Quick query

[Andreas Lilja]

Overclocked and liquid cooled, will stock NVIDIA GTX 980s perform on par with branded cards? (Gigabyte G1, ASUS Matrix?)

[FloRolf]

Why do so many people think that aftermarket cards perform like a completely different gpu?

 

Depending on the lottery, you might get better results watercooled.

[Andreas Lilja]

Because they perform better in benchmarks, regardless of clock speed most of the time? 

[Mao_Zedong]

Because they perform better in benchmarks, regardless of clock speed most of the time? 

Not really, they just boost higher, so it may seem like they do. If it has a non-reference pcb, it will be slightly better.

[Real_PhillBert]

If you want a Strix, buy a strix.

If you want to water cool it, water cool it.

Your actual performance has more to do with the silicon lottery than anything else.

[Carde]

Well both sides are true silicon lottery is a key part, though cards offer binned chips with better OC results most of the time, however such chips will still be held back by the PCB if it is a standard or just not a very good one. Case in point I had 2 cards from Inno3D from their double hand selected line so chips that are the best for OCing, yet the results I got where not impressive because Inno3D uses stock PCB which just limited me.

 

On the other end of the scale I have had a R9 290x lightning which also should be the best of the best and it preformed poorly, chip just wouldn't do more.

 

In the end though it depends more on what you want to achieve, a stable day to day OC will be just as good on the stock PCB as an fancy one. If you look for the max OC possible for bench runs, than a card with a really good custom PCB and binned chip would be worth while. Keep in mind though that waterblocks for custom cards are often more expensive to boot you truly invest a lot of money for no guaranteed return.

[Megahurt]

If you want to watercool, you might find it easier and cheaper to find a block with a reference pcb. At equal clocks they should perform the same, custom pcb might have better power delivery.

[Andreas Lilja]

Probably explains why Digital Storm and Falcon Northwest offer only stock GPUs.