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In the last month we have reviewed quite a broad selection of Nvidia GTX980 Ti partner cards from companies such as MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS and Palit. The PNY GTX980 Ti XLR8 OC is clocked quite aggressively and performs just as well as we would expect at 1440p and 4K resolutions.
The PNY GTX980 Ti XLR8 OC faces stiff competition. Competing solutions from Gigabyte G1 Gaming (review HERE) and Asus Strix Direct CU3 (review HERE) also ship with triple fan coolers. The ASUS STRIX card is the quietest of them all, however the Gigabyte G1 Gaming runs the coolest under load. The PNY also doesn't win any outright performance benchmarks from this hardware group, as the ASUS STRIX is clocked the highest out of the box.
When it comes to manually overclocking, the PNY GTX980 Ti XLR8 OC performs at a similar level to both Gigabyte and ASUS, however we do have one major concern with the PNY card – the lack of custom backplate. This may not seem like much, however our thermal imaging camera recorded temperatures around 92c behind the GPU core on the rear of the PCB. By comparison the rear of the ASUS STRIX peaked at 78C close to the core and the Gigabyte G1 Gaming a mere 65C. We don't really understand why PNY would omit a rear backplate as they not only protect sensitive components, but they remove hot spots across the entire length of the PCB.
Right now we have no official confirmed price point for the PNY GTX980 Ti XLR8 OC however we did find their reference GTX980 ti at £569.00 inc vat from Amazon Prime. It is a great card, but it doesn't quite match the best triple fan custom GTX980 Ti solutions from ASUS and Gigabyte.
EDIT: PNY have confirmed the UK pricing will be £549.99 inc vat.
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Pros:
- funky colour scheme.
- good out of the box overclock.
- excellent 4K performance.
- HDMI 2.0 support.
Cons:
- No back plate leading to 92C PCB temperatures.
- stiff competition from ASUS and Gigabyte.
- no memory overclock out of the box.
Kitguru says: The PNY GTX980 Ti XLR8 OC is a fantastic graphics card, and a great partner for a new 4K gaming system. If they get the price right it should sell well, but it needs to be less expensive than Gigabyte G1 Gaming and Asus STRIX GTX980 Ti cards.
