a good partner for the engine however, as both 1080p and 1600p resolutions are perfectly playable from all solutions on test today.Thief is set in a dark fantasy world inspired by Victorian, gothic, and steampunk aesthetics. Garrett, a master thief who has been away from his hometown for a long time, returns to it, a place known only as The City, and finds it ruled with an iron grip by a tyrant called The Baron. While The City is ravaged by a plague, the rich continue to live in isolation and good fortune while the poor are forming numerous mobs against the authorities, Garrett intends to use the volatile situation to his favor. (Wikipedia).
We test at the ‘very high' preset for maximum image quality. Resolution is set to 4k for this particular test.
The Thief engine at 4K is enough to bring a lesser solution to its knees. The GTX980 cards average playable frame rates, with the ASUS GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum holding a frame rate close to 30 at all times.
Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far. (Wikipedia).
We test with the ‘ultimate' image quality profile at 1080p and 1600p.
Super smooth frame rates at both 1080p and 1600p resolutions.Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far. (Wikipedia).
We test at Ultra HD 4k resolution with the ‘Ultra' image profile enabled. Single GPU solutions find the ‘Ultimate' image quality preset too difficult to power properly.
To get the best experience from Tomb Raider at 4K, we really do advise a GTX980 as your GPU of choice. The Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum averages 43 frames per second, which is an excellent result. If you want steady 60 frame per second rates, then two GTX980's are needed.
On May 22, 2014, a Redux version of Metro Last Light was announced. It was released on August 26, 2014 in North America and August 29, 2014 in Europe for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. A compilation package, titled Metro Redux, was released at the same time which includes Last Light and 2033. (Wikipedia). We test with following settings: Quality-Very High, SSAA-off, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-Normal, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-On.
Great performance from the Asus board at both 1080p and 1600p.
On May 22, 2014, a Redux version of Metro Last Light was announced. It was released on August 26, 2014 in North America and August 29, 2014 in Europe for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. A compilation package, titled Metro Redux, was released at the same time which includes Last Light and 2033. (Wikipedia). We test with following settings: Quality-High, SSAA-off, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-off, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-off.
Solid performance from what we would consider one of the more demanding engines on the market today. A 4K resolution places an incredible demand on partnering hardware so if you want a solid 60 frames per second, be prepared to hit the bank balance hard.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 23c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.
The Asus cooler copes well under load, holding steady at 63c in our test environment during intensive gaming sessions.We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.
We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
Noise levels rate as excellent – very similar results to the Strix OC Edition which we looked at a short time ago.To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Tomb Raider at 4k resolution and the synthetic stress test Furmark – recording both results.
The Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum takes more juice than any other GTX980 we have tested to date, although it is still very power efficient, especially when compared to flagship AMD products.
To overclock today we are using the latest V4.0.0 of MSI's Afterburner based on the excellent Rivatuner.
We managed to push the Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum by an additional 16.7% on air. The final boost speed of 1,567mhz is as good as anything we have seen to date. While we prefer to focus on ‘real world' results, and don't use LN2 to test hardware, the potential to break records with the ASUS board seems positive.
Nvidia's GTX980 has been the solution to beat since the launch in September 2014, and as yet, AMD have no answer. As 2015 unfolds Nvidia partners are running amok in the high end – releasing killer custom solution … one after another.
When it comes to frame rate performance, only the crazy looking INNO3D GTX980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' can compete against the GTX980 Matrix Platinum. It may look like a horrific weapon from a SAW torture porn flick, but the INNO3D card is still the one to beat. The ASUS card is a more subdued, polished looking affair and delivers almost the same class leading ‘out of the box' performance.
The ASUS GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum really shines when you start tinkering with the settings. While we don't use Liquid Nitrogen to test graphics cards, the potential for record breaking overclocking looks plausible if we base the fact we pushed the core to almost 1,600mhz on air.
The Asus cooler performs well, and noise emissions are very low indeed – ensuring it will never be intrusive or interfere with those late night gaming sessions. Obviously a wide audience considering this card will be ditching the stock cooler anyway, but we are impressed with the design.
As we would expect there is a price premium to pay for the ASUS GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum, you can buy direct from Overclockers UK for £599.99 inc vat. While the price is high the Matrix Platinum targets the audience who are less concerned with the cost, and more interested in breaking benchmark results.
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Pros:
- Built to a very high standard.
- Quiet.
- Very capable power delivery system in place.
- Plenty of headroom for manual overclocking.
- backplate.
Cons:
- Is expensive.
Kitguru says: The Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum is a powerhouse GPU, built for overclocking.
