MSI GTX 980ti gaming or Asus GTX 980ti

VesoRakia

New member
Well guys, this is my dilema: basically I can get both at the same price from friends with the following differences.

The ASUS GTX980Ti (basically reference one, not the STRIX) was used from June 2015 till now, and has more than 2.5y of warranty left. I've heard that the stock cooler isn't very good, and with the GPU's low throttling speeds (about 65C from what I've read - might be untrue though) that might lead to some performance issues when OCing.

The MSI GTX 980Ti Gaming was never opened from the box, but has no warranty in my country (its bought from abroad). And I checked in the local MSI representative and they told me they won't cover anything that's not bought from them directly. So practically I consider it as without warranty.

The MSI is obviously better plug and play choice, because of the factory OC, and better cooling, power draw etc, but the no warranty is kind of a turnoff. While the Asus one is weaker but at least has the warranty. My basic question is if I would be able to get pretty much the same performance from the Asus with some manual OCing but keeping in mind that my PC is air-cooled, and I am not planning to make any hardware changes to the GPU (e.g. change its cooling).

My question: With just basic software OCing would I be able to reach similar performance with the reference like Asus as to the factory OC'd MSI.

Looking at this guy's resarch it looks like to me that if the +10C difference in max temp doesn't bother me, I should get the same gaming performance with not much of a problem? And given that noise is not a factor for me, I'd probably push up the Fan to be a lot more agressive, so might get lower temps.


P.S. I care only about gaming and not at all about noise, power consumption, or heat (as long as it is not excessive and doesn't restrict performance too much by throttling). I'm saying this because I really would base my decision entirely on performance, and not at all on efficiency (yeah yeah yeah, I'm not a OCing elitist like most of you guys, but I really don't care if my fan will be spinning at a few more RPM when playing games on a 5.1 surround sound on max volume, and I care even less about the <1$ more in electricity bill which is covered from my landlord).
 
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Taking the last part of your post into cinsideration, definitely go with the Asus one. If your going to be dropping this kind of money onto a plaything, you should probably cover your backside.


As for your main question though, it should be easily possible, as the factory OC on the MSI isnt all that high. Just mind the temps, they can get a tad toasty.

I myself have not come across a single 980ti that couldnt achieve the clock speeds that the MSI comes with.
 
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Thanks, this sounds very encouraging for the reference GTX, and I'd really like to have some warranty on this beast, especially when OCing on the stock Fan (yeah I know OC "officially" voids the warranty, but I don't plan on going and telling them "Hi, i OCd the sh** out of it and it blew apart, can you give me a new one for free, please":) .

Also do you think that it would be any serious concern if I push the stock Nvidia fan to work aggressively (maybe hitting near 100% as soon as 70-75C) in order to keep me further from throttling? I rarely game for more than 4-6 straight hours so in the worst case that's how long the fan would be continuously working overtime per day. Again, I don't care about noise or power consumption, but I wouldn't want to damage the thing.
 
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If the card is under warranty then don't worry about the fan. My Titan Blacks used to go hell for leather for over a year.

Also, if you are ever thinking about going SLI on air then you will thank the heavens for the stock cooler.
 
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