Gigabyte Graphics Cards GV-N980G1 GAMING-4GD

I purchased this card right when it first came out and have had it about 2.5 months. The review from every tech site was GLOWWWWWING on this one. I mean quietness, power consumption and most of all overclocking. It met all expectations for everything except overclocking. While I understand tech reviewers get cherry-picked GPUs to make the manufacturer product look better than they actually are, my GPU would not overclock past what Gigabyte provided. What's worse is that it would FREEZE OCCASIONALLY AT STOCK CLOCKS and at room temperature or hotter (75+ degrees F). I would get a NVKLLM driver error or audio would cut out followed by a system freeze or the game and the OS would freeze entirely. This was playing old unreal 3 engine-based games, civilizations, battlefield anything so it was not anything specific. Folks if it sounds like I'm nit-picking its because you are not a gamer. The only reason to pay a premium over a stock 980 is for the overclocking potential. If it does not overclock go elsewhere MSI, EVGA, ZOTAC< ASUS, etc. My previous ASUS which was not as well-built overclocked nicely. Remember folks it does not matter how big the heat-sink is, the capacitors used, the military components onboard, etc. if in the end it cannot do what you bought it to do. I rolled the dice on this one vs. the ASUS products that I usually get and got jipped on this one. I am probably going to sell this card and get the 8GB version when it comes out of if the AMD 390s are much faster turn to one of those.

Coming off a pair of Gigabyte Windforce GTX670's in SLI I had some good faith in Gigabyte and looked to upgrade as I am running 5760x1080 on 3 monitors with NVIDIA surround with an accessory 4th monitor. Reducing the complexity, noise, and inherent problems of SLI was one of the drivers for upgrading this card along with the forthcoming support for the DK2 to decrease latency. The card does not disappoint, it is a large card, but not huge, pretty much the same same size as my old 670's (a hair wider and longer). I have a full size case so this does not matter. The amount of memory is great, I went from having 2GB (Since SLI only uses one card's memory) to having 4GB, latency, tearing, and stuttering are all gone. Card speed is amazing, I have tried to tax it but nothing I play (E:D and sim racing titles) do not really push it. I wanted a card that could last for a couple years and it should as it is as good or better than a 780TI which is a couple hundred more expensive. One of the main reasons why I wanted to purchase the Gigabyte over a stock 980 was the outputs, 6!!! So while it can only use four of those, it switches automatically for those that are plugged in. Since I have surround with the DK2 this enables me to be flexible for what type of connector I want to use instead of having to get a bunch of adapters or upgrade my monitors to support my card. Great card, quiet, cool, powerful, great bang for the buck. The 970 is cheaper, but if you want raw power I think the 980 is worth it (I only buy a graphics card every couple years). If I need to in the future I might look at upgrading to a SLI with the 980 but I have yet to find a reason for that yet. Also as you tax a video card it will automatically scale back to cool off, the windforce with its 600W of cooling ability ensures that no matter what I throw at this card, it will be one cool fast beasty!

Great video card that can max all the games that I currently play. On idle it's pretty silent as the fans go down to 12%, on load they don't spin up high enough to be audible over my case noise dampening and other fans and the hottest the card has gotten is 66C in a pretty warm room. The first one I got seemed to have had the backplate attached to the pcb too hard in manufacturing and was bent at that point, so I returned it and the second card was much better. It boosts to 1380mhz in games without any overclocking done by me so far. The card is pretty long so I ran the power cables above it to give it a bit of extra support. Overall I'm very happy with this gpu and I know it'll let me game in ease for a long time to come. I took off one star for a slight electronic buzz that the card emits, that I can only hear if the room is completely silent and my ear is close enough to it. I should point out this was present in the first card I got with the bent pcb, but is much less intense with my current one.

On arrival we had to underclock the memory in order for the GPU to be stable. This was okay at first since the product was cheaper than other offers and the underclock was minimal. But as time has gone on the card has become more unstable and we are constantly having to underclock the memory more and more to the point it is affecting it's ability to run games at all. We assumed at first that it had to be a problem with our own PC so didn't follow through with the return. Only after the 30 day warranty expire did we have to start increasing the underclock beyond what we needed it to on day 1. Still it was a competitive buy so I haven't complained. But it has gotten to the point where I can't get the memory low enough without causing other problems. There is no doubt that this issue would have been obvious before it was shipped to me. I have tried it on MULTIPLE PC's now and am having to underclock to the exact megahertz in order to keep it going well enough. This has been horribly disappointing given the price I paid for the item. I have found no way to justify having bought this. However I try. I wanted to give you a second doubt but that only exasperated the issue. You would have known the card was faulty. Which I assume is why it was priced the way it was. You could have atleast told me at what level I could have expected it to be stable. If you had any intention of being transparent at all. But you were lucky enough to get just the right kind of sap who didn't return it first thing.

I purchased the G1 Gaming 980 to install in my maxed-out gaming rig. i7 4790K, water cooling, etc. This is a BEAST of a card. It destroys both benchmarks and games. I mainly play WOW, Dying Light, and BF4. The stock G1 Gaming 980 can easily push 60+ FPS on each of those at 2560x1440 with maxed-out graphics settings. There's not really much more to say in terms of performance - if you're looking at this card, you already know that it's top-of-the-line. It'll handle anything you throw at it short of full 4k max-graphics gaming, and was perfect for my needs. The card itself also looks great. Before purchasing this card, please do check your case specifications to make sure this thing will actually fit, as it's enormously long. The three-fan setup works wonders, and keeps my card under 70C even under 100% load for several hours during long gaming and Folding@Home sessions. So why only three stars? The performance is fantastic, yes. But the coil whine is unacceptable. Not every G1 980 has this problem, but mine certainly does. It doesn't make any noise when I'm not pushing the system to its limits - it handles Netflix and other rudimentary tasks with ease - but as soon as I launch a game, the card starts whining loud enough to hear over a battery of case fans and ambient noise. I can even hear it through my Turtle Beach headphones, which is really quite annoying. It's a high-pitched, headache-inducing buzzing sound, and there's nothing you can do to stop it from happening if your card has the whine problem. This is a great card in terms of its performance. But I'd recommend looking to another brand if you're considering a 980. I have nothing against Gigabyte, but the coil whine that often manifests with this card is truly horrendous. Buy at your own risk - if you don't care about sound impact, this is the card for you. Otherwise, look to another brand!

The card's performance is like all other GTX 980's: very fast. The problem I have with this card is coil whine. When the GPU is active there is a very audible screeching sound coming from the video card. The sound also leaks into my Sound Blaster Z. In most desktop situations (where I spend most of my time) it's perfectly quiet, but when the games start up, it's very noticeable. I went through two replacements with Amazon and then another from Gigabyte, all with the same issue. I've given up and kept the card as is. In practice for most of the games I play, the game sounds and music cover up the noise. It's more of an issue in places where things go quiet, as the only sound you hear is the coil whine. I went so far as to replace my Bronze class PSU with a Platinum model on the suggestion that a bad PSU could be the culprit. It didn't seem to have any effect. Great card otherwise. Looks nice, the lighting is adjustable, it has a backplate, it has more useful, full-size ports than almost any other model. All great stuff. Just that darn coil whine.

I've had this for about a week now and already am loving it compared to the pair of Strix 970's I had before it. Despite still being hotly contested, my PC suffered from the 3.5 gig VRAM stuttering that the 970's would exhibit when gaming @ 1440p or 4k. It was infurating. Disabling SLI and dropping down to 1080p fixed this as games did not seem to use up nearly as much VRAM @ 1080p as they consume at 4k or 1440. That was not an option for me so I sent them back for a refund. I then turned towards the 980. I realized when running a single 970 that most of my games ran butter smooth at 1080p with everything maxed out and more or less near max settings @ 1440p 60fps also. The second 970 allowed me a bit more wiggle room with things like anti aliasing and downsampling but nothing major... certainly nothing worth the headache of the VRAM stuttering. I decided that for now, a single GPU solution would be adequate, especially seeing how the Witcher 3 is said to run at 1080/60 ultra settings on a single 980. This card in particular drew my attention because of the price and cooling. I have a custom water loop but I wanted the option to have a high overclock without HAVING to add on an expensive EK GPU block (which would also raise my CPU temps) I'm happy to say that this cooler is able to keep the GPU temp right around 60*C under full load at a maximum core overclock of 1542mhz. This is right around the same clock speed as Linus/Luke from Linus Tech Tips were able to achieve with their EVGA Classified 980, a much more expensive card. My G1 was able to run Unigine's Valley benchmark for about 35 seconds before the driver crashed and it reverted back to stock speeds when I had the overclock set to 1575mhz but bumping it down just a hair to 1550~1542mhz allowed the benchmark to run perfectly stable for over an hour and never going past 60~61*C. I have capped the fan speed @ 70% as well. It seems like that's the point of diminishing returns. Running them at 100% results in a lot more noise but only 1 or 2 degrees cooler temp. Not worth it IMO. If I had anything negative to say, it would be that I wish the Windforce logo were RGB. My case is rocking the traditional Red/Black color scheme and the bright blue Windforce logo sort of sticks out like a sore thumb. There are a pair of LED's that light up the logo and a guide on overclocker's forum shows how to swap them out and where to buy the replacement LED's so that will be taken care of soon. Other than that that no major complaints. It's a long card and I had to scoot my reservoir tube towards the front of my case just a little to make room for it but other than that, it's outstanding.

GPU box arrived all dusty and dirty (inside the cardboard Amazon box). Opened it up and pulled the card out... ummm.... this thing is seriously bent. As in, the PCB has a substantial bend in it and the cooler is visibly bent in a number of places. The heatsink fins are all mangled. Looking at the shipping box, there's nothing at all to protect the top of the card. The card literally sits right next to the cardboard, and there are deep indentations in the box from the card pressing into it. No foam at all on one side. Seriously? Ok, let's plug in the card and see what happens. Power up the PC. Fans are making some kind of nasty scraping noise. Obviously the cooler is bent way out of alignment. What a joke. Also, just to mention, it sags like crazy. Now, this card may get great reviews from magazines, fine. Maybe they hand delivered those? Here in the real world, I have a bent up warped GPU that sounds like a 30-year old fridge. Maybe if they actually shipped this in a proper box it would be OK. But as is - instant return. First and last experiment with Gigabyte for me. Deeply, deeply disappointed.

I have been using this card for about 2 weeks n theirs nothing I can't do. I maxed everything out in gta n doom n zero lag and a steady 60fps. The backplate is the best too. And another reason to buy this card if u can afford it. Is you can control the leds on the windforce logo and add effects like breathing etc. Highly recommended for future proofing your build

Best graphics card I ever bought, even in late 2016 it still blows games out of the water with ultra settings

Vale cada centavo. La uso principalmente para trabajar en VRay-RT y para lo que hago funciona perfectamente bien y obviamente los juegos no le dan batalla. El precio de compra era de unos 8,500 (unos 1,500 mas que la 970) y creo que valio la pena por la cantidad de CUDA cores.