Pricing and Avalibility
GeForce pricing is unchanged apart from new entry for 980 Ti and a price-cut for 980
- US $999 : TITAN X
- US $649 : 980 Ti
- US $499 : 980
- US $329 : 970
- US $199 : 960
At time of writing, Witcher 3 game bundle is applicable for some boards in some regions plus 980 Ti buyers get Batman Arkham Knight.
980’s price-cut leaves the former $549 US slot empty, as there is hardware wise with 980 Ti being 2816 CUDA cores and 980 being 2048 there is also an empty slot there in the product lineup. In the past NVIDIA have released gap filler products such as GTX xx5 GPUS or GTX XXX SP s with additional enabled shaders.
Although we are not privy to such information, rumors at press time do indicate a ‘metal’ GTX card in the works, which does fit into the product stack changes nicely.
US RRP is one thing, regional pricing is another. GTX 780/780Ti were expensive cards when new in outer regions such as Australia, with 680 being discounted as the case is now with 980.
As of 1-JUNE-2015, GTX 980 Ti launch day :
| Region | Vendor | Model | Local Price | USD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | PC Case Gear | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB | A $1049 | US $803 |
| Australia | PC Case Gear | EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked 6GB | A $999 | US $764 |
| USA | Amazon | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB | A $848.50 | US $649 |
The Australian pricing of A $999 is essentially correct.
US RRP or Amazon list price US $649 is $AUD $848.50. Plus 10% Goods and Sales Tax (VAT), comes to AUD $933. which if we consider distributor, channel and vendor markup equates to AUD $999. At time of this review, foreign purchases made by Australians do not include sales tax.
Third Party GTX 980 Ti boards
The two examples we found listed in Australia on launch day are reference cards we don’t need to elaborate on these.
Although 980 Ti’s launch coincides with Computex 2015, on launch day first off the bat to announce GTX 980 TI with custom PCB and cooler was ZOTAC, who have gone to town to emphasize the cooling and overclocking capabilities of their solution. Other Add-In-Board partners such as MSI and ASUS did announce their boards however these are recycled editions of their GTX 980s such as the MSI gaming red edition and ASUS Poseidon. The true enthusiast overclock happy editions such as an updated ASUS MATRIX, MSI Lightning or EVGA Classified/Kingpin would likely be months away to accord for development.
The Australian representatives for ASUS, MSI, EVGA and GIGABYTE did not provide us with information on their cards for the Australian market by press time.
In addition to a reference card, ZOTAC have four custom overclocked editions of 980 Ti, below plus an AMP! Omega
| Model | Base Clock | Boost Clock | Memory Clock | Cooler | Power | Length | Height | Width | Special Feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMP! | 1051 | 1140 | 7010 | Icestorm heatsink + 3x 90mm fans | 6+8pin 250W | 12.4 in | 4.38 in | 2 slot | Carbon ExoArmour |
| AMP! Extreme | 1253 | 1355 | 7210 | Icestorm Heatsink + 3x EKO Fans | 2x 8pin 258W | 13 in | 5.25 in | 2.5 slot | Powerboost module |
| ArcticStorm | 1025 | 1114 | 7010 | ArticStorm Copper Hybrid Cooler + 3x 90mm fan | 6+8pin 250W | 12.4in | 5.53 in | 2.5 slot | Carbon ExoArmour, Arctic style backplate |
Let us focus on the monster AMP EXTREME Zotac 980 Ti,as the others have slight overclocks. At 1253 core it exceeds the maximum overclock of 1200MHz we were able to get with the reference card, so should offer some serious kick in the pants performance. At launch time it is supposedly one of, if not the highest clocked 980 Ti announced. For 2.5 slots and what such an extreme card would be priced at, one would hope it would perform. In addition the overkill of a heatsink should provide reduced temperatures under load compared to the reference cooler.
During our testing of the ASUS ROG 980 we saw 10c reduction under load and the ZOTAC Extreme should be in such a ballpark. The only issues with this sort of card are its weight which will cause sagging (A support bar is included with the card) and price. ZOTAC has done something different with their visual ID and adopted the slogan ‘push the limit’, meant to be a catch-cry for overclockers on the back plate of its boards. Overclockers who are also fans of ‘Scarface’ can always pretend the card actually says ‘push it to the limit’ in reference to the film’s soundtrack…
