It’s an ASUS, it’s a STRIX, and it’s a GTX 980 Ti – and yet it’s not even the top of what ASUS has to offer, however it’s pretty close to the MATRIX variant.
As always with ASUS Strix models, they carry the signature look across the board.
Being a GTX 980 Ti, it is expected to have 2x 8-pin PCI-E power connection, that means it’s capable of drawing over 300W of power.
The heatpipe does show up on the DirectCU III cooler, just a tiny bit on the top side (pic above) while appearing from fore to aft at the bottom.
The STRIX GTX 980 Ti comes with a beautiful looking backplate with the signature owl emblem.
The unit comes with a DVI, a HDMI and 3x DisplayPort output.
Below is the GPU-Z for the card.
You might be asking – what’s so great about the card? I suppose that other than saying “It’s the ASUS build quality”, the image below would be more helpful. *Psst, click to enlarge!*
More details at the official product page.
Test Setup
| Processor | Intel Core i7-5960X |
| RAM | HyperX Savage 2x 8GB DDR4 3000Mhz |
| Motherboard | ASRock X99 OC Formula |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master V850 |
| Operating System | Windows 10 64bit |
Overclocking
My overclocking attempts weren’t successful with this card, anything beyond 50Mhz on core results in a crash. At 50Mhz increase in core, the performance gain isn’t great so I skipped the benchmark test on the overclocked speed.
Benchmarks
Unigine Heaven 4.0
*NOTE : Details are set to maximum.
| Card | 1080p (avg) | 4K UHD (avg) |
| ASUS STRIX GTX 980 Ti | 95 | 25 |
| EVGA GTX 980 Ti Class | 95 | 25 |
| ASUS GTX 980 Anniversary | 71 | 18 |
Metro Last Light
| Card | 1080p (avg) | 4K UHD (avg) |
| ASUS STRIX GTX 980 Ti | 132 | 50 |
| EVGA GTX 980 Ti Class | 100 | 49 |
| ASUS GTX 980 Anniversary | 91 | 37 |
Bioshock Infinite
Settings are at
2 – UltraDX11_DDOF | 2 – Custom | 1 – 16:9 | 4 – FullHD / 4K
| Card | 1080p (avg) | 4K UHD (avg) |
| ASUS STRIX GTX 980 Ti | 172 | 63 |
| EVGA GTX 980 Ti Class | 158 | 62 |
| ASUS GTX 980 Anniversary | 129 | 46 |
Shadow of Mordor
Settings : Set to ULTRA, V-sync off.
| Card | 1080p (avg) | 4K UHD (avg) |
| ASUS STRIX GTX 980 Ti | 138 | 56 |
| EVGA GTX 980 Ti Class | 135 | 55 |
| ASUS GTX 980 Anniversary | 101 | 41 |
Grand Theft Auto V
Settings : Every option to the MAX setting available.
| Card | 1080p (avg) | 4K UHD (avg) |
| ASUS STRIX GTX 980 Ti | 65 | 47 |
| EVGA GTX 980 Ti Class | 63 | 45 |
| ASUS GTX 980 Anniversary | 47 | 33 |
Temperature
Furmark Burn-in Test was used to stress the card. Fan settings are at Auto. Room set to ~25c.
| Card | Idle(°C) | Load (°C) |
| ASUS STRIX GTX 980 Ti | 33 | 82 |
| ASUS STRIX GTX 980 Ti (Full RPM) | 28 | 53 |
The fan hovers at around 52% on AUTO settings where the noise level is silent.
Power Consumption
The stress was done with Furmark Burn-in Test. Power consumption reading was taken from the watt-meter, actual power draw by the entire system from the wall point. I’m using an Cooler Master V850 with around 90% efficiency and the estimated system power draw (CPU, not including GPU) during Furmark test is 80w.
| Card | ASUS STRIX GTX 980 Ti |
| Furmark Burn-in | 413 |
| Estimated Actual System Draw | 372 |
| Estimated Card Power Draw | 292 |
The Verdict
The ASUS STRIX GTX 980 Ti Graphics Card retails at around RM 3,700 – it’s a powerful card out of the box and it comes with the rock solid ASUS DirectCU III cooling system which is one of the best looking coolers around. The card comes pre-overclocked and leaves very little headroom to push further.
