White Rabbit

Compared to a PCIE ethernet card or the built-in motherboard ethernet port, how much additional latency, if any, would a wired USB 3.0 network adapter such as this one introduce? Also, how much additional CPU overhead, if any, would a gigabit USB 3.0 adapter require to operate at full speed?

http://cdn.videocardz.com/1/2016/06/MSI-GTX-1080-review-vs-retail.jpg As you can see, the retail card's boost clock is at 1823MHz, whereas the review sample's boost clock is at 1848MHz. At first, it looks obvious that MSI has given a "modified" card to the reviewer. However, if you look at MSI's website, the card is advertised to have a 1847MHz boost clock: https://us.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-1080-GAMING-X-8G.html#hero-specification TechpowerUp's card is 1MHz within MSI's own specifications. The card's "OC mode", which enables the higher frequencies, is a feature present on ALL MSI cards, from the 1080 all the way back to the 780: https://us.msi.com/Graphics-card/N780-TF-3GD5OC#hero-specification MSI and Asus aren't alone in this. As you can see, there is clearly a gaming and OC mode for Gigabyte's 980 Ti G1 and 1080 G1: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5472#sp http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5915#sp There is nothing "questionable" about these features. The cards are guaranteed to run within the OC mode frequencies, and any one that doesn't is probably defective. If you have an MSI 1080 Gaming X but don't want to use MSI's OC software, feel free to overclock the card manually in order to reach the OC mode clock frequencies. Your card will still run within specifications.

I'm pretty sure that once you overclock to that, you will be getting 0 FPS until your replacement RMA card arrives from the manufacturer.

Sure, buy the 980 Ti with the most effective and by far most expensive air-cooling, then take it all off for LN2.

That is only one side of the card. It actually has FIVE fans (lol):

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4309 In terms of volume, the Gigabyte 680 SuperOverclock is one of the largest graphics cards in existence. The volume of MSI's 980 Ti Lightning, which is what I thought was the largest, is 2.45L (330mm x 140mm x 53mm). The 680 SuperOverclock's volume is 2.87L (303mm x 148mm x 64mm). Look at the thickness of that heatsink!

The unreleased Voodoo 5 6000 is a bit longer, measuring around 12.3 inches, or 312mm:

According to these guys, the Voodoo 5 is less than 250mm long: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=92574

I was wrong. The MSI 980 Ti Lightning is 330mm long: https://eu.msi.com/Graphics-card/GTX-980-Ti-LIGHTNING.html#hero-specification Can't help but feel that people who buy these things need to compensate for something... Low framerates, probably.

Zotac GTX 980 Ti Amp Extreme at 328.2mm: https://www.zotac.com/us/product/graphics_card/gtx-980-ti-amp-extreme#spec You won't find one longer than that.

Yes, given the price, you should go for the Xtreme. The G1 doesn't really have any advantages over it, except that it only needs 2 expansion slots. It's thinner and longer, whereas the Xtreme is thicker and shorter. On an unrelated note, I have been experimenting with the third 6-pin PCIe connector. The vast majority of 980 Tis can be powered with only two PCIe connectors, and that is of course also the case with the Xtreme, but after connecting the third one to my PSU, the card has become stable at lower voltages (1.224 to be exact). My guess is that the card will not take full advantage of its 12+2 phase power delivery without the third PCIe connector plugged in. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to increase the overclock beyond 1515MHz, but now I can do it at lower temperatures and lower fan speeds. In Anno 2070 and the FFXIV Heavensward benchmark, the maximum temperature was down to 75C, and the maximum fan speed down to 65%, or 2340RPM. EDIT: I forgot to mention that the third PCIe connector needs to be activated by pressing the little button next to it (the button's colour will turn from blue to red to let you know that it's been switched on). This will also activate the LN2 BIOS, which I'm not a big fan of since it greatly increases the maximum allowed fan speed, making my custom fan curve much louder than necessary, so I had to flash it like described in the review, only this time lowering voltage to 1.224 from 1.230.

Actually, the 980 Ti Xtreme Waterforce is currently not deemed as patent infringing, because Asetek's lawyers have yet to find one in order to make that determination. They can't force Gigabyte to send out a sample, after all.

What are your temperatures and voltages at load? Also, could you open GPU-Z and check whether you have Hynix or Samsung VRAM? In the UK, the 980 Ti Xtreme was out of stock everywhere for half a month, but it's back on sale now at a lower price. One person told me that he got a card with Hynix memory, unlike the early adopters, so I guess that's why Gigabyte doesn't advertise Samsung memory. It's kind of sucky for anyone waiting for a price drop that the new batch of cards doesn't come with Samsung memory.

You could always get the Gigabyte Titan X Xtreme if you're concerned about the cooler. It uses the same cooler as the 980 Ti Xtreme, which is quite capable: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/494889-gigabyte-gtx-980-ti-xtreme-gaming/