# Gigabyte GTX 980 G1 Gaming 4 GB



## W1zzard (Dec 24, 2014)

With 3x DP, 2x DVI and 1x HDMI, Gigabyte's GTX 980 G1 Gaming features the most complete output configuration. The card is also overclocked out of the box, and a powerful triple-fan thermal solution keeps it cool. In our testing, we also found Gigabyte to have massively increased the power limit, which overclockers and voltmodders will find beneficial.

*Show full review*


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## Fluffmeister (Jan 5, 2015)

Certainly a monster performer, good to see GM204 stretch it's legs. The price is rather steep though, that sort of cash can nab you SLI'd 970s.


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## jabbadap (Jan 5, 2015)

Great review as always. Quite loud actually 43dBA and looking on temperatures unnecessary loud(btw. doubling the sound pressure is 6dB not 3dB).


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## maximoor (Jan 6, 2015)

Great review as always.
A small correction: In the 1st page on technical specifications board, the GPU clock has the reference speed, not the OC clock.


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## qubit (Jan 6, 2015)

It's a real shame about that noisy cooler as that would write off the card for me. Also, since it didn't compensate by having lower temperatures, I think the 9.7 rating is too high, with a 9.0 perhaps being more appropriate.

Nowadays, having a silent or near silent PC at all times has become a prerequisite for me and can be achieved by careful component selection. My MSI GTX 780 Ti Gaming built on the Kepler GPU was built for quietness, so although it never stops its fans I can barely hear it in a quiet room. Max out the card and the noise level barely rises which is epic performance. The new Maxwell GPU kicks out much less heat (especially so since it's only midrange Maxwell) so there's no excuse at all for having a noisy cooler on a card based on it. Selling it at such an inflated price reduces its value further too and perhaps should lower the score a bit more too.

Sorry Gigabyte, you missed with this one.

Just read these snippets of a glowing TPU review conclusion for my card, which got a 9.9 rating:

MSI's GTX 780 Ti is almost too good to be true.

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The real highlight of the MSI GTX 780 Ti Gaming, however, is fan noise. The card is whisper quiet in idle, which will be important if you don't game all the time. More importantly, once you start gaming, fan speed increases just a little bit, enough to keep the card cool without all hell breaking loose. At just 30 dBA, the MSI GTX 780 Ti Gaming is quieter than most graphics cards, no matter their performance segment - and this is the fastest card we ever tested! I recently reviewed several GTX 780 Ti cards, by all the big players, and none are even close in noise levels. It really is a night and day difference, even more so when you start comparing this card to AMD's R9 290X flagship.

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And you don't get a better recomendation than this:

I, for my part, will be replacing my personal system's ASUS GTX 670 Direct CU with the MSI GTX 780 Ti Gaming as it's the best card I've reviewed in a long time.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_Ti_Gaming/29.html


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## z1tu (Jan 6, 2015)

Hey @W1zzard , those noise level readings seem much higher than the guru3d tests and considering they measure the noise from 75cm, I would expect them to have the same if not higher results. Possible that you received a faulty model?


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## Nabarun (Jan 6, 2015)

@W1zzard Please include Far Cry 4 in your GPU reviews.


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## Tonduluboy (Jan 6, 2015)

lol i was comparing 3d review on noisy level  while reading this review few minutes ago, n someone also did the same thing. 
This is the conclusion from 3D : "It is silent, it cools great and comes factory overclocked at a boost frequency of 1329 MHz already!"

Anyway, since ASUS strix turn off it's fan during idle mode the temp is around 50Cels, while this one at 34Cels. Must have some merit for having lower temp. 
If the PC running 24/7 like mine, i guess those gpu with 50cels on idle will die 1st?

BTW, in my country this GPU selling at the same price with Asus 980 strix at $615.


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## W1zzard (Jan 6, 2015)

z1tu said:


> Hey @W1zzard , those noise level readings seem much higher than the guru3d tests and considering they measure the noise from 75cm, I would expect them to have the same if not higher results. Possible that you received a faulty model?


Temps on my card are low, and the fans run quiet in idle, so I don't see how something could be broken on my card. Only possibility is that Gigabyte sent early samples to reviewers with a quiet BIOS and later cards have noisier fan settings (I'm one of the latest persons to review the card)



Nabarun said:


> @W1zzard Please include Far Cry 4 in your GPU reviews.


Soon


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## z1tu (Jan 6, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> Temps on my card are low, and the fans run quiet in idle, so I don't see how something could be broken on my card. Only possibility is that Gigabyte sent early samples to reviewers with a quiet BIOS and later cards have noisier fan settings (I'm one of the latest persons to review the card)
> 
> 
> Soon


Really don't mean to nitpick here but your temps are higher than the guru3d review yet noise is worse. I was thinking maybe the cooler had an issue, like factory issue because other websites seem to agree with guru3d on cooling and noise for this card.


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## Jordi (Jan 6, 2015)

I agree the rating is too high. Even though I like this website a lot I don't take the ratings very seriously anymore.  For me it is out of perspective.  Maybe you should start from scratch.


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## W1zzard (Jan 6, 2015)

Jordi said:


> I agree the rating is too high. Even though I like this website a lot I don't take the ratings very seriously anymore.  For me it is out of perspective.  Maybe you should start from scratch.


Excellent, that means you've read the actual review and even the comments, and not only looked at the score. Mission accomplished.


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## qubit (Jan 6, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> Excellent, that means you've read the actual review and even the comments, and not only looked at the score. Mission accomplished.


I don't think it's mission accomplished to have ratings people don't trust. It undermines people's perception of the whole review, especially if they're new to the site. It would be better not to give any rating at all rather than one people stopped trusting.


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## jabbadap (Jan 6, 2015)

Well the i/o of this card is fully blocked, so how are you measuring temps? Closed case, open case? There are so many points which effects measurements, that differencies between different review websites can easily be out come of different measure habits. And of course there's variance between chips. Good ventilation of case can make wonders of this card temperatures.

Still I have a bit problem with this sentence:


> Please note that the dBA scale is not linear but logarithmic. 40 dBA is not twice as loud as 20 dBA, as a 3 dBA increase results in double the sound pressure.



Strictly speaking sound pressure level(SPL) doubles 6dB:s in decibels, if you calculate sound power level(SWL) then it doubles in every 3dB:s.

Edit:


Jordi said:


> I agree the rating is too high. Even though I like this website a lot I don't take the ratings very seriously anymore.  For me it is out of perspective.  Maybe you should start from scratch.



Don't stare numbers alone, you should compare them to other same chip cards, gtx980strix got 10 and msi gaming got 9.9. So it's good solid card, but there is other good solid cards to comparison.


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## W1zzard (Jan 6, 2015)

jabbadap said:


> double the sound pressure


Indeed, I confused pressure and intensity while writing this para.. congrats to be the first one to notice this, it must have been there for many years



jabbadap said:


> Don't stare numbers alone, you should compare them


that's exactly how i do my ratings .. the gigabyte is definitely better than ref, worse than strix and msi gaming. still tons better than any 290x. the power limit, output connectivity and normal height are unique and should be considered, too, no?


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## z1tu (Jan 6, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> Indeed, I confused pressure and intensity while writing this para.. congrats to be the first one to notice this, it must have been there for many years
> 
> 
> that's exactly how i do my ratings .. the gigabyte is definitely better than ref, worse than strix and msi gaming. still tons better than any 290x. the power limit, output connectivity and normal height are unique and should be considered, too, no?


I agree with taking into consideration other factors aside from the final rating, however, since other sites show temps and noise are better in their reviews than yours, I can't agree with the "worse than strix and msi gaming" statement.


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## W1zzard (Jan 6, 2015)

z1tu said:


> I agree with taking into consideration other factors aside from the final rating, however, since other sites show temps and noise are better in their reviews than yours, I can't agree with the "worse than strix and msi gaming" statement.


I can only base my review on what they sent me. 

Ok, so I just checked some other sites, and everybody who has a half-decent sound meter and knows how to use it agrees with me, that the card is too noisy. You are aware that some sites measure whole PC noise?


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## RCoon (Jan 6, 2015)

1 extra fan and it cools no better (1 degree is negligible), no idle fan setting like the top dogs, and noisier than the two front runners.
9.7 makes sense. The MSI lost 1 point due to no backplate, arguably the backplate does almost nothing, so it was a mere cosmetic orientated deduction. Noise is far more important to everyone, and the lack of the 0dB silence feature makes total sense to deduct plenty of points. That would put it in the low to mid 9 range, but it has 2 x 8pin and better overclocking potential, so it gains in that area.

I'll also go ahead and mention that the Gigabyte card uses a whopping 342Watts at maximum load (granted, the OC potential is much larger), in comparison to the Asus sipping a mere 200Watts. At peak it's 204Watts vs 172Watts at stock, and the stock clocks aren't exactly worlds apart. 40mhz shouldn't require 30 extra watts.

I don't understand the complaints about score. It's all relative when you're comparing features, both useful and cosmetic, in accordance to their priority.


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## Thuban (Jan 6, 2015)

> NVIDIA: 344.65 WHQL


Really? 347.09 is the last year's release and the review is dated the 5th of January, 2015.


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## RCoon (Jan 6, 2015)

Thuban said:


> Really?



If he updated all drivers every time they released a new one, he'd have to rebenchmark dozens of cards, with dozens of games, on half a dozen resolutions. Rebenching takes time, and it happens the few times he sees fit to update. I have to follow the same operation, only on a much much smaller scale, and far easier. It's not as fun as you might think.


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## Thuban (Jan 6, 2015)

RCoon said:


> If he updated all drivers every time they released a new one, he'd have to rebenchmark dozens of cards, with dozens of games, on half a dozen resolutions. Rebenching takes time, and it happens the few times he sees fit to update. I have to follow the same operation, only on a much much smaller scale, and far easier. It's not as fun as you might think.


Maybe, but that also camouflages all the performance refinements there may have been since that said driver, to the 980 family. Which is the most recent, which is the most likeliest to receive speed bumps. Just saying.

Anyway, it is sad that 3DMark support was dropped from the benches, that way at least anybody could produce their own results and have them compared to this. With whatever driver is used. Easy and practical.


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## RCoon (Jan 6, 2015)

Thuban said:


> Maybe, but that also camouflages all the performance refinements there may have been since that said driver, to the 980 family. Which is the most recent, which is the most likeliest to receive speed bumps. Just saying.
> 
> Anyway, it is sad that 3DMark support was dropped from the benches, that way at least anybody could produce their own results and have them compared to this. With whatever driver is used. Easy and practical.



Guru3D are using 344.07 driver for their 980 reviews. I think you'll find everyone else who does GPU comparisons in their reviews are using outdated drivers. W1zzard is arguably one of the few with more recent drivers.


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## Thuban (Jan 6, 2015)

RCoon said:


> Guru3D are using 344.07 driver for their 980 reviews. I think you'll find everyone else who does GPU comparisons in their reviews are using outdated drivers. W1zzard is arguably one of the few with more recent drivers.


This is my favorite review web site. Thank you. But the best can get better. Just saying. Would be nice to have 3DMark Vantage or something included in the future. Not keen on Googling all the time.


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## qubit (Jan 6, 2015)

RCoon said:


> 1 extra fan and it cools no better (1 degree is negligible), no idle fan setting like the top dogs, and noisier than the two front runners.
> 9.7 makes sense. The MSI lost 1 point due to no backplate, arguably the backplate does almost nothing, so it was a mere cosmetic orientated deduction. Noise is far more important to everyone, and the lack of the 0dB silence feature makes total sense to deduct plenty of points. That would put it in the low to mid 9 range, but it has 2 x 8pin and better overclocking potential, so it gains in that area.
> 
> I'll also go ahead and mention that the Gigabyte card uses a whopping 342Watts at maximum load (granted, the OC potential is much larger), in comparison to the Asus sipping a mere 200Watts. At peak it's 204Watts vs 172Watts at stock, and the stock clocks aren't exactly worlds apart. 40mhz shouldn't require 30 extra watts.
> ...


Your analysis seems reasonable to me and also demonstrates quite well the subjective element of any review, including its final score, since how much weighting does someone give to any one critieria? That's not to criticize reviews, it's just the nature of the beast. 

To illustrate this, let's just say a certain high decibel reading is worth 0.1 points knocked off. So, for one card, it's actually a bit loudish, but it makes for a fairly pleasant wooshing sound (my GTX 580) while another one is a large 6dB quieter, but has a whiny edge to it. The quieter card can end up sending you to distraction while the noisier one is actually easy to live with. How do you grade the cards now? Giving the quieter card a higher score in this scenario seems wrong to me. On top of that, different people will react differently to sounds, then there is the way it's fitted eg closed case on the floor, or open case on desktop like I have, other samples may not make this whine etc. Hence, there's always a subjective element to it so the scoring is going to reflect how these elements affect them. There's nothing wrong with this, but it must always be born in  mind when reading any review.

+1 about reviewing cards with updated drivers. I did a small round of benchmarking for myself some time back and it was a real pain in the ass, especially if I'd forgotten to set a certain parameter and had to repeat the test. I can imagine that for a major review like on TPU it would be completely impractical.


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## W1zzard (Jan 6, 2015)

Thuban said:


> 3DMark Vantage or something included


We will not include synthetic benchmarks in VGA reviews. Only stuff you actually play.



RCoon said:


> more recent drivers


I'll be starting a full rebench soon, with latest drivers and AC Unity + Far Cry 4. Gonna take me like 2 weeks non-stop.


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## Thuban (Jan 6, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> We will not include synthetic benchmarks in VGA reviews. Only stuff you actually play.


The idea is to compare results with your current rig. With synthetics it's easy to replicate (since no default benches exist in most games). Simple is best.



W1zzard said:


> I'll be starting a full rebench soon, with latest drivers and AC Unity + Far Cry 4. Gonna take me like 2 weeks non-stop.


That is great news.


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## the54thvoid (Jan 6, 2015)

Thuban said:


> The idea is to compare results with your current rig. With synthetics it's easy to replicate (since no default benches exist in most games). Simple is best.



Synthetics mean nothing.  It's known that certain GPU's are tailored for benchmark results - they don't give a great true to life idea.  The only meaningful bench is an in built game bench (few and far between).

I can also tailor drivers to a specific bench that make the card look awesome yet it has fail sauce in game.  Benches aren't useful except for playing overclocking games with.

Also, I don't trust other web sites for 'sound' reviews.  A lot of them talk absolute shite.  I've had cards that some sites (yes, Guru3D is one) say are silent and the cards are anything but.  Fact is - you need to do a meta analysis of reviews to get a sound idea about a card.


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## Cursed (Jan 6, 2015)

Hey W1zzard.
I've been reading and loving your reviews for years now, and It helped me to choose my 6850 Cyclone years ago actually. ;]
Now I'm looking for better performance without sacrificing my silence.

I've seen a lot of reviews of GTX 970/980 lately and it occurs to me that dB/temp testing metodology is quite imperfect. 
It seams to me that way better test for this card would be to check if it can run at idle fan speeds (locked with afterburner or some other utility) while under stress and keep temperatures under what is considered too high (whatever that is for those new cards).
I don't think any fan of silent gaming lets his gpu fan run however it wants to....

What do you think?
Thanks for your consideration.


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## W1zzard (Jan 6, 2015)

The temperature limit (when Boost starts to not Boost any higher), is 82°C, so all of those cards are perfectly fine. Go buy the ASUS Strix or MSI Gaming, if you don't like it I'll pay your restocking fee.


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## Jordi (Jan 6, 2015)

For me it is pretty simple. A review should be correct in every way and ppl should decide for themselfs if they only read the conclusion or the whole review. Either way it should represent something. When the reviewer doesn't give any value to his "number" just don't mention it. In the time I went to school and I got a 9,7 for something it meant I was close to perfect except for a very small flaw. I read stuff in this review that can't be named a very small flaw... concidering the whole picture (price, top-end hardware etc...).

Enough said from my part. Not my website and when not open for any comments, I don't mind.


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## W1zzard (Jan 6, 2015)

How do teachers grade essays? How come that different teachers would give different grades for one and the same essay?


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## 1nf3rn0x (Jan 6, 2015)

There seems to be lots of negativity in this thread. A number is a number and it is all subjective. The information required and needed for a consumer to evaluate whether they want the card or not is there. The rating is all in compliance with other items that have been reviewed. Ok so the numbers are high but it shouldn't matter since you as a reader should be able to 'decipher' and factor the things you do and do not want such as sound or temperatures. 

You guys are being too harsh! W1zz does some of the best if not the best gpu reviews out there


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## Cursed (Jan 7, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> The temperature limit (when Boost starts to not Boost any higher), is 82°C, so all of those cards are perfectly fine. Go buy the ASUS Strix or MSI Gaming, if you don't like it I'll pay your restocking fee.


Umm, thx that won't be necesary
I guess I'll ask someone who owns those cards how they deal with stress temps on lowest fan speed.

Just though you could make your reviews bit better....


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## Thuban (Jan 7, 2015)

the54thvoid said:


> Synthetics mean nothing.  It's known that certain GPU's are tailored for benchmark results - they don't give a great true to life idea.  The only meaningful bench is an in built game bench (few and far between).


Games can just be as tailored to a specific vendor. Synthetics is just another benchmark, but *unlike* games it can be easily replicated by anybody outside of your focus group.

But that's okay, with a bit of googling I can find those synthetic benchmarks elsewhere. Thanks.


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## erixx (Jan 8, 2015)

I own a 980 so i am not a target for this article. Just want to notice there is a verb missing in the very last sentence: "which would also [BE] the case with another GTX 980, or a GTX 970."
Great work as usual Wiz!!!!!


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## THE_EGG (Jan 14, 2015)

wow wtf Gigabyte haha. That is really disappointing performance from that cooler. Makes me wonder if I should have bought MSI or an Asus Strix for my 970s.

Great review as always W1zzard  Although for such a loud card I'm amazed at the fact it received such a high score.


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## bubbleawsome (Jan 20, 2015)

Something I've realized about the gigabyte coolers is they can get a lot quieter with minimal impact. I dropped my 280x from the normal fancurve that maxed at 65% fan to one that maxed at 31% and temps only went from 68c to 75c. I'll admit that is 7c, but it went from audible to totally silent from the rest of my case. The only other fans I have are the kind that come with the T40 cooler from NZXT and you can see their reviews here on TPU! I think this is a case of unoptimised fancurves.


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