# ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Ti Matrix 6 GB



## W1zzard (Feb 12, 2016)

The GTX 980 Ti Matrix is ASUS' flagship card for its current GPU lineup. It is priced at $720 and comes with tons of enthusiast tuning options, a huge triple-slot cooler, and a large overclock. Out of the box, the card is the fastest GTX 980 Ti we have ever tested!

*Show full review*


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## EzioAs (Feb 12, 2016)

There seems to be some info overlooked. When did Mad Max and Just Cause 3 use AnvilNext Engine?  (pg. 18)


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## v12dock (Feb 12, 2016)

I am very satisfied to see the R9 Fury X as fast as the Titan X at 4K


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## W1zzard (Feb 12, 2016)

EzioAs said:


> There seems to be some info overlooked. When did Mad Max and Just Cause 3 use AnvilNext Engine?  (pg. 18)


You are right of course, it's the Avalanche engine


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## the54thvoid (Feb 12, 2016)

v12dock said:


> I am very satisfied to see the R9 Fury X as fast as the Titan X at 4K



I am very satisfied my Kingpin runs substantially faster than both at 4K.  Though I game at 1440p so it's even better for me.  Happy I didn't buy a Titan X.


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## ZeroFM (Feb 12, 2016)

v12dock said:


> I am very satisfied to see the R9 Fury X as fast as the Titan X at 4K


OC performance (page 26 )980Ti kick fury x as* at 27% difference


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## newtekie1 (Feb 12, 2016)

v12dock said:


> I am very satisfied to see the R9 Fury X as fast as the Titan X at 4K



I'm satisfied the 970 SLI is still beating them both...


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## mcraygsx (Feb 12, 2016)

My Gigabyte 980 Ti G1 does better job at cooling (idle and loaded) once I replaced the stock thermal paste  with GELID as compare to Matrox 980 Ti and even 980 Ti Lightning. G1 is also much skinner then these triple slot coolers.


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## Sasqui (Feb 12, 2016)

New king of the hill... wow.


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## qubit (Feb 12, 2016)

As great as this card is, it's coming too late in the day to be worth buying and especially at this price, since the game-changing Pascal is now only a few months out.


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## Rowsol (Feb 12, 2016)

For 3 slots, the fan noise is embarrassing.


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## cracklez (Feb 12, 2016)

qubit said:


> As great as this card is, it's coming too late in the day to be worth buying and especially at this price, since the game-changing Pascal is now only a few months out.



It seems that cards such as these always have a way of popping up towards the end of their generation. It's so easy to wait out just a few more months until the next best thing if there's nothing wrong with a person's current GPU.

But man o man, that is just one sick performance jump from a stock 980ti. I think the price ASUS is charging is quite justified IMO.


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## 7950 Flex (Feb 12, 2016)

Nice review. I've wanted a Matrix card since the first time I saw one because of the aesthetics but I'm not sure about the silver/orange. I really liked the red/black color scheme and thought it would be the same for the 980 Ti but nope. Anyway, the card still looks great just because of the massive cooler and design but it was released so late. About half a year ago when I decided to get a 980 Ti to replace my MSI 780 Ti SLI setup (lol) I was thinking maybe I could finally get my hands on a Matrix card but unfortunately they were not around yet. After reading reviews and watching unboxing videos on many of the 980 Ti variants I decided to go for either the Asus Strix or EVGA Classified. I figured that even if the Matrix does pop up sometime soon that it would be priced at upwards of $800 and the Classy was only $50 more than reference and Strix only $10 more. The Strix however was sold out instantly and did not pop back up for quite some time so I ended up ordering the Classy. The Classy is a nice card though. It's a very large card but only takes up two slots unlike the Matrix and I may want to SLI some day. It has a gorgeous backplate and nice large cooler and the logo and lighting on the top is very, well it's classy. It's just a very clean looking card I think. What I dislike about the card though is that if I leave the automatic fan profile on the card runs pretty hot. I've seen it at 83 degrees and even started throttling. I don't think this is supposed to happen though and could be something on my end like not enough airflow. With the default fan profile the temp can reach 83 and even start throttling down. speed. Letting the fans run at 70% or even 80% or more only decreases the temps by a few degrees. If the card was at 80 degrees at 60% fan speed then increasing the speed to 80% would only lower the temp to about 75 degrees. I have a Fractal R4 case and when I just had the one 780 Ti in there it would top out at around 70 degrees but adding a second one for SLI made the top card shoot up to 83 degrees and start to throttle. At first I had no clue why it was happening but then I added a fan on the side panel blowing air on to the cards and the temps dropped to under 80, very good right. At this point I did not even think that I may need more air pushed out rather than in. Anyway, when I replaced the two 780 Ti cards  with the Classy 980 Ti I saw that the one card alone was running at 80 degrees with the default fan profile. I had taken out the side panel fan and covered up the opening back up when I put in the 980 Ti but after seeing the temp that high I decided to put the fan back on and the temp dropped a little bit but not much. Later I saw the temps reaching 83 degrees and throttling even with the side panel fan blowing cool air directly onto the card.  At this point I had 2 140MM intake fans, one in front and one on the side panel and I had one exhaust 140MM fan in the back. Finally, I decied to try and add a fan to the top of the case blowing air out and it worked wonderfully. The temps dropped to around 70-72 with default fan profile and so I even added a second exhaust fan to the top. So now I have a total of 2 intake fans and 3 exhaust fans. This set up was great (except the noise of course) but now I seem to be having heat issues yet again! I was playing the Batman game and saw the card reach 83 degrees and throttle down. It does not happen often but it happens. I can set a manual fan profile but then, and this is the second thing I dislike about the card, the fans become very noisy. At 80% fan speed this thing sounds like a turbine. My MSI 780 Ti Gaming card was whisper quiet but then this card is twice as powerful. 

Increasing the cards fan speed or even the case fans speed isn't something I'd like to do because of the noise. I was thinking that maybe I still have too much hot air inside the case? Maybe I need to turn the side panel fan around and have it blow hot air from card out of the case as well? I also have an i5 4670K CPU (stock) and Noctua NH-D14 cooler. Yea I bought those two with intent to overclock but I have no clue what I'm doing and can't seem to get a stable OC following the directions of a video guide and besides I don't think it would really add much fps. I'm also on a 1440p Monitor RoG Swift. So I don't think the temps of the card have much to do with the CPU and the hot air the big cooler is putting into the case because the CPU doesn't get very hot, not at stock anyway. It tops out at around 60 degrees.  

Sorry for the wall of text, honestly I'm not even sure how I ended up with all this lol but I figure people on here must know a lot more about this than I and any helpful tips are appreciated. 

I would love to have seen a review on here of my card the 980 Ti Classified too but doesn't look like it will happen.  I  took a look at some of the benchmarks on the Matrix and compared them to some of the benches on the evga 980 Ti sc review you did. I looked at the 1440p benches of Battlefield 4 and Witcher 3. The Matrix beats the EVGA card by about 14fps in BF4 but in the Witcher 3 the EVGA card beats the Matrix by about 12fps. I guess I should just chalk it up to different setups and drivers/game patches. 

One last thing, about the Batman game. I am playing this game currently and while I do see 144fps at times throughout the game I also get terrible frame drops into the low 40s and even 30s at times. From what you said about the game there I take it you had no issues?


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## hapkiman (Feb 12, 2016)

I have this card and have to say it is the most outstanding card I've ever owned -both in build quality and performance.  And I don't mind the change in the ROG color scheme at all - It looks fantastic IMHO.  The build quality on this card is second to none.  It feels so solid and well built.  When I first unboxed and held it in my hand I was stunned.... wow -truly a thing of beauty.   And the fan isn't noisy at all, so I don't think it's fair to say they "dropped the ball" on not having the fan turn completely off at idle.  The only sound I hear is my H80iGT cooler.  And temps?  Oh man they are great!  This is one cool running card.  Under load this card is usually hovering in the mid sixties C.  I haven't had a chance to do much OC'ing, but I did manage to hit 1500MHz on my first attempt and the card was completely stable.  I have a ASIC of 80 so we'll se later how far I can go with this beast.  I'll stop preaching now, but I couldn't be more pleased with this card, truly a work of art.  And this is coming from a die hard MSI fan-boy.  I know Pascal is just around the corner but I think I'll be perfectly happy with this card for the foreseeable future.  Oh, and good job on the review.


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## qubit (Feb 12, 2016)

cracklez said:


> It seems that cards such as these always have a way of popping up towards the end of their generation. It's so easy to wait out just a few more months until the next best thing if there's nothing wrong with a person's current GPU.
> 
> But man o man, that is just one sick performance jump from a stock 980ti. I think the price ASUS is charging is quite justified IMO.


That performance might be great now, but it's gonna be decidedly weak compared to Pascal, so I'd rather wait.


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## hapkiman (Feb 12, 2016)

qubit said:


> That performance might be great now, but it's gonna be decidedly weak compared to Pascal, so I'd rather wait.



We don't know yet how much of an improvement Pascal will be.  No one does except the big N.  But you could be right. 
However, there isn't anything, I mean anything that I do that taxes this card or pushes it.  I can't imagine needing more performance than I have now.


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## qubit (Feb 12, 2016)

hapkiman said:


> We don't know yet how much of an improvement Pascal will be.  No one does except the big N.  But you could be right.
> However, there isn't anything, I mean anything that I do that taxes this card or pushes it.  I can't imagine needing more performance than I have now.


I see that you have a 4K monitor, so I'm curious what kind of framerates you're getting and in what games.

I've just checked the performance of this card in a couple of benches and love the way it crushes the performance of the more expensive Titan X lol.


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## Frick (Feb 12, 2016)

qubit said:


> I see that you have a 4K monitor, so I'm curious what kind of framerates you're getting and in what games.



4K and a "I don't need more performance" statement don't mix well, do they?


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## Fluffmeister (Feb 12, 2016)

I just read reviews like this and take comfort from the performance I'm getting at the moment, the GTX 980 Ti is an exceptional product.

And yeah, they don't even need to use the full chip to hand out the smack down on the competition.

Short of a Titan X under water, the GTX 980 Ti wins this round.


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## GreiverBlade (Feb 13, 2016)

720$ msrp translate into .... 852.30 chf minimal price (few stock) and 1'150chf  (were you have the most stock ...) ... totally fair xD 

well the msrp of a 980Ti is the regular price of a 980 where i live ... and 980Ti's are at a Titan X price ...
i don't get that ... disparity, ok ... consumer buying power might differ i get it ... but still


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## darkangel0504 (Feb 13, 2016)

R9 270X ~ GTX 760 ? I can buy this AMD card about 90 usd in country with 1,5 to 2 years warranty.


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## buggalugs (Feb 13, 2016)

hapkiman said:


> We don't know yet how much of an improvement Pascal will be.  No one does except the big N.  But you could be right.
> However, there isn't anything, I mean anything that I do that taxes this card or pushes it.  I can't imagine needing more performance than I have now.



 We kind of do know how much of an improvement it will be. Its going to be big.  One of the manufacturers gave some clues in a report not long ago. At least 60%, most likely more. Anyway its a great card.



cracklez said:


> It seems that cards such as these always have a way of popping up towards the end of their generation. It's so easy to wait out just a few more months until the next best thing if there's nothing wrong with a person's current GPU.
> 
> But man o man, that is just one sick performance jump from a stock 980ti. I think the price ASUS is charging is quite justified IMO.



 So true, they always do this, They release the reference cards, then non reference, then months later we see the Lightnings, Matrix, near the end of the cycle.

 This is a great card but personally I would not be buying one with the new generation a few months away. It will have no resale value in 6 months, it will be obsolete.


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 13, 2016)

mcraygsx said:


> My Gigabyte 980 Ti G1 does better job at cooling (idle and loaded) once I replaced the stock thermal paste  with GELID as compare to Matrox 980 Ti and even 980 Ti Lightning. G1 is also much skinner then these triple slot coolers.



Did yours look as bad as mine?




 

And a derp in VRM section.



 

A bit NT-H1 treatment


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## las (Feb 13, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> I'm satisfied the 970 SLI is still beating them both...



These custom 980 Ti's beat 970 SLI with 15% in 4K, and got the VRAM to be somewhat futureproof. 3.5GB even today, hold you back in many games at higher resolutions.
A custom 980 Ti will easily get another 10-15% more performance from additional OC.

Also, SLI will have way more fps drops than a powerful single GPU. Looking at the average fps for dual GPU configs does not say much. SLI/CF often (pretty much always) have LOWER minimals but higher MAXIMUM FPS. Making the avg fps "good" but the smoothness will never be as good as one single GPU;

Microsuttering. Frametimes/pacing. Very dependant on profiles/drivers for it to deliver. Lots of issues in games on release day, often weeks and even months after release (sometimes never). Varying GPU usage, even with no CPU bottleneck.. The need to do workarounds... Sigh.. I could go on and on.

I will never buy SLI/CF again. Had 5 CF/SLI configs before this 980 Ti (@1520/2050) and the smoothness with a single GPU is just amazing. Stable frametimes, high minimums, zero issues. It just works.


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## newtekie1 (Feb 13, 2016)

las said:


> These custom 980 Ti's beat 970 SLI with 15% in 4K, and got the VRAM to be somewhat futureproof. 3.5GB even today, hold you back in many games at higher resolutions.
> A custom 980 Ti will easily get another 10-15% more performance from additional OC.
> 
> Also, SLI will have way more fps drops than a powerful single GPU. Looking at the average fps for dual GPU configs does not say much. SLI/CF often (pretty much always) have LOWER minimals but higher MAXIMUM FPS. Making the avg fps "good" but the smoothness will never be as good as one single GPU;
> ...



I own a 980Ti and SLI 970s, guess which is in my main rig.


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## Effting (Feb 13, 2016)

Why don't you guys include Star Wars: Battlefront in your game suite?


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## las (Feb 13, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> I own a 980Ti and SLI 970s, guess which is in my main rig.



980 Ti hopefully. Look at how many games 970 SLI STOCK loses to 980 Ti STOCK in this review. This means lower minimums for sure. A CF/SLI setup will need a much higher avg. fps than a single GPU to feel as smooth/fluid.

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

This is a common problem with CF and SLI solutions. High average fps is pretty useless when the minimum fps is low. Unless you think stuttering and fps drops is awesome ofc.




Effting said:


> Why don't you guys include Star Wars: Battlefront in your game suite?



Because the game is absolute garbage (just a guess).


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## GhostRyder (Feb 13, 2016)

You know I really used to love the special edition cards with modded bios's, higher VRM, special coolers, etc but with Maxwell this round it really does not happen (Short of LN2).  All the cards still hit about the same area with marginal difference which is unfortunate when cards like this are priced so much higher because it almost feels like why buy it unless your doing a very specific set of overclockings (Again LN2) besides the nameplate.  Great card, but I would just choose something like an MSI or Gigabyte over this (or even an Asus Strix).



newtekie1 said:


> I own a 980Ti and SLI 970s, guess which is in my main rig.


You do but prefer the 970 SLI?  I mean I get it may get slightly higher performance but is it worth it in the end over a single card with similar performance?



qubit said:


> I see that you have a 4K monitor, so I'm curious what kind of framerates you're getting and in what games.
> 
> I've just checked the performance of this card in a couple of benches and love the way it crushes the performance of the more expensive Titan X lol.


980ti's are the way to go any day of the week especially for 4K.


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## majevica (Feb 14, 2016)

las said:


> 980 Ti hopefully. Look at how many games 970 SLI STOCK loses to 980 Ti STOCK in this review. This means lower minimums for sure. A CF/SLI setup will need a much higher avg. fps than a single GPU to feel as smooth/fluid.
> 
> Example 1
> Example 2
> ...



Because AMD cards are good at it and we don't want to hurt nvidia funboys feelings


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## hapkiman (Feb 14, 2016)

qubit said:


> I see that you have a 4K monitor, so I'm curious what kind of framerates you're getting and in what games.
> 
> I've just checked the performance of this card in a couple of benches and love the way it crushes the performance of the more expensive Titan X lol.



I have been pretty busy working about 60-70 hrs/week lately so I haven't had a chance to do a lot of gaming.  But I'm a BF4 player, and I can easily maintain >60FPS with all settings on Ultra.  I typically turn AA off as there is no perceivable different or jaggies that I can see - it looks freaking awesome and runs extremely smooth.  I guess most recently I've been playing Dying Light: The Following, and StarWars Battlefront, and I must say like or hate SWBF, it absolutely has the sharpest and most detailed graphics I've seen on any game.  I can set all settings to Ultra, and turn AA to off or Low and it stays right around 60 with a few dips to 55 and a few spikes to 70 (even with AA on it keeps decent framerates).  Dice's Frostbite engine is pretty well optimized at this point.  It runs perfect for me and looks incredible.  It's the game I show to people who want to see my 4k rig.  Fantastic graphics.

I have had my 4k monitor for a while and it was purchased and is used mostly for photo work as my wife is an amateur photographer.  It works perfectly for this and neither of us have any complaints.  But I know there is a whole group of naysayers that will tell me I can't game properly on a UHD monitor with a single graphics card.  They are wrong.  I do it all the time.  I haven't ran across any game that isn't playable (at least to me, and that's all that matters, right?) on my rig with a single 980Ti.  The only game that I remember frame rates dropping down was Witcher 3, and a few settings and tweaks get it quite playable with little visual sacrifice (this is another common statement of naysayers, "oh you turned all the settings down, so that defeats the purpose of 4k."  Uh no, it's still looks pretty great.  Of course I have the ability with this monitor to drop the resolution to 2560x1440, but I can only remember doing that a couple of times - maybe on Witcher 3 or GTAV, and at 1440 all settings were pretty much maxed.  Dying Light isn't real well optimized, but it looks great and I remember having all or almost all settings maxed and it stayed right around 60FPS, maybe slightly in the below mid 50's.

I am very happy gaming at 4k and this card seems to be able to handle it just fine for me -better than expected.  It always amazes me how upset other people get when I say I am enjoying gaming on my 4k monitor, because I "only" have a single GTX 980 Ti (I had a MSI GTX 980Ti before this ASUS card - and it was great -but this card is better, the MSI wouldn't hit 1500MHz).

Let the flogging commence haters.


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## R-T-B (Feb 14, 2016)

hapkiman said:


> Let the flogging commence haters.



I hate you for expecting me to hate you.  

Don't tell me what to do!


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## newtekie1 (Feb 14, 2016)

las said:


> 980 Ti hopefully. Look at how many games 970 SLI STOCK loses to 980 Ti STOCK in this review. This means lower minimums for sure. A CF/SLI setup will need a much higher avg. fps than a single GPU to feel as smooth/fluid.
> 
> Example 1
> Example 2
> ...



Nope, 970 SLI.

Random graphs from an unknown source really aren't proof of anything.  Though, even still, the only game that had a noticeably lower minimum framerate was SoM, and my guess is they are using the idiotic HD textures to try to choke all the cards except the 980Ti(since the minimum requirement for the HD textures is 6GB of VRAM, they also don't improve image quality during actual gameplay any).

The SLI setup has been perfectly smooth for me.  There is no stuttering.  I run a 120Hz panel and keep every game I play over at least 75FPS at all times.  The old microstutter issue has all but been eliminated with modern dual-core SLI setups.



GhostRyder said:


> You do but prefer the 970 SLI? I mean I get it may get slightly higher performance but is it worth it in the end over a single card with similar performance?



Here's the thing, I bought the 970s back in 2014.  This was a good 5 months before Titan X was even released, and the 980Ti wasn't even a rumor yet.  So I had better than Titan X and 980Ti performance 5-7 months before hand, and for less month too.  And I've continued to enjoy that great performance.  I also don't like tearing apart my main rig, it is what I used for pleasure, I play games on it, and I have very little time to do that.  So the less downtime the better.  I don't tend to upgrade the video cards in my main rig that often.  Before the 970s I had 670s, I could have put my 780Ti in it, but why waste the time for a sidegrade?  Before the 670s I had 470s.  I'm not going to waste time for marginal upgrades, or sometimes even sidegrades.  So it isn't that I prefer the 970s, that wasn't the point I was trying to make.  The point is the difference is so marginal it isn't worth the effort to swap the cards out.


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 14, 2016)

KoVaR said:


> Asus website lists base clock at 1190 MHz
> http://www.asus.com/uk/Graphics-Cards/MATRIX-GTX980TI-P-6GD5-GAMING/specifications/
> 
> Review sample got bumped to 1216 or error in the table ?



It states 1216 in asus site too...


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## Breit (Feb 15, 2016)

Too bad this card comes with Hynix memory, they could at least spend some Samsung chips for their highest end model...

...or are there versions with Hynix memory AND versions with Samsung memory out there just like the Gigabyte 980Ti G1 Gaming?


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## Vlada011 (Feb 15, 2016)

These Matrix Platinum and Gold and look powerful inside PC case, not only excellent performance.
Special Gold version.
But I would like if ASUS try to overclock little Pascal TITAN X2 or how NVIDIA call TITAN X successor.
OK customers could reflash BIOS from some other brand but that's not same.

I must to say goodbye to Maxwell because I didn't had money for both generation and I could choose TITAN X and X99.
Or first X99 and later Pascal TITAN X2. Second combination look me better for future.
I saw pictures of Matrix Gold in SLI on ROG Forum from some guy...
Look how they sit inside PC... two monsters with 1266MHz clock.







[/IMG] 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




ASUS win with Maxwell series, they build best GTX980 and GTX980Ti.
And it was time... so big company, popular ROG brands and I think they deserve best chips from NVIDIA.
First ASUS than one place empty, than others...


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## GhostRyder (Feb 15, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> Nope, 970 SLI.
> 
> Random graphs from an unknown source really aren't proof of anything.  Though, even still, the only game that had a noticeably lower minimum framerate was SoM, and my guess is they are using the idiotic HD textures to try to choke all the cards except the 980Ti(since the minimum requirement for the HD textures is 6GB of VRAM, they also don't improve image quality during actual gameplay any).
> 
> ...


 So you just use the 980ti to fold then, ok just was curious had not noticed it was in the sig till just now.  I can understand not wanting to change cards constantly as its annoying at times to pull things out in short periods (One of the main reasons I stopped purchasing every generation).


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## hapkiman (Feb 19, 2016)

Breit said:


> Too bad this card comes with Hynix memory, they could at least spend some Samsung chips for their highest end model...
> 
> ...or are there versions with Hynix memory AND versions with Samsung memory out there just like the Gigabyte 980Ti G1 Gaming?



Mine has Samsung memory.


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## Vlada011 (Feb 19, 2016)

Samsung or Hynix it's same... Last 2-3 cards I had are with Samsung memory, one with Eplida. 
All Samsungs memory are  capable to OC on 200MHz (+400 Offset).
NVIDIA used before Samsung chips and on reference cards.
I have GTX580 reference with Samsung memory. It's important to have  Samsung or Hynix... both are excellent and I would not complain with both of them.
I think that pushing memory over 100MHz it's not good move, improvements are to small and risk is much bigger than with graphic processor. I would be surprise if improvements in games with 200-250MHz overclocked memory is more than 2fps.


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## Breit (Feb 19, 2016)

Vlada011 said:


> Samsung or Hynix it's same... Last 2-3 cards I had are with Samsung memory, one with Eplida.
> All Samsungs memory are  capable to OC on 200MHz (+400 Offset).
> NVIDIA used before Samsung chips and on reference cards.
> I have GTX580 reference with Samsung memory. It's important to have  Samsung or Hynix... both are excellent and I would not complain with both of them.
> I think that pushing memory over 100MHz it's not good move, improvements are to small and risk is much bigger than with graphic processor. I would be surprise if improvements in games with 200-250MHz overclocked memory is more than 2fps.



If these small differences doesn't matter for you, than probably this card is not for you. No offence, but the ASUS Strix 980Ti is by no means considerably slower, yet this Matrix card exists. And it exists for a reason.

Anyhow, I personally don't like cards with mixing memory that much. This is probably only an issue if you have more than one card, but nonetheless.

I for one have got two Gigabyte G1 Gaming 980Ti and the first card has Samsung memory and the second card has Hynix. Due to that, they clock very differently. The Samsung card can go up to 1580 MHz on the core, but only up to 2050MHz on the memory while the Hynix card struggles to get past 1510 MHz on the core, but can easily clock its memory up to 2150 MHz. ASIC is around the same on both cards with 72-73%.

These results are both fine for itself, but in SLI you have to set both clock values to a common denominator, wich in this case means 1510/2050. Sure the performance delta isn't that great after all, but still this bothers me.

The performance impact of the memory clocks isn't nearly as great as the impact of the core clocks is. I also have the impression, that Samsung memory has lower latencies, but as of yet I'm not aware of any method reading that info out of the GPU other than benching memory access times with a self-written tool.


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## Vlada011 (Feb 19, 2016)

Best GTX980Ti for me is ASUS GTX980Ti Matrix Gold...
Because I search always for extremely overclocked models for gaming on 25% more performance than reference model.
But between Samsung and Hynix no reason for complain, both are goods.
Even memory is overclocked little on Matrix Gold and that's enough. Than only CPU should be overclocked, but most Haswell-EP work 500MHz over Turbo clock with default voltage and I think 4.0GHz and 3.5GHz Uncore are real clock for Haswell-EP, not lower, or more than 4.0GHz if someone want to push further.
That's perfect gaming combination at this moment, 266MHz overclocked GM200 by ASUS and CPU overclocked with default voltage.
Everything else could be more fight with stability and constant changing settings than enjoying in gaming.
Even If I don't OC graphic cards I would feel very bad with Matrix Platinum when ASUS produce and card with 60-70MHz higher clock. She is build for custom BIOS, extreme power limit, voltage modification on PCB, LN2, etc... but out of box she is only gaming perfection.


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## Breit (Feb 19, 2016)

I would say that the factory clocks on these cards are kind of irrelevant. What matters is, how high they are able to clock. 
These stock clocks can easily be reached with the reference cards as well as with the lower tiered Custom-PCB cards...


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## Vlada011 (Feb 19, 2016)

Sure, 270MHz could be reached with reference cards, big percent of Matrix Platinum can't reach clock of Gold model, not reference cards.
TPU test TITAN X when NVIDIA launch cards and max OC was 110MHz...  Who knows how much is game stable. That's not even enough for TITAN X Superclocked version and need to be sold only as TITAN X reference.
These cards are overclocked almost to the max and customers don't need to even try anything without LN2 and modifications on PCB and different BIOS.
Why ASUS to leave space for overclocking Matrix Platinum 100MHz over fabric clock when they could sell same chip for 200-250$ more as Matrix Gold.


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## mcraygsx (Feb 21, 2016)

Ferrum Master said:


> Did yours look as bad as mine?
> 
> View attachment 72093
> 
> ...




I am stunned, that is a lot of unnecessary TMP. Did it arrived from factory like that ?

First thing I noticed your's came with SK rams while Mine is using Samsung modules.

Mined wasn't as bad as yours but TMP almost has similar looking color. But GELID did amazing job and did indeed improved my idle and load temps. I am learning towards another 980 Ti but this time I think it will be ZOTAC 980 Ti AMP Extreme. Asus's 980 Ti MATRIX is very tempting but the price they are asking for this card is out of my league!


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 22, 2016)

mcraygsx said:


> Did it arrived from factory like that ?



Yes, Gigabyte is the best advertisement for ASUS for making such "quality". And yes unlucky SK Hynix... overclocks pretty much badly.


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## mcraygsx (Feb 22, 2016)

Ferrum Master said:


> Yes, Gigabyte is the best advertisement for ASUS for making such "quality". And yes unlucky SK Hynix... overclocks pretty much badly.



Mine has a ASIC of 71% but I was able to add +130 Mhz to core, I might go further have not tried it yet.


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## dalekdukesboy (Feb 22, 2016)

I am reading this, and I saw one guy point out the obvious flaw in this card that to me renders it moot as far as competition for any other 3rd party 980ti cooler card; and that is the fact the card has a triple slot cooler, yet manages only decent temperatures with a lot of noise.  I'm sorry, but this card doesn't hold a candle to Wizzards review results of the lightning card.  The Lightning pricewise is relatively similar with what you can find now and it is MUCH quieter as pointed out in the review AND it's a few degrees cooler to boot.  You may as well get a gigabyte or other 2 slot cooler that has similar noise or even less than this Matrix card and save a space in your case for other devices more airflow, sli etc.


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 22, 2016)

mcraygsx said:


> Mine has a ASIC of 71% but I was able to add +130 Mhz to core, I might go further have not tried it yet.



You can find mine in Valley Benchmark score thread.


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## trog100 (Feb 26, 2016)

adding more mhz to the core with these cards dosnt always translate to more actual boost mhz.. i have had my palit cards up to +130 mhz on the core.. but as time passed with the odd lock up during the odd game i ended up nearer the + 100 level..

in truth the odd 30 mhz or so makes sod all difference in anything other than winning the benching race..

i now run my pair of palit 980 TI cards with a frame rate cap set at around 70 fps.. no highs no lows..  just a nice smooth 70 fps.. plus the entire system runs super cool and quiet..

with a slow moving game like witcher i might even drop it to 60 fps..

i do run at 1440 not 4K..

trog


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## EarthDog (Feb 26, 2016)

Breit said:


> I would say that the factory clocks on these cards are kind of irrelevant. What matters is, how high they are able to clock.
> These stock clocks can easily be reached with the reference cards as well as with the lower tiered Custom-PCB cards...


It really is a function of the silicon... nearly all GTX 980TI's land somewhere in the 1475-1525 MHz range. Above 1525, you have an above average card, below 1475, you have a below average card.

That said, some people don't overclock so having (one of) the highest factory clocks could be useful. ANd this card, really, is meant for extreme overclocking and not air. The pricing on the card reflects the goodies it has added on versus other cards (not named Galax HOF, MSI LIghtning, EVGA Classified). People think these (every GPU) are binned more than they really are. 9/10 people, even here at this site, would be plenty happy with a reference board with a different cooler... for example, the MSI Gaming 980Ti with the Twin Frozr (ok, that isn't a reference board but it isn't a card on steroids either, LOL!)... But people do not know any better and they waste more money on cards of this caliber thinking they will overclock better... its a crapshoot men...


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## Masenko (Mar 12, 2016)

There seems to be something wrong with R9-290X power consumption, and also performance per watt. Those numbers are obviously of R9-295X2.


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## BigPaPaRu (Mar 20, 2016)

mcraygsx said:


> Mine has a ASIC of 71% but I was able to add +130 Mhz to core, I might go further have not tried it yet.



So would the highest core clock shown on GPUZ be considered the overclock? For example, on this picture it shows 1485.9 MHZ, is this the over clock? On the first page of my GPUZ, it shows 1385MHZ as my boost and on the second page it shows 1503MHZ, what would my GPU be overclocked to? My ASIC is 78.9% and my card has Samsung memory, so I'm happy with that. This card rocks!


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## W1zzard (Mar 21, 2016)

Masenko said:


> There seems to be something wrong with R9-290X power consumption, and also performance per watt. Those numbers are obviously of R9-295X2.


Nice find, you are correct, and the first one to notice this. I must have somehow copy and pasted the wrong results. Fixed now.


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