ASUS ROG GTX 980 MATRIX Platinum Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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ASUS ROG GTX 980 MATRIX Platinum Video Card Review - ASUS has delivered another GTX 980. This time we indulge the ASUS ROG GTX 980 MATRIX Platinum video card with LN2 cooling firmware. We test its performance against an ASUS GTX 980 STRIX DC II OC and an AMD R9 290X. The AMD R9 295X2 also makes an appearance to determine which delivers the best gaming.
 
Thanks for the review.

I expect most people would not justify the cost increase above the STRIX with performance being so close.

And a $200 difference is quite an ask above the 290X for about 8 FPS (BF4 quoted). I love the power/temp advantage, but still ... cant help feeling the 980's are over priced at present.

The 295X2 is beautiful in concept, but Im not sure Id go down the cross fire (or single card cross fire) route again... I still have texture flickering in BF4 sometimes with my cross fired 280X setup.

And at this point in the cycle ... is it worth hanging in there with what we have and waiting to see what the 380/390 can do vs the next Nvidia super card ? Surely cant be long now...
 
I think you have to put the Matrix underwater. Some guy on the forum has his at 17xx core watercooled.
 
It seems like a niche product, but some people would buy it just for the ROG branding, I suppose.

If anything, it makes the STRIX look like a much better value than all the other GTX 980 variants on the market.
 
I do like the design a lot better the the stupid owl "STRIX" thing Asus has going on but beyond that, im happy with my cheaper 980 STRIX


MXkxans.jpg
 
A quick look back shows us that the ASUS GTX 980 STRIX DC II OC's max overclock brings its operating speed to 1.5GHz on boost clock and 7.91GHz on the memory.

A quick look back shows us that the ASUS GTX 980 STRIX DC II OC's max overclock brings its operating speed to 1.167GHz on core and improved the memory only slightly to 5.78GHz.
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What??
 
I get higher clocks than that with my EVGA SC ACX 2.0. Why pay the premium for this thing?
 
lewchenko said:
And at this point in the cycle ... is it worth hanging in there with what we have and waiting to see what the 380/390 can do vs the next Nvidia super card ? Surely cant be long now...
Click to expand...

I am sort of in the same boat. I am running 680s in SLI. At this point, I would probably see similar or better performance with a single 980 and have a lot quieter and more efficient system.

Based on this review, I still really really like the STRIX 980.
 
twzTechman said:
I am sort of in the same boat. I am running 680s in SLI. At this point, I would probably see similar or better performance with a single 980 and have a lot quieter and more efficient system.

Based on this review, I still really really like the STRIX 980.
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Might be worth it to wait to see what AMD launchs in Q1 and if nVidia responds. You've come this far!
 
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You guys need to change your game lineup. Out of a handful of games you have 2 Ubicrap titles with NV GameWorks which cripples AMD by blocking Cross-fire or HBAO+ and other features.

At least try to be fair.

Want to cover popular games? Look here: http://steamcharts.com/top
Surely you can find something better than Crysis 3 (Why even have it here, CryTek has moved on with newer titles: Evolve coming soon and Ryse was out), and 2 Ubifail games.
 
Bahanime said:
You guys need to change your game lineup. Out of a handful of games you have 2 Ubicrap titles with NV GameWorks which cripples AMD by blocking Cross-fire or HBAO+ and other features.

At least try to be fair.

Want to cover popular games? Look here: http://steamcharts.com/top
Surely you can find something better than Crysis 3 (Why even have it here, CryTek has moved on with newer titles: Evolve coming soon and Ryse was out), and 2 Ubifail games.
Click to expand...

Crysis 3 is probably the most demanding game you can run. If you look at most of the games listed in the Steam charts they would be running hundreds of frames per second.
 
I was ready to buy a top of the line 980. Took the big step. I went with the classified. And glad I did! It is a beast of a card. Out of the box base voltage I took it +100 on the gpu and +700 on the memory. Bump the voltage 150/740 no problem on the OC bios profile. I will buy another, put them on water and call it a done deal. :)
 
I just wanted to chime in with an interesting perspective here. My 8320, which is 100 MHz slower clock speed than their 3770K, manages to get within 6 FPS of their AVG at 1080p at the same settings. Really shows you the gap isn't as big as some think between 8 core AMDs and the I7. Most games are about that close.
 
Bahanime said:
You guys need to change your game lineup. Out of a handful of games you have 2 Ubicrap titles with NV GameWorks which cripples AMD by blocking Cross-fire or HBAO+ and other features.

At least try to be fair.

Want to cover popular games? Look here: http://steamcharts.com/top
Surely you can find something better than Crysis 3 (Why even have it here, CryTek has moved on with newer titles: Evolve coming soon and Ryse was out), and 2 Ubifail games.
Click to expand...

So you would like us to use games that would do little to stress these GPUs for testing? Please tell me more of what exactly you would like to see tested.
 
Bahanime said:

Shadow or Mordor is recent, great reviews, lots of players still playing it and its punishing on hardware.


It's time to retire Crysis 3 and be less rewarding to Ubisoft who have shown they are heavily consolized, PC gamers are treated as 2nd class citizens with broken release after broken release, requiring months of patches.
Click to expand...


1. Gripes about consolized PC game ports for benchmark
2. Recommends another console port?
3. Profit, troll, or just stupid?
 
I like this review but if the 290x2 is the same price why get the 980. I'm doing UHD and am considering this setup if I sell my titans. What's the caveat?
 
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