Home Gaming ASUS turns the GTX 980 up to eleven

ASUS turns the GTX 980 up to eleven

2 min read
34

Asus20header

Right up until Nvidia’s Titan X became a thing, its GTX 980 was its premium enthusiast-level card. Based on the company’s Maxwell GM204 core (the same one that powers its 970), the card packs  2048 CUDA Cores, 128 TMUs and 64 ROPs. It also has 4 GB (No, really!) of GDDR5 memory running across a 256-bit interface. It’s rather powerful card, with a rather hefty price tag. Not content, Asus has turned the 980 to 11 with its new 20th Anniversary Gold Edition GeForce GTX 980 – which marks the company’s 20th year making graphics cards.

It features a custom-designed PCB, some swanky cooling – and a rather substantial factory overclock. The core clocks are maintained at 1317 MHz (reference) and 1431 MHz (boost) frequencies, which borders on the insane for a factory clock – but Maxwell is rather efficient, and well suited to clocks that high.  Memory clocks remain untouched at  7 GHz, but the extra cooling afforded by ASUS design allow tinkerers to push it to 8GHZ.

Here are the specs at a glance:

ASUS GeForce GTX 980 20th Anniversary Gold Edition Specifications:

  • Nvidia GTX 980 GPU with 1317/1421 MHz GPU Boost Clock
  • 4GB, 7010 MHz (effective) GDDR5
  • 3 x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI, 1x dual-link DVI-I display outputs
  • DirectCU II with 0dB fan technology
  • ROG color-coded load Indicator
  • ROG Edition GPU Tweak
  • DirectCU II cooler with CoolTech fan, 10mm matt-black heatpipes
  • Extreme OC Features: Memory Defroster, Safe Mode,
  • DIGI+ VRM power control with 14-phase Super Alloy Power and Black Metallic capacitors.

We have no idea what the thing will cost, though the current estimates say about $600, excluding US sales tax. While that may equate to about R8000 in direct conversion, it’s far more likely we’d see the card retail locally for at least double that – which, much like Asus’ own GTX 980 Matrix, doesn’t make a great deal of market sense.

It’s an especially hard sell given that there could be – as rumours suggest – a new GTX 980Ti, based off of the GM200 that powers that Titan X. Rumoured specs for that include the full 3,074 CUDA cores and 6GB of RAM, coming in at a similar price point. Still, it’s hard to deny that it is one heck of a sexy card…like a 980 Matrix with a dash of bling.

Last Updated: April 1, 2015

34 Comments

  1. Corrie

    April 1, 2015 at 13:08

    Lies that ain’t Gold!!!

    Also to celebrate Nvidia will bundle more F2P currency incentives than ever before

    Reply

  2. Ranting Raptor

    April 1, 2015 at 13:14

    That’s a smexy looking card

    Reply

  3. FoxOneZA

    April 1, 2015 at 13:14

    ASUS, Meh,

    *sprays my Radeon Gold*

    Reply

    • George MUffins

      April 1, 2015 at 13:17

      Meh all you want but you can’t hide that erection

      Reply

      • Ranting Raptor

        April 1, 2015 at 13:24

        • Ranting Raptor

          April 1, 2015 at 13:32

          Getit? It’s red? He’s stroking it? It’s like it’s his Radeon? No?

          Reply

          • Pariah

            April 1, 2015 at 13:34

            How do you know when a joke is a swing and a miss?

          • Lord Chaos

            April 1, 2015 at 13:37

            When Rants posts a gif?

          • Pariah

            April 1, 2015 at 13:39

            LOL!

          • Ranting Raptor

            April 1, 2015 at 14:17

            Pretty much yeah

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            April 1, 2015 at 13:45

            When Rince tries to make one.

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            April 1, 2015 at 13:45

            You know he… burnt it all down, right? #justsayin

          • Ranting Raptor

            April 1, 2015 at 14:18

            Coz it’s so hot? #groan
            #ThatWasTeribad

  4. Greylingad

    April 1, 2015 at 13:23

    Holy mother of everything relating to sanity… Sixteen thousand rand estimate…. Might as well have said “The same price as a McClaren P1″…it’s exactly the same thing….

    Reply

    • Pariah

      April 1, 2015 at 13:24

      For R2k more you can buy a Titan X.

      In both cases, why?

      Reply

      • Lord Chaos

        April 1, 2015 at 13:27

        Idiots and their money?

        Reply

      • Greylingad

        April 1, 2015 at 13:29

        I don’t understand it either, I think to make any sense out of this we should refer to the idea of 4k, which is still highly unaffordable, but lets say you happen to stumble accross one of these cards (because let’s face it, unless we forcefully remove one from someone else’s hands we’ll probably never even see one…) how much will it help on a 1080p screen, which is currently the accepted standard, from there the next step gets unaffordable again… These are very niche cards…

        Reply

        • Pariah

          April 1, 2015 at 13:32

          You can SLI 2 GTX 980’s and get way better performance, for the same cost.

          Niche is I think a bit too widespread.

          Reply

          • Greylingad

            April 1, 2015 at 13:53

            By the year 2050 nVidia will be having a party, to which it’ll invite all of the famous people around the world, celebrities from every corner of the world will bear witness to the first man ever, in the history of mankind, to be able to afford a Titan X

          • Lord Chaos

            April 1, 2015 at 13:55

            I’ll buy one.

            Right after I buy a Scottish castle and a golden Lambo

          • Pariah

            April 1, 2015 at 13:56

            Not sure about the lambo, but the castle for sure.

          • Lord Chaos

            April 1, 2015 at 13:57

            More highlighting the amount of excess involved.

          • Pariah

            April 1, 2015 at 13:59

            I’ll go Porsche. 5 of them. 1) Platinum, 2) Gold, 3) Diamonds, 4)Diamonds in Platinum, 5) Diamonds in Gold.

          • Greylingad

            April 1, 2015 at 13:58

            Would that be an Aventador or a Hurrican?

          • Lord Chaos

            April 1, 2015 at 14:00

            Screw it all, Let’s make it a sesto elemento and make it 79 elemento

          • Greylingad

            April 1, 2015 at 14:02

            Good Lord… Yes! Why not!?

          • B4d R0b0t

            April 2, 2015 at 09:51

            What shocked me was finding out we at ASUS got ten Titan X cards allocated to South Africa, they were sold out in 4 days…..

          • Greylingad

            April 2, 2015 at 10:45

            Sheesh…well that’s one happy sale!

  5. Travis

    April 1, 2015 at 13:29

    Im sure Kromas is drunk with power!, will have 4 of these in A SLI configuration in his PC.

    Reply

  6. Blood Emperor Trevor

    April 1, 2015 at 13:31

    I bet the cabbages are looking at that thinking, “man, that’d look great hanging around my neck!”

    Reply

  7. Matthew Holliday

    April 1, 2015 at 13:48

  8. DJSkippy

    April 1, 2015 at 15:35

  9. Axon1988

    April 2, 2015 at 08:05

    WTF is memory defroster?

    Reply

  10. HairyEwok

    April 2, 2015 at 09:08

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Asus Strix Scope TKL mechanical keyboard review – Hello handsome

The Asus Strix Scope TKL hits all the right notes for what you'd expect from a tenkeyless …