Introduction
Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super Jetstream - Fast & Silent..!
We review one of the fastest GeForce GTX 980 cards available on the globe, the Palit Super Jetstream edition. It comes all customized, has an improved Jetstream series cooler and runs factory tweaked at clock frequencies that will raise your eyebrows. It does that while staying very silent. Heck, the cooler won't even spin with GPU temperatures up-to roughly 67 Degrees C. The card has 4 GB graphics memory, is energy efficient and factory overclocked for you. Oh and hey, it overclocks nicely as well as we pass 1500 MHz on the GPU boost frequency.
The PC market is interesting, it has been on a decline for sure, but here at Guru3D.com we've noticed an opposite trend. Gaming PCs are getting more and more popular, much like an American muscle car, or should we say card. We all want a beast of a gaming rig as, let’s face it, PC gaming as an experience is just so much better than anything else out there. Roughly a year and a half ago it became apparent that Nvidia was brewing a new GPU architecture under codename Maxwell. Yes, named after the mathematical physicist. The Maxwell family of GPUs is actually the 10th generation of GPU architecture for Nvidia. With several design goals in mind (higher performance and lower power consumption) Nvidia was hoping to reach 20nm by the time their high-end product would be released. It is now October 2014 and it is abundantly clear that the 20nm nodes are not yet viable for volume production of wafers with huge transistor counts. So Nvidia pretty much had to go with plan B and stuck with 28nm, this makes their silicon sizable, in relative proportions of course. None the less, Nvidia has moved forward and the 2nd Maxwell based products (GTX 750 was actually the first trial) are being released as GM204 based GPUs. Yes, correct, GM204 and not GM210, meaning Nvidia is once again using the ‘high-end’ and not ‘enthusiast class’ chip to empower the product series we are about to review. Armed with voltage, power and load limiters, Nvidia these days can harvest massive performance out of chips when you think about it. They did the very same with Kepler really, GK104 versus GK110 anyone? So Nvidia certainly is doing something right. A primary feature design target for Maxwell is more performance with less power consumption. The GPU used thus is the 28nm GM204, and the two derivatives created from it are the GeForce GTX 970 and 980. Ah, you noticed? Yes, correct, Nvidia decided to skip the 800 series to avoid confusion with some of their rebranded mobile parts. Maxwell is a new and sound architecture and as such it is released with a new series name. In this article we will have an extensive look at the architecture behind Maxwell, we will look at gaming performance from Full HD to Ultra HD, we will look at power and thermal characteristics and will serve you that on a silver platter with a nice photo-shoot here at Guru3D.com, of course.
Palit ships the GeForce GTX 980 Super-JetStream edition at speeds of a 1203 MHz core and 1304 MHz GPU Boost. They tweaked the memory a little as well, 7.20 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory (reference is 1127/1216/7000 MHz) clocks. With a custom PCB, all dark/golden design and the Jetstream cooler the GTX 980 will get all the cooling it needs. While temps stick at just under 75 Degrees C, the noise levels are incredibly low, even for a 980. In fact in idle or desktop mode, the fans won't even spin until they reach 67 Degrees C. Check this Super-Jetstream edition out, as with an etail price of just over 500 EURO / 560 USD this is one of the more 'affordable' models available on the market.
