Unboxing: Strix GeForce GTX 980 And Compared To GTX 780 Ti, Matrix R9 290X

With four new world records already under Strix GTX 980's belt, the coming few weeks should get interesting as we keep an eye on all the new benchmark results recorded with this card.  Built on Nvidia's acclaimed 2nd-gen Maxwell architecture with customized ASUS components and DirectCU II cooling system, this video card is a GeForce to be reckoned with.  

Let's pop the bonnet to see what's roaring inside, and then compare the differences between the Strix GTX 980 and its predecessor - the ASUS GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II - and the widely-popular Matrix R9 290X Platinum.

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The anticipation of opening a brand-new high-end video card is never without a bit of suspense and a whole lot of OOOOHs and AAAAHHHs.   Strix GTX 980 is indeed no different.   

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When opening it up, keep the box and its contents in pristine condition, because it's simply too beautiful to be ravaged. 

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Inside the box you will find a well-protected Strix GTX 980 graphics card, user's guide, software CD, metal customization stickers, and a power cable.

ASUS' high-end graphics cards are perennially the popular choice among PC enthusiasts, when you take out the card out of the box you can already get a sense of why that is. This beast isn't just filled with quality components, the whole package certainly feels premium.  It is immediately obvious that the gargantuan DirectCU II heatsink is 220% larger than reference, with ultra-phat 10mm copper heatpipes all encased in a metal shroud (not plastic).

One of the key features of the Strix GTX 980 is the 0dB Fan Technology, which keeps the fans off unless the GPU temperature reaches ~65ºC.  Paired with the huge heatsink and the amazingly efficient new Maxwell chip GM204, that threshold won't be reached easily.  When you run a benchmark (as you normally would do every time you get new hardware) then the twin fans will kick in whenever needed, even then, you can hardly hear them!  DirectCU II technology makes the card 30% cooler and three times quieter, unless you're playing a game involving turbines, get the fan noise out of the game.  At the rear of the PCB is the gorgeous brushed-metal ASUS back-plate, featured there intentionally since that is usually the side showing.  There are five choices of outputs: DVI, HDMI 2.0 and three DisplayPort 1.2 (four of which can be used concurrently).

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This card comes factory-overclocked to make you go faster than blazingly-fast. It is clocked at 1,279MHz (4.5% boost from 1,178MHz), with 4GB of GDDR5 RAM operating at 7,012MHz (effective) on the 256bit memory bus.  The 2048-core GPU is fed by the DIGI+ VRM with a 10-phase power design, high-quality super-alloy capacitors and chokes.  ASUS has not factory-overclocked aggressively, much thought has been put into a balanced design, focusing on minimizing under-load noise and heat, while also improving power efficiency, although if you choose to overclock some more (of course you do, and not just some), there is still plenty of headroom; enough to please the most extreme enthusiast - as proven by those 3DMark records.  In other words, ASUS didn't just slap on a chunky heatsink then push the clock speed up as high as possible.  The PCB is very similar to the Strix 970.

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This dual-slot card is 288.6mm x 134.4mm x 40.9mm in size. There is plenty of power overhead from the 6-pin and an 8-pin power connectors. 

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If you compare the Strix GTX980 (bottom) and the GTX 780 Ti (top), you can see they are almost identical in size. Both have brushed-metal backplates and metal shrouds, the heatsinks and heatpipes are kept in the same format since it works so well.  While the GTX 780 Ti used two 8-pin connectors, the Strix GTX 980 only requires a 6-pin and an 8-pin due to the efficiency of new technology. 

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The GTX 780 Ti has 2 DVI ports, 1 HDMI port and 1 DisplayPort, this time the GTX 980 has opted to go with 1 DVI port, 1 HDMI port and a trio of DisplayPorts, making it suitable for G-Sync surround if you wanted to use three PG278Q's together!

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Physically the ASUS ROG Matrix Platinum R9 290X measures 290.718 X 152.4 X 40.6 mm, the GTX 980 is 288.6mm x 134.4mm x 40.9mm in size, so the ROG R9 290X is slightly longer and taller.

 

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The ROG theme sets the Matrix Platinum apart visually from the Strix, along with its ROG colour-coded load indicator, actively displaying how much load the GPU has.  This is unique to the ROG hardware.

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All three cards are similar in size; they all utilize the DirectCU II cooling system for superior cooling, and they are all quality high-end cards with killer-looks.

 

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Here's ASUS GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II, Strix GTX 980 DirectCU II and ROG Matrix R9 290X Platinum side by side so you can see how they compare.