# EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+ 6 GB



## W1zzard (Jun 16, 2015)

The EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC+ comes overclocked out of the box, using the company's ACX dual-fan cooling solution. It features low noise in gaming, and the fans will turn off completely in idle for that perfect noise-free experience. Performance levels exceed those of the much more expensive GTX Titan X.

*Show full review*


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## dj-electric (Jun 22, 2015)

Do you add the small amount of additional vCore when overclocking?


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## W1zzard (Jun 22, 2015)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> Do you add the small amount of additional vCore when overclocking?


No. OC is done on clocks only


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## dj-electric (Jun 22, 2015)

You are tearing me apart w1zzard! Would really like final OC figures.... Maybe even share some numbers off-review.

T_T


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## Fluffmeister (Jun 22, 2015)

Another great custom [cooled] 980 Ti, EVGA's ACX 2.0 certainly lets the reference design stretch its legs.


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## Luka KLLP (Jun 22, 2015)

I think this would be my card if I could afford it


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## Dos101 (Jun 22, 2015)

> You definitely shouldn't rush your buying decisions now to, rather, wait another week until all the details are known.



Is that a hint to wait for the Fury X review instead of buying a 980Ti right now? I'm intrigued.....


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## SirMango (Jun 23, 2015)

Superb card. Well done, EVGA.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Jun 23, 2015)

Seems that this 980Ti OC is one of the best looking ones out there. Love the use of thermal pads for the backplate to keep the chips even cooler & other cool stuff for an extra $20. What I really liked is that factory OC is a whole 100MHz more over stock, which makes it one of the more faster cards that's OCed out of the box.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jun 23, 2015)

When you look at retail prices, these are rarely significantly more than reference cards, always worth the buy.

These new chips are starting to really separate the coolers out now, the sheer size of the windforce finally starts to make sense. But really well done by eVGA to keep it within the standard PCB footprint and still have very good temps.

@W1zzard might want to start considering the different sizes of the coolers in the reviews, especially with the growing itx market


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## Rivage (Jun 23, 2015)

Reference 6+2 vrm pcb... tsss. Next one please.


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## The Quim Reaper (Jun 23, 2015)

Dos101 said:


> Is that a hint to wait for the Fury X review instead of buying a 980Ti right now? I'm intrigued.....



Only if you want a product that uses more power and has 2nd rate driver support.

Performance wise the Fury X will be in the same range as the 980Ti..probably a few % points faster here and there.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Jun 23, 2015)

real world benches from both Fury X & GTX 980Ti, single or dual VGA setup using DX12 API would be a very interesting article/topic.


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## chodaboy19 (Jun 23, 2015)

I heard some complaints in reviews by buyers about the heatsink rattling and the fans having an unpleasant noise signature, any of this true?


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## Frick (Jun 23, 2015)

chodaboy19 said:


> I heard some complaints in reviews by buyers about the heatsink rattling and the fans having an unpleasant noise signature, any of this true?



If they complain about it it's probably true. RMA time.


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## mirakul (Jun 23, 2015)

EVGA may have the best customer service but their cards are not that good, except the classifieds.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jun 23, 2015)

I've had several EVGAs. currently a 760 ACX and a 670 SC, neither of them have had any problems at all. I'd say they are as good as the other manufacturers.


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## revin (Jun 23, 2015)

*Why* is the 390 / 390X missing from a few of the final charts ??


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## nickbaldwin86 (Jun 23, 2015)

hoping that the Fury X will drop and the 980Ti Prices will drop... I will pick up two of these if that happens


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## nickbaldwin86 (Jun 23, 2015)

I would also love to see SLi performance   wish you had two to test. I want to know how many frames you are getting @ 1440p on FarCry4, BattleField 4, Last light, Crysis 3... I am looking for 144FPS  but I am doubtful that will happen with two of these   maybe two OCed?  My 980s are running at 1502Mhz and they just don't cut it.


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## CrazyBass (Jun 23, 2015)

This card is another example of what a challenge the AMD's rebrands and new cards will face in the market this year.


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## Aquinus (Jun 23, 2015)

revin said:


> *Why* is the 390 / 390X missing from a few of the final charts ??


The only one I noticed it missing from was the performance per watt graphs. Maybe it's a sign that consumption is so bad that it fell off the chart.


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## revin (Jun 23, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> The only one I noticed it missing from was the performance per watt graphs. Maybe it's a sign that consumption is so bad that it fell off the chart.


 
Fan noise, Power Consumption, Performance Per Watt,

Dont really matter seem's that just have to start pulling up "other" review's here and start comparing that way 
Just seem'd odd, that usally the new" card's would all still be listed in all "comparble" review's, not sure why the 290/X and 295X2 make all the chart's, but not 390 

Hasn't been ANY issue in showing the 290x and 295X2's "Power off the chart" comparision's  {Even seen 7990's tossed in some] so that's not a valid point

It's wiz's review format the way he see's fit.

At any rate, 390X average 30% beter for the dollar, .......BOTH are* 0 db noise* at idle ....................

And yes, we could go back and just look at his 390X review, didn't use'd to do that before  with newer mainstream cards


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## nickbaldwin86 (Jun 23, 2015)

Haha that is a funny thought... 390x mainstream...lol keep the jokes coming


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## Aquinus (Jun 23, 2015)

I feel someone might want to say, "Just look at the 290X," considering the whole rebranding debacle.


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## W1zzard (Jun 23, 2015)

revin said:


> Fan noise, Power Consumption, Performance Per Watt,


AMD doesn't sample their reference design, so I have no baseline numbers for comparison, I'll try to find one somewhere, or buy a card that's very close to reference


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## revin (Jun 23, 2015)

Dang Brother Wiz, I'd knew it ws a PITA doing these review's, but man, that is starting to make sence as why the Ref. 980 card was listed on some also.
Thank you for clarifiying that !!


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## RustyKats (Jun 24, 2015)

I notice a very large discrepancy in Wolfenstein results from TPU compared to other sites, it seems AMD performance is really bad in this game.


















Does TPU benchmark with OSD, On-Screen-Displays (Afterburner or Fraps) active? It's a known bug on AMD GPUs, OSD will cripple performance in OpenGL games, often losing more than half their performance.


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## silapakorn (Jun 24, 2015)

Nice to see a card with non-reference cooler not larger than reference design, while maintaining quite sound, reasonable temp. and decent OC. 
Other brands should learn from EVGA. Those monstrous 3-fan coolers with extra thickness, width and length are not necessary at all.


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## L.ccd (Jun 24, 2015)

Thanks for the great review W1zzard. In this test, here are the results for GTA V in 1440p with "with everything set to very high and MSAA off":






Here are the numbers from the game's performance test, with "everything to very high, full-screen, FXAA on, MSAA off":






What the heck happened ? The 970 dropped from 78 fps to a mere 45 fps. Did you use a different scene for the benchmark? In any case, the review from two months ago suggest that a 970 is good enough to hit ~70 fps, while this one shows that you need to shell out twice the cash for the same amount of performance. Where does this drastic discrepancy come from?


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## W1zzard (Jun 24, 2015)

L.ccd said:


> Thanks for the great review W1zzard. In this test, here are the results for GTA V in 1440p with "with everything set to very high and MSAA off":
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The original article used the in-game benchmark. Now I'm using a normal game scene


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## Aquinus (Jun 24, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> The original article used the in-game benchmark. Now I'm using a normal game scene


Was there any particular motivation for that? I don't say that as an insult, I'm just curious because knowing you, there probably was a reason. If you don't mind if I make a supposition, I would asuspect that you found a scene that is more stressful than the benchmark or hammers certain parts of the CPU harder than the benchmark itself does or something along the lines of the benchmark not being an accurate representation of actual in-game performance? I'm just curious and intrigued.


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## W1zzard (Jun 24, 2015)

The in-game benchmark was extremely unreliable. Runs vary more than 10%. Also I'm having some doubts about how well it represents the game.


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## 64K (Jun 25, 2015)

Nice card. Now I just need to see the MSI review to decide.


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## Shrewsbury (Jul 1, 2015)

Hey W1zzard, great review! I just purchased this card, but I'm having slight buyers remorse. You're probably not in the business of making recommendations but since I got the EVGA card based on your comparative scores between this and the Gigabyte G1 model (9.6 vs 9.5, respectively), I was hoping you could help ease my mind and tell me if I made the right decision. Also, the MSI edition is out and I was wondering if you're going to be doing a review of that card soon. Thanks a bunch.


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## W1zzard (Jul 1, 2015)

Shrewsbury said:


> Hey W1zzard, great review! I just purchased this card, but I'm having slight buyers remorse. You're probably not in the business of making recommendations but since I got the EVGA card based on your comparative scores between this and the Gigabyte G1 model (9.6 vs 9.5, respectively), I was hoping you could help ease my mind and tell me if I made the right decision. Also, the MSI edition is out and I was wondering if you're going to be doing a review of that card soon. Thanks a bunch.


I have the MSI card on the testbench right now.

What's wrong with the EVGA you bought?


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## Shrewsbury (Jul 1, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> I have the MSI card on the testbench right now.
> 
> What's wrong with the EVGA you bought?



Well I'm getting it today so I haven't tested it yet, but other benchmarks show the G1 at higher FPS and overclocking potential while having lower temps as well. Full disclosure though, I'm not going to overclock any further. I'm still a relative novice and I'd like to get the max lifespan out of it. Also, I have a Gigabyte 680 Windforce now, and it's been awesome for 2 years. The reasons I went with EVGA were: 1) It was the only one available at the time (crappy reason, I know), and 2) many reviews I read were complaining about the noise (specifically, the coil whine) with the G1. Now I am not a brand fanboy at all, and will go with the best I can get, so I was mainly just wondering why you scored the EVGA slightly higher than the G1 when considering the framerates were higher and temps were lower with the G1. Were power consumption and noise what gave the EVGA a slight edge? And thanks a lot for the lightning fast response! I await your MSI review.


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## Crookid (Jul 1, 2015)

mirakul said:


> EVGA may have the best customer service but their cards are not that good, except the classifieds.



What the hell are you talking about? Lol. EVGA was making awesome aftermarket cooled cards when reference was recommended and all the others sucked. This card is excellent and near silent even under loads with new drivers. At least for me it is. 



Rivage said:


> Reference 6+2 vrm pcb... tsss. Next one please.



Love when people say this... The card is performing just as good as custom PCBs are and the extra power from 2 pins don't allow that much more headroom. It's a gimmick. 

Want to OC to full potential? Waterblock... Period.


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## Crookid (Jul 1, 2015)

Shrewsbury said:


> Well I'm getting it today so I haven't tested it yet, but other benchmarks show the G1 at higher FPS and overclocking potential while having lower temps as well. Full disclosure though, I'm not going to overclock any further. I'm still a relative novice and I'd like to get the max lifespan out of it. Also, I have a Gigabyte 680 Windforce now, and it's been awesome for 2 years. The reasons I went with EVGA were: 1) It was the only one available at the time (crappy reason, I know), and 2) many reviews I read were complaining about the noise (specifically, the coil whine) with the G1. Now I am not a brand fanboy at all, and will go with the best I can get, so I was mainly just wondering why you scored the EVGA slightly higher than the G1 when considering the framerates were higher and temps were lower with the G1. Were power consumption and noise what gave the EVGA a slight edge? And thanks a lot for the lightning fast response! I await your MSI review.



EVGA is notorious for excellent support. I have the card and it runs very quiet. A few FPS isn't worth dealing with Gigabyte's god awful customer care. Asus Strix should be nice but will be red.  

All in all, go with whichever one matches your internals besides the G1 and runs quiet. Whine from a card or any type of noise will be more annoying than you think.


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