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A couple of weeks ago we reviewed the latest Nvidia GTX980Ti reference card, and today we follow up with a look at the latest flagship model from one of their key partners. The ‘EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+' is quite the mouthful, but EVGA have earned a reputation for releasing some of the finest hardware to target the enthusiast audience. This particular model ships with a 6+2 power phase, custom cooler and unlike the reference Nvidia card, EVGA have decided to fit the card with a custom backplate.
In the short time since launch, we have noticed the GTX980Ti has been warmly received by the enthusiast audience. The additional 2GB of memory over the older GTX980 will certainly help drive texture heavy titles at 4K resolutions in the coming year.
Right now AMD lovers have two high end choices. The power hungry, dual GPU R9 295X2 has been reduced in price to £499.99-£599.99 via selected retailers and there are some 8GB R9 290X cards available from companies such as Sapphire. Until AMD release their new series of cards, Nvidia have been able to run amok in the high end.
| GPU | GeForce GTX960 |
Geforce GTX970 | GeForce GTX980 |
Geforce GTX 980 Ti | Geforce GTX Titan X |
| Streaming Multiprocessors | 8 | 13 | 16 | 22 | 24 |
| CUDA Cores | 1024 | 1664 | 2048 | 2816 | 3072 |
| Base Clock | 1126 mhz | 1050 mhz | 1126 mhz | 1000 mhz | 1000 mhz |
| GPU Boost Clock | 1178 mhz | 1178 mhz | 1216 mhz | 1075 mhz | 1076 mhz |
| Total Video memory | 2GB | 4GB | 4GB | 6GB | 12GB |
| Texture Units | 64 | 104 | 128 | 176 | 192 |
| Texture fill-rate | 72.1 Gigatexels/Sec | 109.2 Gigatexels/Sec | 144.1 Gigatexels/Sec | 176 Gigatexels/Sec | 192 Gigatexels/Sec |
| Memory Clock | 7010 mhz | 7000 mhz | 7000 mhz | 7000 mhz | 7000 mhz |
| Memory Bandwidth | 112.16 GB/sec | 224 GB/s | 224 GB/sec | 336.5 GB/sec | 336.5 GB/sec |
| Bus Width | 128bit | 256bit | 256bit | 384bit | 384bit |
| ROPs | 32 | 56 | 64 | 96 | 96 |
| Manufacturing Process | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm |
| TDP | 120 watts | 145 watts | 165 watts | 250 watts | 250 watts |
The Nvidia GTX980 Ti ships with 2816 CUDA cores and 22 SM units. The memory subsystem of the GTX980 Ti consists of six 64-bit memory controllers (384-bit) with 6GB of GDDR5 memory.
The EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ has received a clock boost over Nvidia's reference card, with final speeds set at 1,102 mhz/1,190mhz. This translates into a decent ‘out of the box' clock boost, with additional headroom likely available when we get to the overclocking section later in the review.
The EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ ships in a plain looking box, with sadly no picture of the card visible on the front. Plenty of information however.
The bundle is extensive. A big EVGA poster for the wall, literature on the product, video/ power converter cables and a lovely branded badge for the case.
Immediate impressions are positive. This is a heavy dual slot card and unlike the reference card, it ships with a hefty backplate which will help reduce hotspots and also protect sensitive PCB circuitry. We will test this later in the review with our Thermal Imaging Camera.
The dual fan ACX 2.0+ cooler is substantial and is predominately black, with bronze/gold accenting. It measures 267mm meaning it will fit inside most normal sized enthusiast grade chassis. EVGA are using 8mm heatpipes and the fans incorporate double ball bearing to try and keep noise to a minimum. Both fans disable when temperatures drop below a specific point (around 60c).
The GTX980Ti is SLi capable in 2, 3 and 4 way configurations. It takes power from a single 6 pin and 8 pin connector, same as the Titan X.
The EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ ships with a single DVI port, one HDMI 2.0 port (with HD audio and Blu-Ray 3D movie support), and three DisplayPorts. The move to predominately Displayport connectivity is inevitable and welcomed. If you wish, you can use all these ports at the same time for triple monitor gaming.
An overview of the hardware in the latest version of GPUz – as discussed on the previous page. This overclocked GM200 core runs at 1,102mhz (1,190mhz boost) and is built on the 28nm process. The GTX980 Ti has 96 ROPs, 176 Texture units (Titan X has 192 texture units) and 2,816 CUDA Cores (Titan X has 3,072 CUDA Cores). The 6GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 1753mhz (7Gbps effective) and is connected via a 384 bit memory interface. EVGA have not overclocked the GDDR5 memory, which is unusual.On this page we present some high resolution images of the product taken with a Canon 1DX and Canon 28-70mm F2.8 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.
We tested all the solutions today at 1600p and 4K resolutions. All cards were tested in the last week with the Nvidia 353.06 Forceware driver, and the AMD 15.4 Catalyst driver.
If you want to read more about our test system, 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:
Nvidia GTX Titan Z (706mhz core / 1753mhz memory) – Nvidia Forceware 353.06
Nvidia GTX Titan X (1000mhz core / 1753mhz Memory) – Nvidia Forceware 353.06
Nvidia GTX980 Ti (1000 mhz / 1753mhz memory) – Nvidia Forceware 353.06
Gainward GTX980 Phantom (1203mhz core / 1800mhz memory) – Nvidia Forceware 353.06
AMD R9 295X2 (1018mhz core / 1250mhz memory) – AMD Catalyst 15.4 Beta
Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC 8GB (1020mhz core / 13752mhz memory) – AMD Catalyst 15.4 Beta
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
Grand Theft Auto 5
Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
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.
As expected, the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ scores remarkably well in this older Direct X 10 benchmark, close to the top of the chart, behind the dual CPU Titan Z and R9 295X2.3DMark 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.
The overall GPU score of 24,305 points places the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ just behind the Titan Z at reference clock speeds.
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.”
Performance is stellar, hitting 18,156 points, putting the card in behind the dual GPU R9 295X2.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 test at 2560×1600 with the quality set to ‘ULTRA', tessellation on ‘NORMAL' and Anti Aliasing set to 2x.
The overclocked EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti manages to outperform the Nvidia Titan X by around 3 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).
We test with 8x anti aliasing enabled and the quality setting at ‘ULTRA'. shown above.
The EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ averages 130 frames per second at 1600p, even with 8 times anti aliasing enabled.
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 with 8x anti aliasing enabled and the quality setting at ‘ULTRA'. shown above.
This engine isn't one of the most demanding right now, however we can see that the single EVGA GTX980Ti can power the engine at 4K – while maintaining frame rates above 70 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 at 1600p with the ‘ULTIMATE' image quality profile selected.
Tomb Raider is demanding at these settings, although the GTX980 won't struggle. The EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ holds the frame rate above 60 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 at 3840×2160 (4K) with the ‘ULTIMATE' image profile selected. We normally reduce the image quality profile to ‘ULTRA' at this resolution, but not today.
A single EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ will deliver a good experience at 4K, although if you want a constant 60 frames per second you are going to need to buy two.The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Polish: Wiedźmin 3: Dziki Gon) is an action role-playing video game set in an open world environment, developed by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt concludes the story of the witcher Geralt of Rivia, the series’ protagonist, whose story to date has been covered in the previous versions. Continuing from The Witcher 2, the ones who sought to use Geralt are now gone. Geralt seeks to move on with his own life, embarking on a new and personal mission whilst the world order itself is coming to a change.
Geralt’s new mission comes in dark times as the mysterious and otherworldly army known as the Wild Hunt invades the Northern Kingdoms, leaving only blood soaked earth and fiery ruin in its wake; and it seems the Witcher is the key to stopping their cataclysmic rampage. (Wikipedia).
We select a 2560×1600 resolution with postprocessing at ‘HIGH' and graphics at ‘ULTRA', as shown above.
One of the more demanding engines released in recent months, however we are testing at some of the highest image quality settings – after all you don't buy a GTX980 to compromise on settings. At 1600p with our selected IQ options, the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ holds the frame rate above 40 at all times, which should be enough for most people.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Polish: Wiedźmin 3: Dziki Gon) is an action role-playing video game set in an open world environment, developed by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt concludes the story of the witcher Geralt of Rivia, the series’ protagonist, whose story to date has been covered in the previous versions. Continuing from The Witcher 2, the ones who sought to use Geralt are now gone. Geralt seeks to move on with his own life, embarking on a new and personal mission whilst the world order itself is coming to a change. Geralt’s new mission comes in dark times as the mysterious and otherworldly army known as the Wild Hunt invades the Northern Kingdoms, leaving only blood soaked earth and fiery ruin in its wake; and it seems the Witcher is the key to stopping their cataclysmic rampage. (Wikipedia).
We select a 3840×2160 (Ultra HD 4K) resolution with postprocessing at ‘HIGH' and graphics at ‘ULTRA', as shown above.
At 4K this game is best enjoyed with two Nvidia graphics cards. The single EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ does a decent job – although some image quality settings would need to be reduced to push all important minimum frame rates above 30 at all times. Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story.
Outside of missions, players can freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world of Grand Theft Auto V is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series.
The world may be fully explored from the beginning of the game without restrictions, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content. (Wikipedia).
We used high image quality settings – shown in the screenshots above with 4xMSAA enabled. ‘Ignore Suggested Limits' was turned ‘ON'. We found some intensive sections of the Grand Theft Auto 5 world and tested each card multiple times to confirm accuracy.
We do not use the built in benchmark as the results are not indicative of real world gaming situations. The results below are strictly worst case scenario.
A great experience at 1600p, as we would expect. One of our favourite games this year, along with the Witcher 3.Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story.
Outside of missions, players can freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world of Grand Theft Auto V is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series.
The world may be fully explored from the beginning of the game without restrictions, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content. (Wikipedia).
We used high image quality settings – shown in the screenshots above with 4xMSAA enabled. ‘Ignore Suggested Limits' was turned ‘ON'. We found some intensive sections of the Grand Theft Auto 5 world and tested each card multiple times to confirm accuracy.
We do not use the built in benchmark as the results are not indicative of real world gaming situations. The results below are strictly worst case scenario.
At 4K this game proves quite a challenge for a single card, although dropping image quality settings in a few areas would help increase overall frame rates.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.
Idle temperatures are improved over the reference card by 11c, under load.
The GPU is using Nvidia’s GPU Boost 2.0 which dynamically adjusts clock speed and voltage settings, factoring in temperatures.
We install the graphics card into our system and measure temperatures on the back of the PCB with our Fluke Visual IR Thermometer/Infrared Thermal Camera. This is a real world running environment.
Details shown below.
EVGA have added a backplate to this card and temperatures on the rear of the PCB are much more evenly distributed than the reference board. The hottest part is the reverse side of the GPU core area. We managed to increase temperatures to 73.5c in this area after 30 minutes of Furmark. This is strictly a worst case scenario. This is around 10c lower than the Nvidia reference card and will help improve the life span of the hardware.
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
The EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ is a quiet card even under gaming load, and the noise of the two fans will likely be completely masked out by a couple of case fans.
The reference GTX980 Ti exhibited a little coil whine under extreme circumstances. The EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ was whisper quiet.
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.
Maxwell cards are always extremely power efficient. As we can see the GTX980Ti system consumes 329 watts under gaming load and the EVGA overclocked card takes around 5 watts more.We use MSI's Afterburner to overclock the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+.
We managed to get another 12% from the core before instability would come into play. Overclocking the memory doesn't really make much of a difference to the results, unless you can push it significantly above the reference speeds.
The manually tweaked card exhibits considerable performance benefits from the ‘out of the box' speeds. The final score of 26,648 points puts it ahead of the Nvidia GTX Titan Z.
I have been very impressed with Nvidia's GTX980Ti reference card. The EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ takes the class leading performance and pushes it to the next level. The ACX 2.0+ cooler is a very proficient implementation, reducing temperatures over Nvidia's reference design by 11c, while also lowering noise emissions. Always a good thing.
While some may argue, we do feel the GTX980Ti is overkill for 1080p or even 1440p gaming – the GTX980 is more than capable and will leave you enough money left over to get other goodies. If you want to game at 1600p or 4K then the more expensive GTX980Ti makes for a wise investment, especially when you factor in the extra 2GB of memory. Obviously if you are running a 120hz or 144hz monitor then this ‘overkill' argument changes a little.
Ultra HD 4K still proves a challenge even for these high end boards, although the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ will power most Direct X 11 titles at this resolution if you are willing to drop a few image quality settings, or are happy with 30-40 frames per second.
We know more serious gamers want a constant 60+frames per second and they will need to double the expense by opting for an SLI configuration. It will probably be the next generation of Nvidia graphics cards before a single GPU will be able to hold a constant 60+ frames per second at 4K with the highest image quality settings enabled.
You can buy from Overclockers UK from £599.99 inc vat HERE.
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Pros:
- noticeably faster than the GTX980Ti reference card.
- built for 4K gaming.
- quality backplate.
- 11c cooler than reference design.
- another 12% of headroom from the core when manually tweaked.
- no coil whine.
Cons:
- Titan X is only £200 more expensive and has 12GB of GDDR5 memory.
- GDDR5 memory isn't overclocked.
KitGuru says: The EVGA GTX980Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ is a monster graphics card and is a noticeable improvement on the reference Nvidia card. It is faster and runs much quieter without any hint of coil whine.
