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Got some spare cash to upgrade that weak old graphics card? If you have £500 burning a hole in your bank account then the Nvidia GTX980 is the first choice on our list. KitGuru has already looked at custom partner cards from MSI, ASUS and Palit but today we look at something very special indeed. The Inno3D GTX980 iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra is without a doubt one of the most hardcore graphics cards to grace our labs – featuring a scary looking four fan heatsink, and crazy ‘out of the box' clock speeds. This is not one for the faint of heart.
The Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' may be a mouthful to say, but it looks like it was developed by the Devil himself (or Jigsaw from SAW). Graphics card or deadly bladed weapon to deal with unwanted house intruders? You decide.
For those interested, the ‘Air Boss' name is a naval term used on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. The Air Boss is in charge of all the operations of the flight deck from moving planes around and landing and launching aircraft. The Air Boss resides in the tower and communicates with the flight deck via a megaphone. Sure, its all slightly corny, but its nothing new as graphics card manufacturers try to come up with the next big product brand name. Shorter names are more effective, a point which we feel Inno3D have missed completely.
A quick recap over the Maxwell architecture, in case you have missed all the details of the GTX970 and GTX980 in the last month. You may already have studied our multiple analysis of the lower level GTX750Ti solution throughout the year however.
The GTX750ti has been one of the most exciting cards that Nvidia have released in recent years – performance is close to the HD7850 while consuming half the power at the socket – and all without the need for a PCIe power cable. It produces such a modest heat emission that the Asus GTX750Ti Strix OC we reviewed recently didn’t need to spin the fans most of the time, even when gaming.
AMD really are so far behind now when it comes to power consumption that they will need to release a new architecture to compete. Not an easy thing to do overnight, but we hope they can become competitive again in the coming months. Competition is good for us – the consumer.
The Maxwell architecture has been designed to deliver twice the performance per watt of previous generation Geforce hardware. It sounds easy enough on paper to achieve, but the real world challenges for Nvidia have been complex.
| 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 Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' has received a core clock enhancement to 1,266mhz, from 1,126mhz on the reference design. The GDDR5 memory has also received a ‘tweak' from the default clock speeds of 1,753mhz (7Gbps effective) to 1,800mhz (7.2Gbps effective).
Considering what is inside, the Inno3D box artwork is spectacularly dull. Walk past this box however at your peril.
The bundle is quite tasty – there are power and video converters, alongside literature and a driver disc (ignore this and just snag the latest drivers from the Nvidia website). Finally a soft mouse mat (iChill Gaming Mouse Mat) is included – which is a pretty cool extra to include.
Three large fans take centerstage behind the thick (and heavy) metal cooler shroud. Inno3D call the cooler – the HerculeZ X4. The card is equipped with a vented back plate – they call this the HerculeZ Backplate II.
The cooler features A.P.C.S.- the Active Power Cooling System. We are quickly losing track of all the buzzwords already.
There is also a smaller 50mm fan mounted separately along the top ridge of the PCB. The main AirBoss Fan Blades have ‘airflow' channels' cut into them to improve the movement of air by 20%. Inno3D include an allen key to get access to the fans for cleaning.
This smaller fan is said to improve cooling potential across the height of the PCB, working in tandem with the other fans. We will test cooling potential thoroughly, later in the review.
The Inno3D card is SLi capable, and takes power from two 6 pin PCIe connectors. This is particularly interesting as the MSI GTX980 Gaming 4G takes power from two 8 pin PCIe connectors.
The Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' has a single DVI connector on the back (DVI-D), alongside three full sized DisplayPort connectors and a single HDMI connector. This HDMI port will handle 4K resolutions at up to 60hz. INNO3D earn bonus points for using full sized connectors – no silly adapters needed.
Under the cooler is a 8mm thick heatpipe, alongside a memory and VRM heatsink to cool the components.
The GTX980 is built on the 28nm process. It has 2,048 Cuda Cores, 64 ROP’s and 128 Texture units. The 4GB of Samsung GDDR5 is running at 1,800mhz (7.2 Gbps effective) and is connected via a 256bit memory interface. The core clock speed has been increased by INNO3D to 1,266mhz with a boost speed set at 1,367mhz.
On this page we present some high resolution images of the product taken with a Fuji XT1 camera. 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 the Nvidia Forceware 344.48 and AMD Catalyst 14.9.1 beta drivers. All of the AMD and Nvidia hardware in our reviews today used these drivers, tested between the 20th October and 27th October. We are using one of our brand new test rigs 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:
MSI GTX980 Gaming 4G (1216mhz 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)
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)
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. Credit to Tytaero for his assassinbot image.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 Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' scores exceptionally well in this older Direct X 10 benchmark, scoring 54,063 points.
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 Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' almost scores 20,000 points ‘out of the box', a new single GPU record.
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.”
Another remarkable score from the Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra', scoring 14,416 points – and claiming top position in our chart.
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.
Superb results, averaging just over 68 frames per second, putting the Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' into top position in our graph.
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.
We noticed some microstuttering with this engine, which lowered the minimum frame rate a little, still top position in the chart with an average of 86 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.
As we would expect, the Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' takes top position at both resolutions.
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. 
Perfectly playable at Ultra HD 4k, averaging 60 frames per second – a superb result.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.
A demanding engine, but no problem for the GTX980 cards. Playable at both 1080p and 1600p.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.
At 4K Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' is one of the few cards that can hold a minimum frame rate above 25 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.
The engine is demanding at these settings, however the Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' produces smooth frame rates at both 1080p and 1600p.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.
At Ultra HD 4k, this is a difficult engine hold above 30 frames per second. The Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' averages 44 frames per second, with a drop to 38 during the most intensive section of the environment.
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.
Excellent results at both 1080p and 1600p. The Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' claims top spot again.
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. 
The GTX980 cards are able to power this engine at 4K, with the Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' top of the chart. If you want to hold a steady 60 frames per second at these settings you would need two of these cards.
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.
These results are incredible. We double checked the results multiple times – the cooler maintains core temperature when gaming at 48c. This is by far the best GTX980 cooler we have tested to date and easily outperforms both MSI and ASUS solutions under load.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
Not the quietest GTX980 cooler we have tested, but the results, considering the cooling performance are stellar.
When gaming the fans are clearly audible, but low pitched and not intrusive at all. Most case fans are likely to drown them out completely, depending on the chassis being used.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.
All of the GTX980 cards we have tested are very efficient. The Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' is no different. It consumes only 159 watts under gaming load.
To overclock today we are using the latest V4.0.0 of MSI's Afterburner based on the excellent Rivatuner.
We were able to push the core to 1,413mhz – translating into a 11.6% clock increase. The Boost speed was running at 1,514mhz.
We weren't sure what to think of the Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' the first time we saw it. Many Nvidia partners have opted for subtle, inoffensive GTX980 designs – and there is no doubt that the MSI GTX980 Gaming 4G is the sexy ‘looker' of the bunch. Inno3D have taken a different route – creating a product that reminds us of a horrific weapon from one of the latest SAW films.
While we wouldn't consider the Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' a beautiful looking graphics card, the sharp angular edges and bright patterns certainly attract the eye.
Build quality is stellar. The card is constructed mainly from metal and subsequently feels hefty in the hand. Discerning enthusiast users always appreciate a backplate, to cool the PCB and to offer additional protection. Another box ticked.
While the appearance of the Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' is likely to split opinion, the performance will not. Out of the box, this is the fastest GTX980 we have tested to date and it claims top position in most of our game tests today. It is however the cooling capabilities which deserve special mention.
The iChill HerculeZ X4 cooler on this card absolutely destroys all previous benchmark results. Under extended gaming load, this solution peaked at a measly 48c. The MSI GTX980 Gaming 4G and ASUS GTX980 StriX hit 61c and 62c respectively. The reference GTX980 hit 73c under the same circumstances. This is a truly remarkable cooler and one worthy of serious praise.
You can pick up the Inno3D GTX 980 ‘iChill Herculez X4 Air Boss Ultra' from Overclockers UK for £499.99, and there is a price drop this week to £459.99 inc vat.
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Pros:
- it doubles up as a very handy weapon. Jigsaw will want it back.
- exceptional build quality with backplate.
- 4GB of GDDR5 memory.
- Best GTX980 cooler we have tested.
Cons:
- some may say it looks ugly.
- a shorter name would have worked better. Seriously.
- will still need two of them for super smooth 4K gaming.
Kitguru says: It looks like a beast, and performs like a beast.
