ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum Video Card Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum Video Card Review - The highest overclocked GeForce GTX 980 based video card just landed. If the ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum video card with a hybrid air and liquid cooling system doesn't impress you, we are not sure what will when it comes to GPU. We push the Poseidon clocks and pit it against the AMD Radeon R9 290X for an ultimate showdown.
 
Kicking ass and taking names! That's a BEAST of a card and the premium is well worth it in my opinion. That Swiftech cooler is looking really tasty too. I agree that it would be the perfect compliment to a system featuring this video card.
 
Do those types of coolers really work better than the reference blower?
 
schizrade said:
Do those types of coolers really work better than the reference blower?
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On liquid cooling the advantage is about 80MHz on the core and 100 MHz on the memory over a reference cooler.
The big advantage is the fan speed is 26% with a 50 degree temperature on the maximum overclock, versus 100% fan speed with a 64 degree maximum temperature on a reference cooler.
 
I didn't see the water channel material mentioned; can you tell us what it is and if/what the plating is?

On the one hand, a premium card such as this is surely using a quality, non-corrosive material for the water channel, so I shouldn't worry about flaking or corrosion...BUT that's a good selling point and their marketing people are only noting the G 1/4" fittings (as if they'd be anything else?) so maybe they don't have anything good to say about their material...

Help me, Brent Justice.
 
Brent needs to BIOs mod the card and kill off that TDP cap. Let us know what it can really do. :D
 
AMD needs that 390x to be here yesterday. I can hit 1580 MHz on both my EVGA cards on air w/a bit of extra volts on stock bios. Well so much for the "290x is only 5-10% slower than 980" b.s. we've heard for so long.
 
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5150Joker said:
AMD needs that 390x to be here yesterday. I can hit 1580 MHz on both my EVGA cards on air w/a bit of extra volts on stock bios. Well so much for the "290x is only 5-10% slower than 980" b.s. we've heard for so long.
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According to the [H] OC vs OC review that Brent did the 980 is 24.x% faster on average. That was ref 980 vs custom cooled 290x.

Hopefully they demo the 390x tomorrow?
 
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I just wish Asus would recess the fittings on their Poseidon cards to make them fit well in more cases. If they did that, it'd probably be one of my next video cards. Hopefully we see something like that for GM200.
 
Nicepants42 said:
I didn't see the water channel material mentioned; can you tell us what it is and if/what the plating is?
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Question is in to ASUS HQ in China. Should have an answer in a bit.

CrazyRob said:
I just wish Asus would recess the fittings on their Poseidon cards to make them fit well in more cases. If they did that, it'd probably be one of my next video cards. Hopefully we see something like that for GM200.
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That or we need to see some sort of elbow, possibly with a swivel there.
 
Amazing review! I definitely would love to own this card! Props to Asus for pushing the envelope once again and not leaving anything on the table!
 
5150Joker said:
AMD needs that 390x to be here yesterday. I can hit 1580 MHz on both my EVGA cards on air w/a bit of extra volts on stock bios. Well so much for the "290x is only 5-10% slower than 980" b.s. we've heard for so long.
Click to expand...

Agreed. AMD is getting demolished right now. It would be hard to justify buying an AMD card right now if I needed one given the performance gap right now between the two. AMD had the price/performance advantage by and large I found with the Kepler cards, but the 970 has rendered their entire offering obsolete (even with 3.5GB of RAM), and the 980 just makes the differences painful!
 
We all know that is not the top end 290x card vs a really top end 980GTX.. bring the Lighting up please..
 
Nice review. I'm a sucker for the ROG branded hardware.
 
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Now I'm curious about how their hybrid cooling solution compares to a full waterblock.
 
surfhick said:
Now I'm curious about how their hybrid cooling solution compares to a full waterblock.
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I think with a full cover block you'd gain a few more C lower temps. With my GTX 780 overclocked to 1.3GHz core load temperature is 42C. It should be using more power than the 980 even in the highly overclocked run in the [H] review.

For cooling, I have a pair of 360mm Swiftech MCR320, six Gentle Typhoon AP-14, and also in the loop is my 2600K at 4.8GHz. Full gaming load from the wall is about 400w maximum.

In the [H] review, Brent uses a shitty Koolance Exos 2 which is a 2x120 aluminum radiator.
 
Nice review.
Nice GPU. Crazy overclocks.
I would like to see what a real cooling set-up might offer in the way of temp. I don't think this will ever get close to a full cover solid copper block, no matter how you shake it.

Definitely a niche product.
 
Nicepants42 said:
I didn't see the water channel material mentioned; can you tell us what it is and if/what the plating is?
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Waterchannel = Copper plated with Nickel.

Connector = Brass plated with Nickel.
 
Here's an apples-to-apples pricing comparison:

One ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum at $640 vs one XFX R9 295X2 for $600 after $30 MIR at Newegg. The 295X2 should easily outperform the 980 while being $40 less expensive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150710

I don't understand why [H] keeps hating on AMD in their reviews. AMD is still the way to go to get the best performance for your money.


edit - I'm not saying the 980 isn't an exceptionally performing card, because it is. But it also has an exceptionally high price tag on it when compared to the 290 or 290X. Is 25% higher performance really worth a 100% higher price tag? The Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290X Tri-X OC is currently available at Newegg for $340 after a $20 MIR. That's nearly half the price of the ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum.
 
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Dunno if the price dropped overnight or what, but that Sapphire can be had for 339 aft rebate over at newegg, a far cry from 400.

Edit:Ninja'd...

To add to the post though, for maximum performance from this 980 you've also got to factor in the price of the water cooling system you're going to be using. That Koolance unit runs $300, the AIO recommended in the conclusion is $150. Assuming you'd also use it on the CPU, that's still an effective $150 or $75 dollar additional cost to get the best out of the 980 if you're starting from scratch, which brings the effective cost of the card to over $700.

Obviously if you've already got water cooler it's going to be much less expensive to just add this to the loop, just gotta spend a few bucks on extra fittings and tube.

Still a fantastic design, but all that money adds up.
 
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Are you guys really forgetting the prices of the AMD cards when launch?.. when the SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X R9 290X TRI-X was launched it was also over 600$.. in fact.. in This review in August 01 2014 the price of the card was actually 627.97$..

[H] always take the prices into consideration at the moment of the evaluation of a card. and the fact that they also decided to overclock the hell out of the 290X to compare vs the Poseidon GTX 980 its a nice plus as it was greatly requested by the users and at the end of the day if they didn't compared the overclocked 290X a lot of people would also cry saying "oh why the hate to AMD [H]? why you don't overclock the 290X and compare? you will see the 290X extend its legs and compete vs the GTX 980" and a lot blah blah blah... but 4K blah blah blah.. but 512bit blah blah blah.... and even when they made the Gigabyte GTX 980 G1, they also tested vs the 290X in crossfire taken the price in mind..

Remember that this is a card review.. it wasn't a best bang for the buck comparison, etc... as said in the review the 290X have 1.5 Years in the market and received a hit from the GTX 780TI which caused to drop the prices, and now received a hit from the GTX 970 and the GTX 980 which also forced a lot of price drop.. the price drop was to keep the card competitive not because AMD decided to be good samaritans and angelical people.. they are forced to reduce their profit in order to keep competitive do not forget that.. could you guys compare how a GTX 980 review compared vs the 1500$ 295x2 if that was the actual price?..
 
Jaquile said:
Dunno if the price dropped overnight or what, but that Sapphire can be had for 339 aft rebate over at newegg, a far cry from 400.
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It was not in stock and showed no pricing at Newegg when we published yesterday morning, I checked.

Creig said:
I don't understand why [H] keeps hating on AMD in their reviews. AMD is still the way to go to get the best performance for your money.
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And if we would have done a R9 295X comparo then there would have be been droves of people arguing CrossFire vs single card is unfair.

It is what it is, a single card review. I think our readers are smart enough to know how to count their money.

That all said a R9 295X would be a good comparison as well.

We only have so many resources. If we just used canned benchmarks we could crank out multiple comparisons in every review. But that is not the case.
 
If people can't discern value from the numbers you are providing then that is their problem, not a fault of your reviews. You're just giving us data and your opinions, but value is subjective to each individual.
 
Creig said:
Here's an apples-to-apples pricing comparison:

One ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum at $640 vs one XFX R9 295X2 for $600 after $30 MIR at Newegg. The 295X2 should easily outperform the 980 while being $40 less expensive.
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that will annoy Nvidia fans!! They want to see their beloved GTX980 fastest on the charts!!......:p

It is not surprising to see GTX980 faster than 290x. As the review has mentioned, 290x was launched 1.5yrs ago.

This is part and parcel of technology. Its an endless quest for higher performance. 390x is coming soon and I bet it will be faster than GTX980.
 
Btw, hardocp should include 295 X2 into the review since it cost as much as the GTX 980....
 
Am I missing something here? Fastest factory OCed 980? My reference cooler EVGA 980 SC runs at 1342 on it's own, in fact every 980 SC from EVGA runs at those clocks. EVGA seems to have the highest clocks on their SC/Classified cards every generation compared to other vendors?
 
idmanotic said:
Btw, hardocp should include 295 X2 into the review since it cost as much as the GTX 980....
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That card depends on Crossfire therefore it would have to be compared to 980 SLI. This review was about a specific single GPU card's performance vs it's top AMD single GPU competition and AMD got creamed.
 
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idmanotic said:
Btw, hardocp should include 295 X2 into the review since it cost as much as the GTX 980....
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Well as you all know, we have NEVER done a follow up review of any kind to show more comparisons. It is a damn shame we are never thorough here at HardOCP, especially when it comes to GPU.
 
at the end of the day it has an Asus badge on it and in that price range i want a warranty i can trust, Asus hasn't delivered that since the pre-TNT2 days on its video card line.
 
Compddd said:
Am I missing something here? Fastest factory OCed 980? My reference cooler EVGA 980 SC runs at 1342 on it's own, in fact every 980 SC from EVGA runs at those clocks. EVGA seems to have the highest clocks on their SC/Classified cards every generation compared to other vendors?
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That may be true.....but EVGA hasn't been seen here since a motherboard review about 2 years ago.

EVGA does not come here. I don't think they are welcome, or something like that.
There's some history.;)
 
Putz said:
at the end of the day it has an Asus badge on it and in that price range i want a warranty i can trust, Asus hasn't delivered that since the pre-TNT2 days on its video card line.
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Yup.
 
Creig said:
Here's an apples-to-apples pricing comparison:

One ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum at $640 vs one XFX R9 295X2 for $600 after $30 MIR at Newegg. The 295X2 should easily outperform the 980 while being $40 less expensive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150710

I don't understand why [H] keeps hating on AMD in their reviews. AMD is still the way to go to get the best performance for your money.


edit - I'm not saying the 980 isn't an exceptionally performing card, because it is. But it also has an exceptionally high price tag on it when compared to the 290 or 290X. Is 25% higher performance really worth a 100% higher price tag? The Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290X Tri-X OC is currently available at Newegg for $340 after a $20 MIR. That's nearly half the price of the ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum.
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I wouldn't say that they are hating . They are showing the facts of an out of the box card. Out of the box, easily available retail card.

A more fair comparison would be an out of the box water cooled 290. I don't think anyone makes one. Powercolor made a 7970 with an EK block that cost the same as the Asus Poseidon. I'm still running that card in Crossfire with another air cooled 7970 that I got for $100. I'm getting similar fps as the Poseidon in BF4, at eyefinity resolution, albeit with an aging system.

Very cool to see retail cards with out of the box water cooling. Hopefully, Asus has done a quality nickel plate on the water channel that won't flake and corrode an existing cooling system.
 
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Creig said:
Here's an apples-to-apples pricing comparison:

One ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum at $640 vs one XFX R9 295X2 for $600 after $30 MIR at Newegg. The 295X2 should easily outperform the 980 while being $40 less expensive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150710

I don't understand why [H] keeps hating on AMD in their reviews. AMD is still the way to go to get the best performance for your money.


edit - I'm not saying the 980 isn't an exceptionally performing card, because it is. But it also has an exceptionally high price tag on it when compared to the 290 or 290X. Is 25% higher performance really worth a 100% higher price tag? The Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290X Tri-X OC is currently available at Newegg for $340 after a $20 MIR. That's nearly half the price of the ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum.
Click to expand...

from a price standpoint, the comparison between the two cards is completely valid, and one that i wouldn't mind seeing.

however, the 295x2 will suffer from issues with xfire in many games, some games even being completely broken in xfire, while a single gtx980 won't have any of those issues, so in that respect, it's not a valid comparison.

in a perfect world, then yes, a 295x2 should beat out a single gtx980 (regardless of price), but due to the issues with xfire, it still won't do it in all games.

and your comments on AMD being the best for the money is not valid, as that is a completely subjective statement.

if you completely ignore the power draw and extra heat that the AMD puts out, focusing solely on the performance per $, then that may be valid. but on the other hand, if you consider the power draw and heat output all part of the performance of the card, along with the raw horsepower that it possesses, then the gtx 9xx series is arguably a much better value for the money.

there is no "best", there's only what's best for each person individually, and what they want/expect out of it.

and btw, i'm no nvidia fanboy....my last few cards before my gtx970 were AMD, because that is what offered me the best value at the time i purchased them. it just so happens that the gtx970 was the better value for me this time around. if AMD comes out with something that's better than nvidia when it's time to upgrade again, i'll happily switch back.
 
First I would like to say Best Review in a long time! This kind of review needs to happen a little more often. Does the [H] have a reviewer in the house that can take the cards up a notch? I would be very interested in reading what can actually be done with the cards with a pencil or light volt mod with software or hardware.

Possibly call it the [H]ard core corner. A place for enthusiast level hardware mods that we could do with out an engineering degree.

I believe the [H] used to dabble in things like this years ago doing simple but effective mods to really see what your hardware can do with a little T.L.C ;)

P.S. Here is a link to a simple hardware T.D.P bypass for all who wish to Exercise their inner [Hardness]. I believe they are using conductive paint across the shunt resistors to raise the T.D.P level.
Nice write up, pictures and theory with explanations about it all.
Enjoy :)
http://overclocking.guide/increase-the-nvidia-power-limit-all-cards/
 
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