We review and test the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Strix. Fitted with that h00t of a cooler, a custom PCB, quality components and a factory overclock this product is bound to perform, whilst staying very sil... Review: ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Strix
Am I the only one who thinks that the old DCII cooler looked fancier ? Although this once looks good aswell.
Great review, as always. A question. The backplate help to reduce heat?, it's because in the pics i see that just "hide" the heat. Thanks!
Pretty card and the clocks these non reference cards are sporting are REALLY nice, but I want 8gb cards nao! and since ill be using 2 or 3 of them all these fancy coolers do me no good. I'm hoping an 8gb variant is offered with the reference cooler because I'll need them venting out the back.
some shocking comments here backplates make the card more sturdy/rigid to stop the PCB warping / bending / sagging etc they also provide protection to critical components exposed on the rear of the PCB I don't believe they improve temps significantly, if at all In most peoples opinions they look smarter / cleaner (In a windowed case of course) where the rear of the PCB is pointing up and therefore visible through the window amazes me when folk don't like the look of the backplates and prefer the rear of the exposed PCB but each to their own - I would use one just to help prevent the PCB warping / sagging and to provide protection to components - why spend £300, £400, £500, £600 on a GPU and have no £20 backplate ?? each to their own though
Oh man...the performance is incredible in shadow of mordor, it even beats any other card on 1080p on crysis 3.... but Iam still happy I decided to go for two asus strix gtx 970's instead The cards are due to arrive on 16th of october, I can't wait
Yes, I know that, my old HD6870 IceQ bend a little just for the lack of backplate (large and heavy cooler).
Am i the only one that went WTF on the VRM temps? Asus card seem to always have very high vrm temps, seriously the DCU II cooler can't cool them properly. I've owned 2 top of the line ASUS cards (GTX780ti DCU II OC and a GTX780ti Matrix), both had VRM temps exceeding 100c. No I don't have a tiny air flow restirictive case, I have Enthoo Primo with 6 front intakes. Now I can see the same happening on the Strix in a closed case (Tests in the review are on an open test bench). Personally I went with the Gigabyte GTX980 G1 Gaming, look at the vrm temps in the review 65c, add about 10c for an inclosed case and it's still much cooler. My question is why do Asus cards have such high VRM temps, is the the type they use?
It's been the same with the 780 Strix too, there they went over 100C on the open bench... I guess it's the cooler layout *shrugs* Wouldn't recommand the Strix cards tbh.
Beats me. I've asked lot's of knowledgeable people regarding this, they say it's fine and that they are made to work under these temps. It still annoys me having such high temps though. Question is, have you heard of any cards sporting these failing early? That would be the right question to ask. Anyway, I'm going for the Strix 970, if it dies - those that said it'll be fine better hide, because I'm going on a murder spree.
Because the heatsinks for the pbc are just small The nv DcII's never have memory cooling plates and use the same small vrm heatsink If you wanna drop 10c off that area the way to do it is take the backplate off(you need to get screws to hold the stock vrm sink on after this) and add a heatsink to the back of the vrms I have a 1 inch wide 5 inch long sink I always add it adheres with sticky thermal tape it works well. or go custom an add a bigger vrm heatsink or water cool it some how I don't like see temps like that either but they handle them I never killed a DCII that was green and I modded all of them. my 680 still goes 1700+ cold :nerd:
I`m disappointed with the performance 20 watts increased over the reference design, only 1 frame gain in BF4, really?
No Your NoT! W T F ? ? ? some of us did dug about the vrm issue. the componants are built for the heat, they are rated to 125C. it is so hot cause of the phases. when we tested those pcb's, we found out that the par between the gpu and VRMs is 15-20C, so when temp target is set to 82c..... the vrm will touch the 100c. we also tried all kind of method to try and cool the vrm (without removing the heatsink or installing loops), NOTHING HELPED ! only solution was to keep the GPU under 75c (so the vrm will live in the 90c-95c area). and to achive that all we had to do is to set a custome FAN Profile. p.s. it is very understandable if some of you are still worried about this, but please remember that THIS IS ASUS! asus use quality materials and each of their products go through very strict and heavy quality control (dont forget that the 980 and 780Ti have a 14 layers PCB, thats one THICK M0ther FvCKER!) p.s.s... look at 4790k... (its just that todays hardware.. is so.... juiced?)
