Today we look at one of the most exciting graphics cards to hit our labs this year – the new Asus STRIX Gaming GTX 980 Ti featuring the latest Direct CU 3 cooling system. This 3 fan cooling system uses a new patented wing blade fan to provide greater air pressure, and cooling capabilities. The DCIII cooler is equipped with two beefy 10mm direct touch copper heatpipes. Interestingly, the Asus GTX980 Ti Strix solution is built with a total automated production process and incorporates a 14 phase (12+2) Super Alloy Power II power system for maximum reliability. With the highest ‘out of the box’ overclock speeds to grace our labs yet, is this the high end GPU you should be shortlisting for a new system build this summer?
Asus have adopted a new way of building their graphics cards – opting for 100% ‘automation’ – to remove human error from the production line. Their production is now ‘flux-free’. The 12+2 phase Super Alloy Power II system is designed for maximum reliability and quality.
The Asus Super Alloy II MOS is one of Asus talking points, they say DrMOS decreases the temperature and increases power efficiency. The Super Alloy II Capacitors incorporated throughout the design increase lifespan by 2.5 times – Asus claim 90,000 hours longer than traditional capacitors.
One of the most irritating problems with graphics cards in the last year is a buzzing sound, which can be classed as ‘coil whine’ by many. Asus incorporate concrete alloy chokes on the GTX980 Ti Strix card which is said to remove all traces of coil whine and buzzing under heavy load. We will test that out later in the review.
| GPU | GeForce GTX960 |
Geforce GTX970 | GeForce GTX980 |
Geforce GTX 980 Ti | Geforce GTX Titan X |
| Streaming Multiprocessors | 8 | 13 | 16 | 22 | 24 |
| CUDA Cores | 1024 | 1664 | 2048 | 2816 | 3072 |
| Base Clock | 1126 mhz | 1050 mhz | 1126 mhz | 1000 mhz | 1000 mhz |
| GPU Boost Clock | 1178 mhz | 1178 mhz | 1216 mhz | 1075 mhz | 1076 mhz |
| Total Video memory | 2GB | 4GB | 4GB | 6GB | 12GB |
| Texture Units | 64 | 104 | 128 | 176 | 192 |
| Texture fill-rate | 72.1 Gigatexels/Sec | 109.2 Gigatexels/Sec | 144.1 Gigatexels/Sec | 176 Gigatexels/Sec | 192 Gigatexels/Sec |
| Memory Clock | 7010 mhz | 7000 mhz | 7000 mhz | 7000 mhz | 7000 mhz |
| Memory Bandwidth | 112.16 GB/sec | 224 GB/s | 224 GB/sec | 336.5 GB/sec | 336.5 GB/sec |
| Bus Width | 128bit | 256bit | 256bit | 384bit | 384bit |
| ROPs | 32 | 56 | 64 | 96 | 96 |
| Manufacturing Process | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm |
| TDP | 120 watts | 145 watts | 165 watts | 250 watts | 250 watts |
The Nvidia GTX980 Ti ships with 2816 CUDA cores and 22 SM units. The memory subsystem of the GTX980 Ti consists of six 64-bit memory controllers (384-bit) with 6GB of GDDR5 memory.
The Asus Strix Gaming GTX980 Ti Direct CU 3 has received a clock boost over Nvidia’s reference card, with final speeds set at 1,216 mhz(core)/1,317mhz (boost). The memory is also overclocked, from default speeds of 1,753mhz (7Gbps effective) to 1,800mhz (7.2Gbps effective) – this is actually one of the few GTX980 Ti cards we have reviewed to receive a memory boost.