EVGA puts an end to the silicon lottery for the first time ever with the GTX 980 Ti K|NGP|N

[ChrisxIxCross]

We can FINALLY pick and choose what ASIC quality we want, this is absolutely amazing! Now granted the pricing is still REALLY expensive but this is still pretty awesome nonetheless. I can only imagine all the hardcore overclockers on overclock.net crapping their pants when they see this :lol:

However I am concerned with how this will affect reviews of the card since all buyers have a different budget meaning everyone will not be buying the same ASIC tier.

EDIT: For those of you saying this is snakeoil nonsense just so you all understand - better ASIC = better OC on the MAXWELL architecture. If you don't have a 900 series gpu better ASIC does not pertain to you at least not as much. ASIC has merit on all gpus but it affects Maxwell overclocking the most. That is why we have never seen a graphics card being sold like this ever before.

 

EDIT 2: First review is here! OC to 1550mhz on air with 72% ASIC! http://www.hardwareluxx.com/index.php/news/hardware/vgacards/36075-reviewed-evga-geforce-gtx-980-ti-kingpin.html

With this new card EVGA is also introducing a brand new way to purchase, by allowing you to select the best card to suit your needs. For the first time ever, EVGA is introducing a way to select your approximate GPU ASIC (approximate OC performance) Quality before purchasing. Every single piece of silicon, whether it be a CPU or GPU, varies when it comes to maximum overclocking. On GPU's, ASIC quality is one way to determine potential overclock performance. Please note this ASIC Quality* DOES NOT guarantee any specific overclock performance, it is merely a guide. The higher the ASIC Quality, the higher the potential overclock performance and the rarer the GPU. Of course, this can and will vary.
* ASIC stands for “application-specific integrated circuit”, which is a general term used to describe a processor designed for a specific task. All GPU’s have varying levels of ASIC QUALITY levels, which can be read from applications like GPU-Z. The higher the ASIC quality, the rarer the GPU and the higher potential there is for a better overclock. Of course, this can vary and does not guarantee any specific overclock.

Source: http://www.evga.com/articles/00944/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-980-Ti-KINGPIN/

Update: To shed more light on Maxwell overclocking here is a quote from Vince Lucido aka Kingpin himself. Courtesy of @Lays

Honestly speaking, I think most end users don't even realize how maxwell gpus are voltage capped at ambient type cooling. I can tell by many of the comments at OC.net, elsewhere, and also here in these card XOC bios threads. Especially compared to kepler. KP 780ti scaled great on voltage with air/water temps. Basically, more voltage = more clocks no matter what temperature.
With 980 and later gpus including titanX, the scaling on air/water has all but almost gone. I would say about 95% of all maxwell 980,titan-X, and 980ti gpus NO MATTER what vga brand pcb it is on, DO NOT SCALE with more voltage than 1.25v-1.275v at temps warmer than 25c or so. There is no magical bios that can effectively remove this.

This is exactly why almost every moderate-good asic titanX, 980, and yes 980ti clock around 1550mhz MAX AVERAGE at say 45-60C loading temps.
If you put 0c and colder on the card, you will see MUCH different behavior than what you see on air (green garbage all over screen when raising volts over 1.23-1.25vv or so)
Cards with very good ASIC value (75% and up) will tend to have the most "overclocking", but just like about every other maxwell gpu, they cannot overvolt past 1.23v-1.25v.
So highest asic cards like 80% +are almost always going to be the ones that can 1600+ on air/water, and again they do it pretty much WITHOUT overvolting over 1.23v-1.25v. Maxwell gpus with lower asic value like 65% will not be so great at air/water because these low asic gpus need voltage to scale compared to match the overclock of the high asic gpus( USING SAME USABLE VOLTAGE 1.23-1.25v)

The bios's I posted basically allow you to set a higher voltage on air/water. Some gpus can scale more, some cant, some actually will NEED more voltage than was previously needed to run same frequency. All different

Update 7/22/15
Here's another post by Vince that further goes into more depth on how much ASIC affects overclocking

Based on the comments in the thread, maybe best its best to let you guys know(who don't already) a little bit about what ASIC is and how it relates to this card or any other card for that matter past or present.
I'll hang out here a bit and check back often to answer any questions by OC.net'rs about the card, ASIC, pricing, air performance, ln2 performance, ANYTHING .
I would rather respond with the correct information directly to someone, than see that person repeating the wrong information. They haven't started selling just yet AFIK..
Ill answer some of the questions I've seen asked already to get a start.

ASIC is not a new "measurement" , its been around for a very long time. Only just recently is it available to be seen through public utility though(gpuz). It represents a few measurements on a GPU, not just one as many think. Basically it measures the performance ability of a gpu at a given voltage. There is another measurement of leakage as well. These two values represent "ASIC" as you guys know it.
Without talking about numbers or percentages yet, higher ASIC quality means a GPU will require less voltage to run at say default specs. What does this mean roughly? It means that this GPU is using less voltage and is generating less heat per clock than a lower ASIC counterpart. HOWEVER it also means the voltage limit of what it can take on air as well as the voltage response getting weaker/noisy. Here comes the leakage part. Highest ASIC gpus have also have the highest leakage, low ASIC gpus have lowest leakage. The two values scale linearly. This is why the lowest ASIC cards are the ones that can take loads of voltage on air, and the response is good. Usually these low asic cards can OUT OVERCLOCK their higher asic counterparts because they end up scaling higher on clocks maxed out with the benefit of the voltage increase that the high ASIC cards cannot. They are stuck on lower volts because the leakage is already very high.

How does ASIC relate to air overclocking? Typically a higher ASIC gpu will overclock nicely on default voltage/air cooling, yielding highest overclocks WITHOUT any voltage increase. Less voltage/less heat. Lower ASIC gpu will need to use more voltage for a given clock as the higher ASIC one. Back in the Kepler days, this meant great air/water overclocking on our 680's and 780's. I remember posting a thread at evga explaining to people that they needed to use 1.4v+ (at dmm) to max out their classified gpus on air. God I miss those days . Back then, the best gpus on air/water were the low asic ones, they could always oc/ov the highest. Times have changed, and this doesn't apply to maxwell however.

How does ASIC relate to Maxwell Air overclocking? With maxwell gpus the above definitions of ASIC do not apply Well you guys know maxwell 980,980ti, titanx have ambient cooling voltage limit on what v's you can give it on air/water. That's just the way it is. Its been proven over and over on every single manuf brand 980,titanx, 980ti. kp980 owners as well, no different. These gpus don't like voltage on air over 1.22-1.23v usually max. Just green garbage all over the screen with more, no better clocks. Best clocks usually achieved with stock voltage or maybe slightly higher.
So given what we know about ASIC quality and the voltage scaling capability of 980,980ti,t-x on air/water(NONE), it indicates the best gpus on 980Ti, will be the ones that can overclock the highest on default voltage or near default voltage. Ever noticed why almost every single review of 980ti (any brand) is around 1500mhz? The reviewer never can never add much voltage for better OC result.
I'm mostly an Ln2 person, but some users complaining about 980kpe not overclocking on air prompted me to try and make a better bios for ambient that would allow voltage. I managed a slight improvement that works on some cards, that's about it. But I learned a lot about the scaling of Maxwell on Air during that time and how we could if anything improve on this with KP980TI.

How does ASIC relate to LN2 overclocking and more specifically kp980ti?
As explained above, higher asic = higher leakage. Leakage is actually a good thing and can be contained on LN2 cooling. Cards with more leakage will run a bit hotter, usually extending cold limits on gpus and getting more core MHZ on LN2. Every overclocker wants every last mhz right? Higher ASIC GPUS also have better memory controllers and typically can overclock the memory very high on LN2. Lower ASIC gpus usually are not so good at driving the memory on Ln2 and the overclocker will lose a lot of MHZ when going cold.
Lastly, every serious overclocker knows the highest ASIC gpus use the least amount of voltage for any given clock. This means these gpus will always have the highest potential for scaling to the absolute highest clock on LN2, because most 980ti gpus max out around the same voltage level on the high end max max ln2 as well. Wouldn't you want the most clock you could get for that voltage . KP card pushes them all the way. Unless its a lemon gpu (cant test every single one on ln2 lol), it will max out on this card.

Does high ASIC guarantee highest clocks on air? NO. The other part of ASIC which is Leakage is high on these, so that can actually hold back some high asic gpus on air. This doesn't mean its bad on Ln2 as well, and usually the contrary. I Tested around 15 pieces or so of KP980Ti these days, all different asic levels. Some as high as 81% all the way to 64% (which we wont even sell the average clocks on air were roughly 1550mhz Lowest was 1526mhz, highest was 1592mhz . Seemed like every card went to 1539mhz or so Most of the higher asic cards did as expected and hit the upper 1550's. None could pass 1600mhz, but some came really close! Those were mostly higher ASIC%'s. You should know that every kp980ti is binned gpu and even the minimum ASIC level for any card is very high compared to average. A 70-72% asic card is a great card. Reviewers should be hitting low to mid 1500's on avg and some cards hitting close to 1600. If your an air/water guy and don't plan to run ln2, I think no matter what asic level of card you get, it will do mid-low 1500's and there is a chance on all kp 980Tis regardless of asic to hit the magic 1600. Still need some luck too, leakage can limit this. For the hardcore users or the ones that may run ln2, I would think more seriously about asic and the time/money you can save buy getting something closer to what you want. Being an Ln2 overclocker myself, I feel this buy is mostly for you.

Does ASIC % guarantee highest clocks on LN2? No it doesn't, it is only an indicator of what to expect. EVGA is giving the chance for customers to zero in on exactly on what you want. Some users will try many cards to find the highest asics for best LN2 overclocking, its not a new thing. The highest ASIC gpus will almost always be the best ones on LN2 as explained above. These are the users we mostly are targeting with this. The ones that end up buying and trying lots of cards to find the one gem, almost always a high ASIC card. They will end up spending much more than the price difference of kp980ti high asic and wasting lots of time in the process. This is geared for them.

Are we binning gpus away from other cards to make this one (classy or other)?. LOL I wish, but no way that's possible or anyone would even let me do that haha. For sure there will be guys on classys or other cards who find a high asic gpu here or there and im sure they will let us all know they paid XXXX lower than what someone paid for their KP and still got a high asic.
KP980ti is very special card in many ways hw wise. This is just one special added buying option for our more hardcore users on first few batches directly from us, that's all

Anything I didn't cover or you want to know something specifically about the card, I'm happy to answer.

[Arty]

You could build a whole system for the price of one card lmao.

 

Cool idea but damn $$$$$

 

 

 

Theres also other websites that do this for CPUs but now with such a huge markup.

[Guest]

You could build a whole system for the price of one card lmao.

 

Cool idea but damn $$$$$

 

ikr

[Jerakl]

I'm p sure my 780 has higher ASIC% then that.

[Aytex]

2 exp3nsive 4 me

[Godlygamer23]

$1,050 for 80% ASIC quality? Has ASIC quality even proven to actually matter?

[Hunter7263]

On one hand I think its cool but on the other hand I feel like its a money grab....

[Lays]

I'm p sure my 780 has higher ASIC% then that.

 

$1,050 for 80% ASIC quality? Has ASIC quality even proven to actually matter?

 

With maxwell it seems like it sort of does help, because without being sub-ambient, the cards don't seem to scale with voltage at all after ~1.3 volts.  "Usually" a card with high ASIC will OC further at that 1.3 volts than a card with lower ASIC, but the higher ASIC card may not scale well with voltage after that if you were to go sub ambient.

[ChrisxIxCross]

$1,050 for 80% ASIC quality? Has ASIC quality even proven to actually matter?

Yes with Maxwell it has. Volts and Power are no longer the biggest deciding factor when you want the absolute highest overclock. Twice now with the GTX 980 Classified and now the GTX 980 Ti Classified I have seen many disspointed people because they're expecting their cards to get crazy good overclocks due to being non reference but this is simply NOT the case. No matter how amazing the card is if the ASIC quality is crap it is going to OC like garbage.

 

Not to mention if ASIC quality wasnt /that/ important I doubt they'd be doing something like this.

[Notree]

I think this is awful. $200 more for maybe a few extra mhz.. No thanks..Id rather spend $200 less and have luck of the draw. CPU wise i think it makes more sense as there guaranteeing over clocks..

[Jerakl]

With maxwell it seems like it sort of does help, because without being sub-ambient, the cards don't seem to scale with voltage at all after ~1.3 volts.  "Usually" a card with high ASIC will OC further at that 1.3 volts than a card with lower ASIC, but the higher ASIC card may not scale well with voltage after that if you were to go sub ambient.

 

>implying it doesn't matter with kepler

[W-L]

ASIC quality and overclocking don't exactly have a direct correlation to card performance, there are so many other factors that can affect an overclock other than lower voltages. Unless EVGA is testing to check the percentage of OC there will be some cards that have great ASIC quality but not a breathtaking OC.

 

I have a G1 gtx970 with ASIC of 80.9% and it gives great overclocks but not the same I've seen with others out there with the same card.

[Shakaza]

I always wondered why companies hadn't done this before.

 

One question, though: Isn't lower ASIC quality better for water, dry ice, or other forms of exotic cooling, and higher is better for air cooling. And since these cards are generally meant for exotic cooling, why isn't extremely low quality expensive too?

[don_svetlio]

Okay, so does this mean that mine being 77% (according to GPU-Z) is better? I don't exactly understand how this has influence over what the cards run at
From what I understand it means I should be running lower voltages by default. if that's the VDDC in GPU-Z (RoG one) does that mean that my core voltage under load is 1.1V?

[Godlygamer23]

Yes with Maxwell it has. Volts and Power are no longer the biggest deciding factor when you want the absolute highest overclock. Twice now with the GTX 980 Classified and now the GTX 980 Ti Classified I have seen many disspointed people because they're expecting their cards to get crazy good overclocks due to being non reference but this is simply NOT the case. No matter how amazing the card is if the ASIC quality is crap it is going to OC like garbage.

Is this provable? If you can't prove it, spending the above amount of money is absurd.

[kipper]

I payed 150 quid for a GTX 480 that was a golden GPU... 950mhz on air cooling.. almost 1GHZ....

 

EVGA are just pumping money out of peoples pockets.

[Valentyn]

$1,050 for 80% ASIC quality? Has ASIC quality even proven to actually matter?

 

For reference cards? Yeah, with normal user overclocks and Boost.

 

8Pack recently mentioned on Overclocker.co.uk that it still down to a normal silicon lottery, and ASIC doesn't have much bearing for high overlocks.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=28280875&postcount=4104

 

 

Is higher asic important?

In my experience not so. My Classified had high ASIC my HOF low. Both clocked amazing. Its a silicon lottery in terms of ASIC and overclocking. Vince is actually on about 980 not 980 Ti but in my experience the same applies. 

EVGA are always shrink wrapped yes. Other brands are not. 

 

Gibbo at OcUK as well

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=28281023&postcount=4110

 

 

Hi there

Simples:

High ASIC score = Higher boost clock out of box

Lower ASIC score = lower boost clock out of box but still at or above advertised speeds.

Overclocking = ASIC score means absolute nothing, all down to silicon which you can not tell by ASIC score.

[ClownFace1511]

Those prices are nothing compared to australia. Im paying $1049 just for a reference 980ti.....

[SleathX1]

-snip-

Huge news, and I'm glad it's being done. YES, I feel like it needs to be expensive as with any new feature that's being brought to the market. Think about all the quality control that EVGA (and any board partner that wants to do this in the future) has to make sure is right, otherwise a huge slew of complaints follows. But I'm super happy that this is now a thing. 

 

EDIT: Snippy snippy.

Edited July 20, 2015 by SleathX1

[-CLASSIFIED-]

at least they state right there on the page that a higher asic does not mean it will overclock better then a lower asic card 

[Delusional Phil]

I was reading normally in excitement then the prices hit my eyes like a gallon of cold water ... Mood killer ... 

[Albatross]

I must be a dork for thinking this, but it would be cool if they had one card that they made to its top quality possible (which is obviously possible) instead of splitting it up and forcing us to pay for better performance/quality* of the same card just so they can make more money.

 

*whatever the "difference" is

[BoredErica]

Very nice find, I'll spread the word on OCN.

[-CLASSIFIED-]

I was reading normally in excitement then the prices hit my eyes like a gallon of cold water ... Mood killer ... 

lmao ikr *starts praying for a high asic on mine so i can sell it for an absurd amount of profit*

[SleathX1]

ASIC quality and overclocking don't exactly have a direct correlation to card performance, there are so many other factors that can affect an overclock other than lower voltages. Unless EVGA is testing to check the percentage of OC there will be some cards that have great ASIC quality but not a breathtaking OC.

 

I have a G1 gtx970 with ASIC of 80.9% and it gives great overclocks but not the same I've seen with others out there with the same card.

Where in GPUZ is this displayed? TIA