Reviewed: MSI GTX 980 Gaming 4G

Pricing

The GTX 980 GPU is not cheap. The prices for the high end NVIDIA GTX 980 variants range from $699 for the Galaxy version with a cheaper looking blower style cooler through to $999 for the ASUS Poseidon version that has a premium hybrid air cooler with water block built in. The MSI GTX 980 Gaming 4G sits in the middle at $799 online which is reasonable given the performance, heat and noise balance we have seen in our sample. 

As great as the GTX 980 is, we expect most gamers in the market for a new high end card to go for the better value GTX 970 series that sell for roughly $520. If the price gap wasn’t so big, the choice would be much harder.

Final Thoughts

The MSI GTX980 Gaming 4G has truly wowed us. At idle, the fans don’t spin. When watching a movie at 1080p or playing Minecraft with a texture pack, one fan would occasionally kick in silently at low speed from time to time – if it wasn’t on an open test bench, we wouldn’t have been able to see it moving to tell. When pushing out very respectable frame rates at 2560×1440 in Battlefield 4 or FarCry4, the card stayed under 70 degrees and quiet with both fans running. This card gave performance levels that we saw in our SLI GTX670 setup with virtually no noise profile and drawing notably less power from the wall.

The additional technology like MFAA, VXGI and DSR looks promising and it will be interesting to see how many people adopt G-SYNC displays and then hear about the experience / feedback from those fortunate enough to see it on 4K displays. The GPU race isn’t just about speed, its about the overall experience where we are seeing technological advancement in a number of different directions with each release. How this comes to us as consumers is critical and MSI has made every effort to do the core technology justice with the implementation of high quality/durable components and a highly efficient cooling solution to see us get more than the manufacturer’s reference platform promises.

I really liked the backplate that MSI used on the GTX 760 HAWK and it would have been nice to see one on this card. The PCB is black so it looks good but a backplate would have finished it off nicely.

Whilst an SLI configuration of 2 mid range cards would likely beat any GTX 980 in a bang for buck challenge, this can still have its drawbacks. Drivers have come a long way and until recently with FarCry4, I hadn’t had any issues with my SLI setup and the games I play. The heat and noise generated by a pair of mid range cards will be an acceptable trade off to many but at the end of the day, if you want a small form factor build then SLI becomes almost unworkable. Most M-ATX motherboards sandwich the cards with little breathing space and mini ITX boards only have the one PCIE slot. For those considering a small form factor, single GPU build, the GTX 980 isn’t the value option but you might save on a few headaches just the same.

The thought of having a high performance but super quiet mini ITX rig sitting on my desk hooked up to my 2560×1440 display is a very tempting one even at the hefty asking price. Now that I’ve experienced how quiet the Twin Frozr V is, I may finally downsize from my louder full sized SLI gaming rig to something with more grunt but only a fraction of the size and noise. 

	MSI GTX 980 Gaming 4G
PROS	Solid performance at 2560×1440, blistering at 1920×1080 Very Quiet – virtually inaudible Our sample overclocked to 1501 MHz Low power consumption Military Grade Components and quality software utilities
CONS	Likely to be too expensive for the masses
Awards