# Asus Strix Gtx 980 OC 4gb Graphics Card Review



## rajan1311 (Feb 24, 2015)

*INTRODUCTION:*
The GTX 980 is Nvidia’s flagship GPU powered by their maxwell architecture has taken the GPU world by storm. Along with the GTX 970, the cards give really impressive performance with really good power consumption and temperatures.

With this card Asus hope to better it with a custom PCB design and cooler. The STRIX GTX 980 comes pre-overclocked at 1178MHz over 1126MHz stock core clock. The card is built on a custom PCB that allows for better overclocks and an much better cooler, which even features a 0 Db , fan off mode.

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*PACKAGING AND BUNDLE:*
The box comes in the typical Strix (greek for Owl) packaging. The front of the box has some information talking about its cooler and its features, the fact that this is an OC edition card, has 4GB of GDDR5 memory and the Digi+ VRM design.

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In the back we got more details about the same.

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Inside we have the typical, classic Asus packaging with the card kept safely in molded foam.

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The bundle is actually fairly minimal. We have a 6-pin to 8-pin molex converter, driver disc, a setup guide and 2 sets of changeable badges for the graphics card.

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Those badges can be used here to match up with your chassis theme. Personally, I prefer the look without them.

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The bundles today are a bit bland, I really miss the old days when we used to get game discs with our graphics cards. Oh well, time to move on, next up, we’ll be taking a close look at the card itself.

*CLOSER LOOK:*
The card itself looks beautiful. The cooler, black PCB and backplate, all give it an amazing look.

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The card is 11.5 inches long and about 5 3/4 inch high. The cooler is a dual slot cooler with 2 80mm fans. It uses 5 direct contact heat pipes and aluminium fins.

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Here we see the 10 phase power design. The VRMs are cooled by a small heatsink.

*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/DSC00028-1024x680.jpg​The memory used is made by samsung (model no. K4G41325FC-HC28) and is rated to run at 1750MHz (7000MHz effective).

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Here is the Asus’s proprietary Digi+ voltage controller. You can control graphics card voltage using their GPU Tweak utility.

[IMGhttp://techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/DSC00031-1024x680.jpg[/IMG]​
Here are some voltage pickup points provided by Asus.

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Here are the SLI connectors which let you do up to 4 way SLI for your triple 4k monitor setup!

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Here you can see that the card uses 1 8-pin and 1 6-pin power connector. Due to the metal frame of the cooler, it does become slightly difficult to put the connectors in.

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There are plenty of display options on this card. You get 3 Display ports, 1 HDMI port and 1 DVI port.

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*TESTING METHODOLOGY :*

We tried to keep all tests as fair as possible. In games, whenever possible, we tried using in game benchmarks. But not all games have that, so we had to recreate the same scene manually. Hence, the results might not be perfect, but they should give you a fairly good idea. These scenes might not be the most graphics intensive (no explosions, etc) as they are much harder to reproduce.

To remove any possibility of bottlenecks, we have overclocked our 2500k to 4.5GHz and the RAM is overclocked as well. Below are the detailed test bench specifications :

Processor : Intel Core i5 2500k (Overclocked to 4.5GHz)
Motherboard : ASRock Z77E-ITX Motherboard
RAM : 8GB DDR3 RAM (@ 2133MHz ,10-10-10-26-1T) Samsung 30nm Green RAM
Graphics Card : Asus STRIX GTX 980 OC 4GB (Driver version : 347.25)
PSU : Corsair 550VX
Cooling : SVG Tech HOC 40
Casing : Bitfenix Prodigy

Here is the list of games that we have used for our review:

Battlefield 4
Crysis 3
Formula One 2013
Hitman Absolution
GRID Autosport
Batman Arkham Origins
Tomb Raider
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (with HD textures)

All games are running at 1920×1080 and maximum in game settings.

*OVERCLOCKING :*
So before we look at the benchmark results, lets see how this card overclocks. The overclocked results have been included so you can see what kind of real world gains are seen.

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The overclocking results are pretty good. I hit 1299MHz (120MHz OC) on the core and 1850MHz (100MHz) on the memory. I did get higher overclocks, but the system would crash after a while during gaming. I did not play around with the voltage settings too much, but that could improve the overclocking on this card.

With these clocks, I saw roughly 10% gains, which is fairly good.

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*TEMPERATURES AND NOISE :*

Temperatures on this card were pretty good and stayed well within the safe region. I noticed, below 50c the fans stay switched off, which was the case most of the time while idling. During heavier workload, the fan sped up and starts getting audible at around 50% fan speed. At the highest temperature, the fan was at 60% when left at auto and there was a slight humming noise that was audible.

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*BATTLEFIELD 4 :*

Released in late October 2013, battlefield 4 is the latest game in the battlefield series of games. It runs on the new frostbite 3 engine to deliver some really stunning visuals experiences. The game is really heavy on the system and the graphics card in particular. The sequence used for the benchmark has some fast paced action and some fire and destruction, so it should give you a fair idea of the overall playability/performance of the game.

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*CRYSIS 3 :*

Crysis 3 is the latest addition to the crysis series and is based in the city of NY. The game uses CryEngine 3 to give an amazing gaming experience. The game does not come with any kind of benchmarking tool, so a manual sequence is used. I have changed the benchmark sequence as compared to my R9 290 review and this one isn’t as intensive, so won’t be including those results here.

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*HITMAN ABSOLUTION :*

A follow up to blood money, Hitman : Absolution really lives up to its expectations. Here, stealth is your best friend and is a good change from other action games. I really loved the graphics and the plot, a must play for any hitman fan.

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*F1 2013:*

The newest F1 game in the market, F1 2013 just takes F1 racing to the next level. I had been waiting for it for a long time since I really enjoyed the last 2 games of this series, but since I heard of the classic mode, I knew I just had to get this one. The graphics in this game are really nice. You might not notice a lot of change from the previous game, but that’s because they had already done a really good job. The game comes with an in built graphics benchmark and that is what I have used. All in game settings were set to maximum.

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*THE VERDICT:*

Asus have done in good job in making Nvidia’s GPU even better. It was already fast and efficient, Asus has made it run cool, quiet and overclocker friendly. Though in my case overclocks were not very high (to be honest, I did not push it enough), you can take it higher. With the fan off mode, I think they have really made a good trade off between noise and temperatures. I would take no noise and 50c over some noise and 36c. You get a much better deal for the extra cost you pay over a stock GTX 980. You should consider this monitor if you are looking to game above 1080p (or a multi monitor setup) as clearly, in almost all benchmarks I did, it was a rather overkill. A GTX 970 is probably a better choice if you are looking to game at lower resolutions.

Pros:

Good stock performance
Good power efficiency
Runs cool and quiet. 0dB mode is a great trade off
Ton of display options, triple monitor ready
Good features for overclockers
Cons:

Not a huge overclock out of the box (none on the memory)
Fan is slightly audible at higher fan speeds (>60%)
Slightly difficult to put the power connectors

That being said, all the cons mentioned are fairly minor and not deal breakers in my book. Ill give the card a 9/10 and definitely recommended to anyone who is looking to buy a GTX 980.

For the remaining benchmarks, you can head over to the original review at: Asus STRIX GTX 980 OC 4GB Graphics Card Review | Tech Verdict
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## sam_738844 (Feb 24, 2015)

Include games such as Far Cry 4, Shadows of Mordor, Metro Last Light ReduX, Dying Light ..etc...mostly recent games, the games you have tested are pretty much last-gen. Otherwise a great review. Keep coming more *thumbs up*

P.S.- Benchmarks must include 2560*1440 res for GTX 980 at least. If you dont have a monitor, you can always go with DSR.


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## rajan1311 (Feb 24, 2015)

sam_738844 said:


> Include games such as Far Cry 4, Shadows of Mordor, Metro Last Light ReduX, Dying Light ..etc...mostly recent games, the games you have tested are pretty much last-gen. Otherwise a great review. Keep coming more *thumbs up*
> 
> P.S.- Benchmarks must include 2560*1440 res for GTX 980 at least. If you dont have a monitor, you can always go with DSR.



Dont have FC4, shadow of mordor is included (go to the original review, its there). Will try updating my games. The thing is, If I update the benchmarks too often, there won't be many cards to add to the comparison as I do not get cards very often (4/5 cards a year). 

link to the benchmark: Asus STRIX GTX 980 OC 4GB Graphics Card Review | Tech Verdict | Page 13

As for the monitor, cant do much there. I don't do it professionally and I dont get paid for any of this, cant afford one yet.

Thanks for the feedback though


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## sam_738844 (Feb 24, 2015)

rajan1311 said:


> ~snip
> 
> As for the monitor, cant do much there. I don't do it professionally and I dont get paid for any of this, cant afford one yet.
> 
> Thanks for the feedback though



You dont need a 1440p monitor to benchmark at that res


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## rajan1311 (Feb 24, 2015)

ah...downsampling for benchmarking? you sure that's a good idea?


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