MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4G Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,634
MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4G Video Card Review - The MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4G video card has a factory overclock and the new Twin Frozr V cooling system. We'll push it to its highest custom overclock and pit it against the ASUS ROG R9 290X MATRIX Platinum overclocker, and determine the gaming bang for your buck. May the best card win.
 
Nice review! Hopefully AMD will release something at the first of the new year in that price bracket. AMD cards are getting so cheap you can almost compare a 290X CrossfireX to a single 980. I know the R9 290 CrossfireX is cheaper than a single GTX 980.
 
thanks for the review Grady, Brent, and Kyle. as you say in the conclusion the price drops of the 290X make it a really interesting choice. also i really like seeing overclock comparisons, keep them coming.

Thanks! Fixed. - Kyle
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Excellent review, I really like the Max OC vs Max OC making it into the reviews lately.

Nice overclock on that card! It definitely is a beast. Won across the board and that's impressive.
 
Yeah but this is [H} so nobody cares about fluff like efficiency or whatever. </typical response>
 
Good review, Grady.

Have you folks considered setting up a mechanism that allows readers to directly compare the test results on products that has been reviewed?
While I'm interested in how the MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4G compares to the ASUS ROG R9 290X MATRIX, I will also interested in how it compares to other 980-based cards that you review in the future.
If, for instance, you review the Asus Strix GeForce GTX 980, it'd be nice to be able to select the MSI and the Asus cards and directly compare the relevant stats.
 
Yes the 980 is hands down a better card, but for a few weeks now various non-reference 290X cards could be had for $300 (after MIR).

Not sure why the ROG card was evaluated against the 980. Why not compare the MSI 290X against the MSI 980? Isn't that more apples to apples? Just sayin. I mean yeah sure I'd rather have a 980 but for almost half the price I can live with some heat and power consumption considering the difference in performance is so close.
 
toddw said:
Not sure why the ROG card was evaluated against the 980. Why not compare the MSI 290X against the MSI 980? Isn't that more apples to apples? Just sayin. I mean yeah sure I'd rather have a 980 but for almost half the price I can live with some heat and power consumption considering the difference in performance is so close.
Click to expand...
Performance. The ROG 290X was [H]'s best performing 290X, so it is natural to pit it against the highest performing 980. Apples to apples.
 
Nice review and the conclusion could not be more spot on. While the MSI 980 earned its stripes, the 290X is a so much better value. Even more so considering you folks in north a freezing and the AMD could make your room toasty.
 
irokez85 said:
Why didn't You compare to overlocked 780ti?
Click to expand...

There is no reason to consider the 780Ti in the review due to cost. We have already done a bunch of 780 comparisons and I do not see the need to pay for the extra costs associated with adding those to reviews going forward. Given that we do NOT use canned benchmarks, it gobbles up quite a few resources when just adding a single card to compare.

gathagan said:
Have you folks considered setting up a mechanism that allows readers to directly compare the test results on products that has been reviewed?
Click to expand...

Since we keep updated drivers and game patches, most of the time reviews are not comparable due to updates. Some sites let you compare historical results from years, but these are all on different BIOS, drivers, and patches. Those are not updated.

toddw said:
Not sure why the ROG card was evaluated against the 980.
Click to expand...

Spelled our for your reading pleasure in the review, but you would have to read it to understand that.
 
Great card! fast cool and quiet. Well worth the few bucks extra. The OC power numbers on the 290X are just ugly.
 
Nice review as always but this doesn't make sense:

The ASUS ROG R9 290X MATRIX-P trumped the MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4G in power consumption. It drew 10W more while idling at 125W, while the MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4G only drew 115W. Under load it drew 465W, compared to 355W on the MSI 980. After overclocking the difference grew, with max power consumption rising to 617W. The MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4G drew only 378W at its highest point, and that was a spike, it generally performed around 350W.
Click to expand...

Seems like it should be the 980 Gaming trumping the 290X if it was indeed better.
 
I love that the reviews are done at a higher resolution. I always wait for [H] to come out with a review, especially since I am now running 6880x1440. Knowing what a card can do at 1920x1080 is pretty useless and scaling the data rarely pans out. It looks like 2 or more of these are in my near future.
 
Nice review, good to see MSI going well for both of the flagship nVidia cards.

Any chance for the 970 Gold edition review? :p
 
Any reason that the review gives a rating of gold [H], while the snippet/link to the review lists the result as only a silver [H] ?

Just curious....

:)
 
Picked up this card to toss in my aging system as a replacement for my sli gtx 670 setup

ItIts so nice to be back to a single card. Sli was fast, but it had so many issues with various games.

My PC is in a small room I made in my basement. In the summer it's not so bad because I have a vent that blasts from my central air, but in the winter I block the vent to avoid the hot air. Even still, the room got hot, close to 28c. Even at idle my PC and my server 28c is too hot for me. Gaming I had to use a big fan to help exhaust the heat out of the room.

Now, with the single 980, the room sits at 24c all times. I only really game Arma2 so it's not Gpu intensive, but it's so good on power that the fans hardly ever spin up on the card.
 
Droc said:
Picked up this card to toss in my aging system as a replacement for my sli gtx 670 setup

ItIts so nice to be back to a single card. Sli was fast, but it had so many issues with various games.

My PC is in a small room I made in my basement. In the summer it's not so bad because I have a vent that blasts from my central air, but in the winter I block the vent to avoid the hot air. Even still, the room got hot, close to 28c. Even at idle my PC and my server 28c is too hot for me. Gaming I had to use a big fan to help exhaust the heat out of the room.

Now, with the single 980, the room sits at 24c all times. I only really game Arma2 so it's not Gpu intensive, but it's so good on power that the fans hardly ever spin up on the card.
Click to expand...

Thinking of getting this card for my 2600K system as well. You have a lot of stuff in your sig, but what are you using to cool your overlocked 2600k? I've never overclocked mine, and was thinking of doubling the memory, overlocking the cpu, and adding this card to hold me over for a few more years. I know I'm going to need better than the stock cooler on my CPU though....
 
I have a first run Corsair h100 running with gentle typhoons.
The carbide 500r case is excellent aswell. I just use the auto overclocked on my motherboard run at 4.5ghz and the cooler keeps things nice and cool.

I haven't run the 980 through anything major yet aside from a few min in star citizen. But even then the card never topped 48c on default fan profile.
 
Card is awsome! Went from 670 sli to this single power house. Very smooth! :D

Happy I did it.
 
Last edited:
I was gonna wait for msi 970gtx Golden Edition, but it has been OOS for a while. I went and order this one instead and the review made it more easier for me to choose this as I upgrade my card every 2yrs.
 
I have two of these and I cant believe that I am able to use my Corsair 750w Gold PSU without any issues.
 
TroyX said:
I have two of these and I cant believe that I am able to use my Corsair 750w Gold PSU without any issues.
Click to expand...
I cant believe you would think it would be a problem. Unless you have some insanely power hungry cpu then you are likely only using 550 watts tops under full system load.
 
misterbobby said:
I cant believe you would think it would be a problem. Unless you have some insanely power hungry cpu then you are likely only using 550 watts tops under full system load.
Click to expand...

They recommend 850w PSU minimum for reference 980's in SLI and I have non reference cards that run OC'D 1350mhz out of the box.
 
TroyX said:
They recommend 850w PSU minimum for reference 980's in SLI and I have non reference cards that run OC'D 1350mhz out of the box.
Click to expand...
I can just copy and paste what I already said. lol

My entire system peaks at 340 watts at the wall in Crysis 3 with my 980 running at 1500/7800. Plus that game is hitting my cpu harder than just about any other game. 340 watts at the wall is right around 300 actual watts being used.

Plus you can look at the overclocked SLI review here and they used 589 watts at the wall. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...980_sli_overclocked_gpu_review/6#.VJDfZtXF-PU

You have a good quality PSU so dont worry unless you have a very power hungry cpu.
 
Finally got mine from Amazon yesterday, after almost two months of waiting for stock. It was worth the wait. Came up from a MSI Twin Frozr II R6870, which served me extremely well.

But it's good to be green again. :D
 
I just picked up one of these cards. I was actually going to go with a 970, but was able to get one of these NIB for $490 shipped. Only $110 more than the Gigabyte 970, so I bit. Man, it's a thing of beauty. And it's so nice to be able to play everything at max settings again with no issues and buttery smooth. A very nice upgrade from my 680.
 
officer921 said:
I just picked up one of these cards. I was actually going to go with a 970, but was able to get one of these NIB for $490 shipped. Only $110 more than the Gigabyte 970, so I bit. Man, it's a thing of beauty. And it's so nice to be able to play everything at max settings again with no issues and buttery smooth. A very nice upgrade from my 680.
Click to expand...

Damn that was a good price on a great card. Enjoy :)
 
officer921 said:
I just picked up one of these cards. I was actually going to go with a 970, but was able to get one of these NIB for $490 shipped. Only $110 more than the Gigabyte 970, so I bit. Man, it's a thing of beauty. And it's so nice to be able to play everything at max settings again with no issues and buttery smooth. A very nice upgrade from my 680.
Click to expand...

I just overclocked both my GTX 980 gaming in SLI
to
1451 boost
7660 mem

not going for crazy clocks . I like stability..
 
Just picked one of these up on a Black Friday special of $560CAD after MIR, hopefully it still holds its water with the 980ti out. Seems as though the 980 still has a higher performance/$ over the ti and frankly I can't afford the ti :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top