Buying a new Nvidia Gtx 980ti - Which make?

g.eoff

g.eoff
As the title says, I am going to buy a 980ti and an oculus rift. The nvidia Web page says.....
Specifications
Note: The below specifications represent this GPU as incorporated into NVIDIA's reference graphics card design. Clock specifications apply while gaming with medium to full GPU utilization. Graphics card specifications may vary by Add-in-card manufacturer. Please refer to the Add-in-card manufacturers' website for actual shipping specifications.

I have checked several different manufacturers specs and now I am a little confused. I have two questions.

1. Which manufacturer would you recommend?
2. Should I buy a hybrid water cooled version?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Fly safe. CMDR Dolittle.
 

Zeeman

Zeeman
1- I've been very happy with Asus,, though, honestly, I don't think it really makes too much difference if you buy from a well known brand.

2 - If you have to ask, then the answer is no.

Z...
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
1. Haven't looked at the 980's (over my needs and budget), but for my 960 I went for MSI. The 'electrical' differences between manufacturers are negligible IMO, but I liked the cooling system from MSI best.

2. Why? What do you expect from it? Water cooling has a few advantages in getting heat out of the box, but if your box is big and airy enough, that shouldn't be a problem otherwise. As long as you don't have a problem with air cooling, all that water cooling does is to add a few more sources for catastrophic failure.
 

Zenith

Zenith
My nvidia cards tend to be Asus as well.
Asus, MSI and Gigabyte have good reputations for manufacturing.
The only make I actively avoid is Zotac, and that's because I had a card from them that burnt out because of failed fan cooling.
 

el_tel

el_tel
I've never had any issues with ASUS, and like their overclocking software.

I use 2 x ASUS Poseidon 980ti, which is the GPU with the water-cooling blocks as standard, although they can also be used for air-cooling. I plan on getting an external watercooling unit in the near future, so for me, it made sense to pay the extra to get the simplicity of conversion later. I won't go to watercooling to enable more overclocking, but to bring the temp down from the current ~90 degrees C (stock) at full load, to a more reasonable ~60 degrees C at full load (stock). This should improve the life of the GPUs, as I don't plan on upgrading again for another 2-3 GPU generations, at which point I'll also need a new MB, CPU and RAM.
 

Hanni79

Hanni79
I built a completely water-cooled rig few years ago and in my view the main advantage is the silence.

If you have enough place in your housing for 14 cm fans, get a big radiator and the slowest rotating fans you can get ( mostly 700 rpm ),
this will make your PC really easy on the ears :)
 

Hagledesperado

Hagledesperado
My air cooled system is also pretty quiet. The trick is to have a big, sound dampened case with lots of airflow, and as many high quality PWM fans that you can fit into it. Even the graphics card doesn't make much noise, probably because the positive case pressure is always feeding it with cool air and helping it expel the hot air without too much fan action on the graphics card itself.
 

RiftFlyer

R
I think evga offer a 90 day upgrade program. Might be worth considering if pascal is released in the next few months. It will at least give you the option.
 

g.eoff

g.eoff
Thankyou everyone for all the constructive and informative responses. I will now choose between Asus and Evga, and stick with air cooled for the near future.

Fly safe.
 

tommywright

tommywright
I learned a horrible lesson many years ago. I bought a graphics card on sale made by a no name/off name company (I think it was Xstasy or something like that). It was a decent savings but it was also a very expensive, high-end card. After a few months, the card failed. It was well within the warranty but when I tried to get a new card, they told me that the warranty company had gone out of business and that I was SOL. I tried several other avenues to get my money back to no avail.

Lesson learned... ONLY buy name brands. Asus, EVGA, etc. are all good. Whatever you do, don't buy from a company that you don't recognize as having been around for many years.
 

moonsword

moonsword
I got a 980Ti from Pny. It has 3 fans on board which cool the card at 57 to 60 degree centigrade while playing ED on highest quality.
 

Sysmon

Sysmon
I run two EVGA 980TIs in SLI. It's a bit of a noisy combo at times, and temperatures can run up to 75 °C. But that's with everything on highest setting and running the game at 3550x1440.

I've had a problem with the new drivers and The Division (ironically, as The Division is a game the new drivers are supposed to be for): It appears that the fans didn't fire up in one instance, so the PC cooked itself after about 60 minutes play. Seems that many have had issues with the new drivers.

So yes, it pays getting a name brand card. But make sure the drivers are also working as intended or roll back ASAP.

:D S
 

sbdags

sbdags
I've had Asus, MSI and EVGA cards in the past. The Asus was by far the best and seemed to have much better power config than the others. I won't go with an EVGA again due to the factory 'OC' not being stable in ED.
 

Hell Razor5543

H
I have a pair of Asus Strix GTX 970 OC cards, and the fans are very quiet, but just as efficient. I can have a normal conversation with friends even when I am in ED, with the graphics set to the best my rig will support, and not be bothered by the system noise (even with a CPU temperature of 70, and both cards showing 65+).
 

bitstorm

bitstorm
If ED is a "main" game I'd suggesting avoiding factory overclocked cards.

I've seen quite a few threads with folk "a bit" upset due to ED crashing on and how Frontier is a horrible company (well 3), of course the issue tends to go away when they downclock.
 
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grimreaper

grimreaper
gigabyte 980 water cooled, handles the load comfortably and yes it runs cooler (even overclocked) than the air cooled version

pc.jpg
 
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