Reference card vs Non-reference card?

[Smithy10]

Which one is best? Advantages and Disadvantages?

[EarthboundHero]

Are you doing SLI? That's one of the few times reference coolers are better. Non-reference run cooler and are higher clocked.

[thekeemo]

For what GPU? But generally reference is louder and hotter but cheaper and non reference is cooler and quieter

[helpingaskewcokemansarcasm]

Reference - louder, hotter (but sexier if nvidia with dat cooler) and cheaper. (Exhausts heat directly out of the back of the case via a vent in the PCI bracket.)

 

Non Reference - quieter, cooler, better power circuitry. (Exhausts heat into the case, requires a good standard of case airflow in order to not bake the inside of it, not a problem for most systems.)

 

If you want to do multi GPU, I recommend reference, if you want to do single GPU and your case airflow is good, non reference is the way to do it.

[Octavialicious]

Reference cards are usually just hotter and more noisy, but the benefit is they are usually cheaper. Although, not a lot of reference cards as there used to be with previous series.

 

[Smithy10]

Oh i see. Im planning on doing a 2 way GTX 980 SLI but more concerned since i will not be overclocking. I want a card that looks awesome but still is a beast when coming to performance. Any reccomendations?

[Smithy10]

Im also not concerned with the price btw.

[-CLASSIFIED-]

one thing to keep in mind is that if you plan on waterblocking the cards in the future is that non reference cards are hard to find waterblocks for .... i learned this the hard way 

[dadasmithywinkle]

Oh i see. Im planning on doing a 2 way GTX 980 SLI but more concerned since i will not be overclocking. I want a card that looks awesome but still is a beast when coming to performance. Any reccomendations?

 

I like the look of the reference cards and if you have to sandwich them in your rig, you'll want reference for better cooling. I have had the Zotac reference 980 and I was able to OC it to 1550Mhz, so reference can still OC well. If you have to go with a non-reference, I have had good results in SLI with EVGA and MSI. I have heard that the new Gigabyte cards cannot be sandwiched or else the fans of the higher card will make contact with the back of the lower card.

 

 

one thing to keep in mind is that if you plan on waterblocking the cards in the future is that non reference cards are hard to find waterblocks for .... i learned this the hard way 

 

Very true. Unless you go with a major brand, like EVGA, or you go reference, it'll be harder to find a waterblock later on.

[Smithy10]

What are your views of the GALAX GTX 980 HOF edition?

[Najuno]

Depends on your airflow in your case, if you plan to add watercooling later down the road and of course the layout of your motherboard.

 

If you have limited airflow and/or a motherboard where the PCIe slots a close together, then I´d probably go for 2 reference designs. If your airflow is really good and you do not plan to watercool necessarily then you could get away with 2 aftermarkets cooler designs.

Personally I prefer reference design because of the water cooling. But I decided to skip watercooling with my GTX980s and so I bought 2 reference design cards and 1 aftermarket blower design. It´s not the most beautiful looks but it´s efficient.

[Imakuni]

Oh i see. Im planning on doing a 2 way GTX 980 SLI but more concerned since i will not be overclocking. I want a card that looks awesome but still is a beast when coming to performance. Any reccomendations?

For SLI, you probably want a blower type cooler. So reference will be your best option most of the time.

 

Unless you find a brand that produces custom blower coolers, these should do as well.

[MattDaemontools]

i personally don't find reference cards to be better than non-reference designs in anything frankly. Even in multi-GPU setups, non-reference axial cooled GPUs that exhaust heat directly into the case always ended up running cooler for me.

[Mick Naughty]

Depends on the mobo and case. My acx coolers are just as loud as my reference coolers. In my Sli config my blower coolers run 15-20 degrees cooler then open air. Titan coolers look better then anything. The 980's don't have vapor chambers but they are supposed to run so much cooler than last gen.

[Smithy10]

My Rig...

MOBO: Asus V Rampage Extreme

CPU: i7 4790K (Devil's Canyon)

CPU Cooler: Corsair H110

GPU: GTX 980 (still deciding which manufacturer) (2X)

RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum (DDR4 2400MHz) 64 GB

PSU: Corsair AX1200i (overkill for future upgrades)

Storage: Samsung SSD 850 EVO (1TB)

WD 2 TB Black Series

Fans: Noctua NF-A14 PWM (8X)

Case: Corsair 760T (Arctic White)

[Smithy10]

If I go for the reference GTX980, which manufacturer should I go for and do they differ in specs and performance?

[Mick Naughty]

Running the cards on the first and third slot, you may get away with open air coolers if you can get all that hot air out. Which would mean getting rid of the corsair fans which it looks like you are already doing. Running the h100 as exhaust would heat up the cpu with all that hot air in the case.

 

I would go blower, 04G-P4-2982-KR  from evga. There may be one a bit better but I didn't look long. Nothing wrong with pny but I would only go asus or evga.

 

Seeing in how money isn't too tight, maybe get  acx coolers for them and do some testing like I did to see how useless open air coolers really are. I have vapor chambers on my cards so maybe that's the big difference.