Asus GTX980 Strix OC Review

Allan 'Zardon' Campbell September 30, 2014 Featured Announcement, Graphics

The Strix robotic OWL artwork is both menacing and slightly corny at the same time. No images of the card on the front of the box, just a list of key selling points such as ‘OC' and ‘4GB' – indicating the card is overclocked and ships with 4GB of memory.

The back of the box lists many details on the cooling system and software supplied – alongside a diagram of the video output panel.

The bundle includes a power converter cable, software disc and literature on setting up the graphics card. Asus also supply several colours of sticker which can be applied to the cooler by the user. They include a little graphic to explain where they go.

The Asus GTX980 Strix is a heavy card, with two large fans in the center. They include a backplate on the black PCB. It all looks great, and quite understated to the eye.

The GTX980 Strix is SLi capable, and it takes power from an 8 pin and a 6 pin connector.

The Asus Strix range of graphics cards seem to follow an ethos of ‘less is more' – when it comes to stickers and labeling on the card. This is a good thing. There are several really thick heatpipes protruding from various parts of the card – we look at this closer when we disassemble it.

ASUS have three DisplayPort connectors available on the I/O backplate, alongside an HDMI 2.0 capable connector. This HDMI port will handle 4K resolutions at up to 60hz. There is also a dual link DVI connector on the top row. Up to four of these output connectors can be used simultaneously.

The Asus GTX980 Strix utilises a direct touch cooling system. 5 thick heatpipes run in both directions into several aluminum heatsink racks on either side. These heatpipes are coated for appearance, but left naked at the base. Asus are using high grade Samsung GDDR5 memory.

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 clocked at 1,753mhz (7Gbps effective) and is connected via a 256bit memory interface. The core clock speed has been increased by ASUS to 1,178mhz with a boost speed set at 1,279mhz.