19th September 2014 marked the launch of NVIDIA’s latest GPUs namely the GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 which utilize Maxwell architecture. The GTX 980 and GTX 970 are not the first Maxwell graphics cards based on 28nm manufacturing. In fact, the GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750 are the first desktop Maxwell GPUs to hit the mainstream market in February 2014.
The GTX 980 is based on the GM204 chipset and is the world’s fastest GPU to date, yet with a TDP of just 165W, it’s also the most efficient. Recently, ASUS Malaysia was kind enough to send us their latest STRIX-branded graphics card in the form of STRIX GTX 980. It’s the second STRIX graphics card that has been reviewed by OCDrift after the STRIX GTX 780 OC 6GB. STRIX stands for ancient Greek word for owl, which is known for its silent hunting skill in the jungle or paddy field. This is strongly related to the graphics card that we are going to review today which features a totally silent cooling solution.
The ASUS STRIX GTX 980 features a completely redesigned PCB with beefier 10-phase Digi+ VRM Super Alloy Power design. Besides that, ASUS equipped the graphics card with their exclusive DirectCU II cooling solution, which is claimed to run up to 30% cooler, three times quieter and 3.8% faster than the reference GTX 980. Now let’s take a look at the performance of this graphics card and its overclocking capabilities in our full review here.
Product Link: http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/STRIXGTX980DC2OC4GD5/
Suggested Retail Price: RM 2,199
Specifications
GPU-Z Information
Like reference GeForce GTX 980, the ASUS STRIX GTX 980 features 2048 stream processors, 64 ROPs, and 256-bit memory bus. It is factory overclocked and specified to run at a base clock of 1178MHz, a boost clock of 1279MHz. In comparison, a reference GeForce GTX 980 runs at 1126MHz of base clock, 1216MHz boost. This means that the STRIX GTX 980 has around 5.2% overclock on the base clock, so by rights you should be getting a slight performance boost as compared to other models that are running at reference clocks. On the other hand, ASUS let to the memory frequency remain untouched at 1753MHz or 7012MHz effective.
Overview
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owikh84
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