MSI's GeForce GTX 980 Gaming is a true winner. It is built on the awesome foundation of the GTX 980, but still manages to improve in some key areas. The card comes overclocked out of the box with a large overclock, resulting in around an 8-9% performance increase over the GTX 980 reference design. A significant increase, it has the card beat the dual-GPU AMD Radeon HD 7990 with just a single graphics processor. Just like the stock GTX 980, I'd recommend the MSI 980 Gaming for full detail gaming at 1440p and 1600p, with 4K being well playable when two cards are teamed in SLI. Compared to AMD's single GPU flagship, the R9 290X, we almost see a 20% performance lead at 4K, and 25% at 1600p!

MSI's card is not only fast, but also unbelievably quiet. In idle and light gaming, the card's fan will completely stop for the perfect noiseless experience. Once temperature exceeds 67°C, the fans will spin up, but even with full-on gaming, the fans stay extremely quiet, barely audible at 30 dBA. I've never seen such a quiet flagship card; it's the perfect choice if you value low-noise in addition to gaming performance. I'm also reviewing the ASUS GTX 980 STRIX right now, and with 0 dBA in idle and 30 dBA while gaming, it is just as quiet as the MSI Gaming.
Temperatures are excellent as well because of the updated MSI TwinFrozr cooler that also looks quite stylish. One little point to consider is that the card is relatively tall with 14.5 cm, so there are cases in which it would not fit. All these improvements are thanks to the low power consumption of NVIDIA's latest Maxwell GPUs, which shattered all performance-per-watt metrics in the GPU industry. Besides overclocking it out of the box, MSI has also made some changes to their board which increased power consumption a good deal, by roughly 20%, over the reference design. The ASUS GTX 980 STRIX I'm testing doesn't come with such a big increase, so it may be due to MSI opting for two 8-pin power connectors (375 W), which are completely useless on a card that tops out at around 210W. I also miss a backplate on the card to improve its visual appearance while protecting it against damage (ASUS has one).

You can find the MSI GTX 980 Gaming online for $580, which is a fantastic price. It's only $30 higher than the reference design, a safe investment for its awesome noise output alone. Compared to other cards on the market, there really is no contest. AMD has recently dropped pricing of their R9 290X down to $360, which might make it more competitive than the GTX 980 in price-performance, but that is the only metric in AMD's favor. Much faster, with awesome power consumption, a super-quiet operation, and great overclocking potential, MSI's GTX 980 is better in every other regard. The only drawback is that the card appears to be out of stock in many stores, which doesn't surprise me at all. If you have the money, the GTX 980 is the card to buy. If you want to save some money, the GTX 970 is an excellent choice as well, having all the fantastic Maxwell improvements and a better price-to-performance ratio than any other high-end option on the market.