Reddit mentions of EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB SC GAMING, Silent Cooling Graphics Card 06G-P4-4992-KR

I bought the cards on the cheap off a friend who decided to go with 2 Fury X's instead, and the cards were these reference cards with ACX 2.0 coolers. I wanted liquid cooling, so I bought and bolted on a pair of Hybrid kits for them. They were still almost $200 cheaper each after that, so I was really happy with it.

But since they had the non-reference cooler, the shrouds wouldn't even fit on the cards. I like the bare look more anyway.

edit: and fortunately I found they were both pretty good overclockers!

u/eqwoody is right , I have the EVGA Reference card and it fit beautifully inside.
I bought this one. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YDAYOJG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00

I'm new to this sub, but I was wondering why you're buying a GPU that's $1000 instead of one that's $660. Is EVGA and MSI that much of a difference?

Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Seems like a small diff.

980ti - $670

980ti VR edition - $699

Gear that we purchased and not gear that came out in 2015?

• Well in that case... I got 2 Dedolights and used them on almost every shoot I've had. Not only are they so small it's easy to hide them, but they are so damn versatile with an on board dimmer.
  
  
• Also just switched from a Zoom H4n to the Tascam DR-70D. Much more practical for what I do and mounting my A7S on it has made it great for finally getting internal XLR audio.
  
  
• I took advice from film riot and did this thing here for DIY beadboard. It's now my go to thing to use for lighting interviews.
  
  
• Since I'm usually a one man band, I retired my Manfrotto roller bag for a cheaper more convenient Lowpro backpack. Fits everything I need besides a tripod/monopod.
  
  EDIT: Not sure if it counts, but I built a new PC and the GTX 980 TI has made rendering and exporting a breeze
  

I didnt forget this btw. I just got busy with work and the R18 announcement and siggraph.

Basically - card selection is a a bit of a crapshoot when you get into 3 and 4 cards. Nothing is really perfect. Well - no. there's one almost perfect solution, but its expensive and requires a fair bit of knowhow.

also - preface:

When I talk about "GPU's" I mean the actual processing unit on the card itself. But I might use "board" and "card" interchangeably, and I might mean the actual PCB (printed circuit board) or the overall product with the processing unit and cooler and everything. If its confusing just ask me to clarify :)

To your questions! -

> what the heck is the difference between these two cards?

The actual cards TBH are more or less the same. I mean... they'd both have different board layouts and they obviously have different coolers but the actual Graphics Processing Unit is identical. The Superclocked one is overclocked from the factory... but so is the hybrid. Basically - the "better" coolers (and sometimes better power delivery) than the reference design from nvidia allows them to clock the GPUs higher, so they boost higher and run faster.

The thing is - if you truely plan on going to more than 2 cards, you shouldnt buy either of these. The ACX cooler is an 'open-air" cooler that will dump all the hot air from the GPU and board back into your case. most of the time, people are only running one or two cards, so its not a huge issue, especially if your case has alot of airflow.

but as soon as you go to 3, and especially 4 cards, the problem becomes twofold.... one - the top 3 cards in the stack are going to be starved for air, because the 4 16x pcie slots are spaced apart so that the cards are almost touching on a standard motherboard. Open air coolers like the ACX require you to have alot of airflow around the card to get optimal cooling, and only the bottom GPU in a 4 way stack is totally free to get fresh air. and then, the second is obviously heat. You'll raise the temp in the case alot with 4 open-air GPU coolers like the ACX.

The Hybrid is better in that it takes the heat to the rad and you can exhaust the heat from the case.... but again, that only makes sense again in a single or dual config. but as soon as you go up to 3 and 4, where do you put all the rads? and if youre exhausting 4 cards, youre going to need some beefy intakes to maintain positive air pressure in your case.... positive pressure is where your case is drawing in more air than its exhausting - which is important to keep dust out. I suppose you could do two exhaust and 2 intake. but you'd still have the rad problem.

Anyway - Most computers that have 3 or 4 GPUs use Blower style coolers, Basically the reference cooler. They're designed to exhaust the air out the back of the card, so its not adding heat to your system.... and it gets around the cards being so close together - they dont need a tonne of airflow to perform as designed. But the reference coolers arent perfect either - the GPUs themselves will generally run hotter than on the open air coolers. which again - isnt really a problem where you're playing games on them, since games wont tax the GPU to 100% all the time.... but that is a concern with octane, where youre basically blasting the GPU to 100% consistently. Because the blowers will run the GPUs hotter and you're running them at 100% for hours and hours and hours consistently, the lifespan of the GPU is going to drop. You're alot more likely to burnout a GPU using a blower cooler on octane.

but as a side - it wont burnout in like 6 months. we're still talking years... like in 3 years instead of 5 years or somthing. and by then you may want to upgrade anyway. so it might not be a huge concern, but i just thought i'd inform you so you can be aware.

>Also, when you get up to a 4 GPU machine, are there things I need to worry about

Well the PCPartpicker link you sent me, directs me to my current PC part picker list XD

for a second I was like: This build looks incredibly familiar....

but i'll try to answer your questions anyway -

You wont get diminishing returns on rendering performance, octane scales almost linearly. so 4 cards will be basically 4 times faster than 1 card.

I dunno what PSU you selected, or what your expansion plans are, but if you want to just be able to buy and run 4 980ti's and a high end CPU and stuff, youre looking at a 1300+ Watt PSU. probably 1500 is better. if you buy anything lower, you'll have to buy a new PSU as you expand to 4 cards.

and since I cant see your CPU coolers, I dunno what to tell ya.

Hopefully that was helpful. sorry about the wall of text (as usual)

My bad, I thought you could but reference designed cards from EVGA and other manufacturers as seen here. If I decide this is the route I decide to go I'll PM you and we can timestamp and make everything official before shipping and everything.

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Cooling-Graphics-06G-P4-4992-KR/dp/B00YDAYOJG/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1453073075&sr=1-6&keywords=evga+980ti

I have this card and it's silent as fuck.

I searched Amazon didn't find anything that cheap. Unless your talking about used, then yes maybe you can find one that cheap.

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-GAMING-GTX-980TI-6G/dp/B0106QZE62

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Cooling-Graphics-06G-P4-4992-KR/dp/B00YDAYOJG

EVGA GTX 980 4GB SC 04G-P4-2982-KR (newegg

EVGA GTX 980 4GB SC 04G-P4-2983-KR (newegg

EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB SC GAMING 06G-P4-4992-KR (amazon

Maybe a stupid question, but I have this 980Ti, how/is is possible to OC that card?