EVGA Nvidia GTX 980 Review

I must admit I'm a bit of a bugger when it comes to upgrading components for my PC. I’m always finding more devious ways to make it better (well, to me at least). Not to say that I upgrade or replace the whole system every year (my pockets don’t run that deep), but I do find myself making changes every so often. Usually it’ll be a set of new fans or replacing the case for something a bit cooler-looking. All really to fool me into thinking that these new “upgrades” will stop me from buying a whole new PC altogether. That’s not to say my system is terrible, it’s pretty decent, running with an i5 3570k and 16GB of RAM. I have no intention of upgrading those components, at least not yet, as with any new processor (especially Intel’s newer CPU’s), I’ll have to get myself a new motherboard, etc. Considering there’s nothing wrong with these and they’ll last I don’t see much point upgrading them.

Now, graphics card on the other hand. This is what I’m really a bugger for. I’ve gone through so many graphics cards for my PC, it’s starting to become silly. That is till now. Now I’ve finally settled on a graphics card, the most expensive I’ve ever bought, that also blows every other card I’ve owned out of the water. An Nvidia GTX 980.

Before I purchase myself a new card I always try and make a bit of money on the old card to pay towards the new one. My prior card was an AMD HD7970 - AMD’s top-card around two years ago. This I sold to pay towards the new one. Paying a little under £300 for the 980 was a bit nicer than the full price of £440 - yes, the GTX 980, depending on the brand/type you go for, ranges from £400-550. I thought, sod it. It’ll certainly be the card I’d need not worry about upgrading for a long, long time.

The model I opted for was the EVGA GTX 980 SC (Superclocked) edition, my first EVGA card. It has a custom cooler (ACX 2.0), which going by the packaging claims to be 26% cooler and 36% quieter than reference models. That is good news to me as I’ve been keeping with a silent build. The card arrived in packaging that was somewhat lacking in my opinion. All the connectors had plastic caps and the card itself was fixed into a plastic shroud. It was fine, but I disliked the overall plastic enclosure that it was placed in. I’m used to receiving my cards in an anti-static bag surrounded in foam. Still, it’s better than the card being just plonked into a box and sent it on its way.

Was not a fan of the plastic packaging

Included inside you get a couple of molex to 6-pin leads (the card requires two 6-pin pci-e) and a VGA to DVI adaptor. That’s it for included cables. Other goodies included are the manual, driver disc and a rather unusual EVGA poster; for those who just want show off, I guess? Either way, it’s all pretty bog standard stuff in the packaging. Putting those onto the side, it’s time for the real fun.

Installing the card was pretty simple; the card is smaller than my last one so I knew it’d fit. Although I will say it is still a big card (10.5inch in length) so make sure you’ve got the space. Once installed, everything plugged back in and I remembered to flicked the power supply back on, I booted up the PC and braced myself...I always worry about components being DOA. No worry with this card though. I removed the old AMD drivers which is a good idea if you're going from AMD to Nvidia. Headed to Nvidia’s website for the latest (never bother with the included driver disc) and went straight to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Looks really nice in the case. Ignore the dusty white fan heatsink.

First impressions: Awesome. Seriously, a massive improvement; I cranked up the graphics up to ultra at 1080p and it’s running at a consistent 60FPS with Vsync, there were a few dips here and there but, after a few tweaks, I got it running at the 60 sweet spot constantly.

Of course, The Witcher 3 wasn’t the only title I tested and played. I went through a variety, but as mentioned my previous card was a HD7970, I didn’t really have much trouble running games maxed out previously. However, one advantage of going to Nvidia is getting to take advantage of their Physx and other Gameworks features. So I loaded up Batman: Arkham Origins (the first supported game could think of) and maxed out the graphics, with Physx at 2560x1440p and it ran buttery smooth locked at 60FPS, which was pretty damn impressive.

The Physx gave the game some nice visual additions: advanced snow and smoke effects and interactive debris and paper; they’re not game changing effects or a must-have, but they certainly enhance the visual experience. The GTX 980 is well prepared for the upcoming Batman: Arkham Knight - which just so happen to come free with the graphics card. Arkham Knight has since released, but I just don't want to talk about, the performance is terrible, but you should know the story; if you don't read here.

Now, for those are waiting to see some benchmarks I did run a couple. Mostly just as a comparison to my old HD7970. Below are results from 3DMark.

Click to view a larger picture. 

As you can see, the difference is quite substantial, not crazy high, but this will of course differ as 3DMark does also utilise the CPU and memory of your system. As for the Unigine benchmark; which is a detailed tessellation and graphics benchmark, this ran beautifully maxed out at 1080p getting 90FPS, while running at 1440p ran at an average of 53FPS shy of the 60FPS sweet spot, but still pretty impressive all considering.

Noise was not an issue with the GTX 980. My previous card was pretty loud, even when running idle and soon as I launched anything graphically intensive the fans kicked off and took ages to quieten down; very off-putting especially when I’m trying to maintain a quiet build. I’m happy to say that this new card is near on silent, can barely hear the damn the thing when on idle, intensive gaming such as The Witcher 3 does crank up the fans, but nowhere near as loud as before. It’s really impressive in cooling as well, idling at 35-40ºC and during load it goes no higher than 65ºC.

Overall the GTX 980 well worth the investment, at least in my opinion. I’m very happy with the purchase and I know it’s a card that will that last me a long time, that’s for sure, but is it worth the hefty £400 price tag for potential buyers? Well, it depends. If you're looking to go out all out on your next graphics card, then you can’t go wrong with the GTX 980. However, unless you have your heart set on Nvidia it might be worth waiting on the next-generation of AMD cards releasing later this year, and see what they have to offer. If you’re wanting to go that extra mile you may also want to consider the recently released GTX 980 Ti, although that starts at £550.