Gadgetory

when gigabyte said that they wanted to send me a gtx 980ti to review i said no no gigabyte i said i will not look at your 980 TI unless it is the best possible 980 TI that you can make they said it is so I said okay here's my review of the gigabyte gtx 980 TI extreme gaming water force with RGB lighting i was gonna show you guys 500 cool features of the fractal core 500 ITX case but that would take way too long so here are five it's compact and sleek with a brushed front panel it has surprisingly good water cooling support it has big magnetic dust filters it supports full-size ATX power supplies and it has room for 170 millimeter tall CPU coolers click the sponsor link in the description for more information so the 980 TI has been out for about six months now and as with most GPUs a bit of time passing post-launch has provided us with a ton of 980 TI flavors AIB partners have concocted all manner of cooling implementations for Nvidia stop to your GPU that's not called Titan X at least and the new hotness is integrating an all-in-one water cooler to keep the temperatures down and provide more Headroom for overclocking this is not a new trick for anyone who's wondering I actually first saw this a i/o water cooling on a graphics card back with the zotac GTX 580 infinity that was in 2011 and in case anyone's curious I'm gonna post the link to the video I did on nuoc TV down in the description if you want to check it out also there's a like button down there which I encourage you to click if you liked the video just saying so current gen a io water-cooled GPUs include the EVGA hybrid as well as the MSI and Corsair collaboration that has a different name depending on if they put it in a corsair box or an msi box you know 3d also has one as well but I don't believe it's available in the US and then over on Team red side there is the fury X of course anyway though this 980ti is from gigabyte specifically their extreme gaming line the e and extremists silent and invisible if you haven't heard of extreme gaming that's because it's new gigabyte tells me extreme gaming is the new name for their tippity-top to your gaming and overclocking product line still no word though and if they'll be reimbursing g1 gaming series product owners for their second fiddle lessons as such it's meant to compete not just with the aforementioned AIO water gpus from the likes of EVGA and msi but also with similar cards from competitors a la the EVGA kingpin MSI lightning the asus matrix and of course the ATI all in wonder all of these cards share a similarity in that they manufacturers promise that you get a binned GPU for the price premium that means that they've tested all of the GPUs in their stock that they got from Nvidia and they choose the chips that can overclock to higher frequencies for these cards specifically and for many enthusiasts that alone is worth the price here's a closer look at the card though and I'm wondering what you guys think of this design aesthetically I kind of feel like it's actually a step back from the g1 gaming series particularly the 980 which has that all black metal shroud design and feels kind of like holding a solid brick of copper in your hand when you pick it up by comparison the extreme gaming water force feels much more lightweight and I was actually a little bit disappointed with the kind of flimsy or feeling plastic shroud that they have on there this time around aesthetics are actually my biggest complaint about this card which is good if all you care about is performance but let me just get this all out here aside from the flimsy shroud the RGB LED lighting feature is there and can be controlled via gigabyte software the logo and these two strips down either side of the window light up and you do have a range of colors to choose from and some flashing and breathing options for effects but the LED colors I found were inconsistent between the Gigabyte logo on top and the two accents on the windows and in what seems to be an ongoing design flaw for RGB LED implementation in the PC space there are other lights on the card that can't change their color or be turned off yes the two white LEDs that conveniently tell you if your peg connectors are in are nice but then they're white so they don't they blend in a little bit more better but but wow do they stand out and there's the extreme button on the end as well which puts the card into a special tuning mode for exotic cooling which can be either blue if it's off or red if it's turned on and nothing else I don't know it's the ability to turn these off in the future can be added via firmware software but I really feel that it detracts from the flexibility of RGB lighting on any products when you're forced to color coordinated with other fixed colors especially when those colors other LED lights okay sorry for the rant there and please do not write this card off yet because the performance side of the story is much much more pleasant so anyway there's a nice backplate on there it's black and it's metal you got your standard video out configuration of three display ports one HDMI and one dual link DVI you got two eight pin peg connectors for power and then there's one more optional six pin peg connector specifically for driving more power in the extreme mode when that little button on the end is pushed I ran all of my tests overclocked and without that third power plug connected and I had no problems at all so it's really not necessary and it's really only there for people who are pushing the cards to its limits are doing exotic cooling there is a hundred twenty millimeter radiator attached to the end via these two slim tubes which actually might be a little bit on the short side depending on your case honestly short tubing is a blessing when it just barely fits but a curse when it's just not quite long enough but I'm bear that in mind and then you got a hundred twenty millimeter fan on here which seems to do a great job at while also staying nice and quiet so thank you gigabyte for not cheeping out on the fin the pump inside the shroud is powered through the card so that's nice too there's no extra plug that you have to plug into the motherboard for example and the fan is also wired up directly to the card with the cable kind of zip tied to the tubing here that's kind of keeps things nice and clean but the fan is literally hardwired in there so you can't swap it out without probably cutting a wire soldering maybe you're probably avoiding your warranty as well so that would have been nice to be able to swap that fan out if we wanted to taking a look beneath the shroud you'll find the full coverage copper block with some heat pipes embedded that cools not just the GPU but also the power delivery and the memory as well I really like this design because it did a great job keeping everything cool I was testing and it means that there's no need for an extra little fan in there for active cooling over the VRMs the PCB is custom designed by gigabyte and features a bit of water resistance in there for exotic cooling on the PCB 12 + 2 phase power delivery and hopefully support for GPU water blocks in the future my makers like maybe ek because I think custom water cooling this card would be a really good choice here's a look at the 980ti extreme gaming water force next to some they're comparable cards the gtx 980ti reference from nvidia of course EVG is air-cooled superclocked card and the fury x from AMD which still wins the tiniest flagship GPU award it's time to get into some benchmark numbers but first off here's some quick specs which you're probably familiar with so I'm not going to go over them all in detail the biggest difference here is the GPU and gddr5 frequencies and to show you what kind of range you can get with benchmark results even with the same GPU I have the Nvidia reference 980ti running at its default out-of-the-box speeds that means 7000 megahertz effective memory speed and GPU boost speeds that will hit just over 1200 that's up from the base clock of 1000 and that is the reference design from nvidia i over clocked the snot out of this 980 TI extreme gaming water force meanwhile pushing the memory although up to 8000 effective push the GPU to 1525 megahertz that's peak GPU boost and hit that consistently and with remarkably little effort while only reaching a max temperature of about 60 degrees Celsius here are the benchmarks well those are some sexy benchmarks here's a quick aside though about aao water cooling in general if you want a water cooled GPU consider this water cooling will give you much lower GPU temperatures and it can keep the memory and vrm temps down to noise can also be reduced since 820 millimeter fan can cool more effectively while spinning at a lower rpm thanks to its size and the efficiency of using a water-cooled radiator to dissipate the heat the flipside is that you're introducing more points of failure into your system and while this AIO unit has been cool quiet and has had no problems for me so far I have experienced excessive pump noise over time and some AIO units I've worked with or even worse pump failure or even worse a leak depending on the product in question these incidences should be rare but it is something I think prospective buyers should take into account anyway though here is my conclusion if it wasn't evidence in the benchmarks based on pure performance this is the fastest 980ti that I have laid hands on it does a great job of keeping temps down making very little noise even without being installing a case and there's just tons of potential here for aftermarket water cooling exotic cooling of course and extra performance via overclocking even with just its out-of-the-box state I did have my aesthetic quibbles with the lighting and the cheap feel of the shroud but ultimately this GPU is actually kind of cost-effective if you're looking at other 980ti in the market the MSRP is 720 dollars and that's less than the MSI lightning which is 790 although checking just now before making the video that's available for 700 with an sale and a mail-in rebate anyway the EVGA kingpin is 850 all the way up to a thousand 50 depending on if you want their most bestest overclocking or not they've been their gpus and then they charged it consecutively higher for depending on how much you want it to overclock good if you want a guaranteed overclocking GPU not so good if you like not paying over $1000 490 I now other a IO cooled 980 T is are out there but they don't all necessarily promise the best of the best class performance that the extreme gaming line from gigabyte does with next-gen HBM to cards most likely still good six months or more away from launch this I think is a very compelling offering for performance enthusiasts who want water cooling out of the box who wants huge overclocking Headroom and and want to cool and quiet experience overall even if the aesthetics aren't quite all there that is all for this review though if you enjoyed it don't forget to hit that like button down there use my amazon link the links down in the description if you're shopping for sundries for yourself or loved ones perhaps feel free to visit my store at store dot paul's harbour dinette where you can support me by picking up a shirt i've got the new updated logo design that's also now available there's also the ever-popular mugs and pint glasses you can subscribe to my channel if you're not already and as always thank you so much for watching