Zotac GTX980 Ti Arctic Storm Review

Introduction

The nVidia GTX980Ti shocked the world with its performance levels and pricing. No sooner had we all got used to the Titan X as the graphical benchmark, and dreamed of having similar performance affordable to most of us in a year or so, the GTX980Ti appeared with easily as much capability to crunch polygons as the Titan X but without requiring you to wonder which of your children to sell for medical experiments.

With the quality of the GPUs being so consistent it's fallen to manufacturers to seek new ways to entice you to their particular brand. The steak being well catered for it's the sizzle that separates each model.

Zotac have certainly taken this ethos to heart with their Arctic Storm. A card which has a triple fan cooler for those of you on air, yet comes equipped with a factory-fitted waterblock too, should you have a loop just aching for a new graphics card. Is this a case of trying too much, or have Zotac managed to be the master of all their domains?

Technical Specifications

In raw specifications the GTX980Ti Arctic Storm could be mistaken for many similar cards. As is so often the case though the devil is most definitely in the details. Or, as we'll see on the next page, in the big bits too.

GPU: GeForce 980Ti
Core Base Clock: 1026MHz
Core Boost Clock: 1114MHz
Memory Clock: 7010MHz
Memory Size: 6144MB GDDR5
Bus Type: PCI Express 3.0
Memory Bus: 384-bit
CUDA Cores: 2816
DirectX 12: Yes
DVI Port: 1x Dual-Link DVI, 3x DisplayPort & 1x HDMI
DisplayPort: Yes
HDCP: Yes
HDMI: Yes
Power: 1x 6-Pin & 1x 8-Pin
600W PSU Required
250W TDP
Dimensions: L=282mm, W=110mm, H=43mm
Warranty: 5yr