I will be buying a 980 by the end of tonight and I wanted everyone to vote for which one I should buy. I'm pretty set on a gigabyte variant but feel free to suggest another one. By the end of the night ill see which one gets more votes and the 980 with the highest amount of votes is the one ill buy. Ill post some pictures of how it looks in my rig within a few weeks. Wanted to turn this into a more fun experience and get people here on this wonderful forum involved.
These are the two I'm torn between. One is currently out of stock but i will buy as soon as 1 becomes available if the votes are in its favor. Now i know i will be flooded with suggestions to buy another gpu with more bang for the buck like some amd variants but the efficiency of the 980 compared to any of those amd variants allows me to fit it into my system without having to also buy another psu. I would love a 980ti but the fiance would freak out if I went over the budget we have set which is for the 980.
I would be overclocking both of them to their limit. I have the fractal core 500 itx case which has insane airflow for an itx case and it can accommodate both cards very comfortably when it comes to temps inside the case. The air cooled one would make everything much warmer though I'm sure. I'm not overclocking the cpu though just the gpu and I've had both a reference 970 in here and a 960 of the same style as the air cooled 980 in the link and temps have been very good, though the 960 which Isnt blower style took my cpu temps from 60 Celsius under load to about 69 Celsius under gaming load. The air cooled one will make my little box toasty but it can handle it no doubt. The Watercooled one will have everything feeling frosty in the case with no added heat from the gpu being thrown in there if I set the radiator to exhaust, i just cant decide though.
That's what I feared because it is involved in that whole Asetek fiasco. Asetek has prevented the sale of too many products here in the United States. Sucks I barely got the money for it today and when i checked earlier before the money was in my account it was still being sold. Timing, I have the worse luck when it comes to timing unfortunately. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and give 1 nod the way of the watercooled one on your behalf.