Stupid question...

[Spev]

This may seem silly but would a gtx 970 with higher clock speeds than a GTX 980 be a faster card? I'm specifically looking my EVGA GTX970 FTW vs the regular EVGA GTX980. If my 970 has higher clocks does it have more power or do the extra CUDA cores and other factors make the 980 superior even with lower clock speeds?

[s3ns3]

the extra CUDA cores and other factors make the 980 superior even with lower clock speeds

Bingo

[Cryptonite]

This may seem silly but would a gtx 970 with higher clock speeds than a GTX 980 be a faster card? I'm specifically looking my EVGA GTX970 FTW vs the regular EVGA GTX980. If my 970 has higher clocks does it have more power or do the extra CUDA cores and other factors make the 980 superior even with lower clock speeds?

the 980 will remain the superior card. however the 970 is no slouch either and is better value per dollar.

[Spev]

the 980 will remain the superior card. however the 970 is no slouch either and is better value per dollar.

Good to know. Im going to use the EVGA step up program to get the 980 as I don't see myself upgrading for a good while, so I thought I may as well get the top of the line card. Plus there are no water blocks for my current card right now which is the biggest problem but there are for the 980. Thanks for the insight.

[LawrenceBarnes2013]

the 980 is an Overall better and stronger card , so no 

[Mao_Zedong]

unless you do liquid nitrogen cooling on the 970, the 980 will be better. To get an estimate of performance (assuming all other factors are equal) multiply the number of cuda cores (or stream processors) by the clockspeed.