Palit GeForce GTX 980Ti Super Jetstream Review

Today we take a look at the latest high end solution from Palit, the new GTX980 Ti Super JetStream. This card ships with a custom cooler, out of the box clock enhancements, and the price point has dropped to £539.99 inc vat. How does it compare to leading GTX980 Ti solutions we have analysed in recent weeks from the likes of MSI, Gigabyte and ASUS? In a similar fashion to the MSI GTX980 Ti Gaming 6G, Palit have adopted a dual fan cooling system. Asus and Gigabyte have both opted for triple fan coolers for their STRIX and G1 Gaming solutions, with the ability to push greater levels of air across the full length of the PCB. GPU GeForce GTX960 Geforce GTX970 GeForce GTX980 Geforce GTX 980 Ti Geforce GTX Titan X Streaming Multiprocessors 8 13 16 22 24 CUDA Cores 1024 1664 2048 2816 3072 Base Clock 1126 mhz 1050 mhz 1126 mhz 1000 mhz 1000 mhz GPU Boost Clock 1178 mhz 1178 mhz 1216 mhz 1075 mhz 1076 mhz Total Video memory 2GB 4GB 4GB 6GB 12GB Texture Units 64 104 128 176 192 Texture fill-rate 72.1 Gigatexels/Sec 109.2 Gigatexels/Sec 144.1 Gigatexels/Sec 176 Gigatexels/Sec 192 Gigatexels/Sec Memory Clock 7010 mhz 7000 mhz 7000 mhz 7000 mhz 7000 mhz Memory Bandwidth 112.16 GB/sec 224 GB/s 224 GB/sec 336.5 GB/sec 336.5 GB/sec Bus Width 128bit 256bit 256bit 384bit 384bit ROPs 32 56 64 96 96 Manufacturing Process 28nm 28nm 28nm 28nm 28nm TDP 120 watts 145 watts 165 watts 250 watts 250 watts The Nvidia GTX980 Ti ships with 2816 CUDA cores and 22 SM units. The memory subsystem of the GTX980 Ti consists of six 64-bit memory controllers (384-bit) with 6GB of GDDR5 memory. The Palit GTX980 Super JetStream has received a clock boost over Nvidia’s reference card, with final speeds set at 1,152 mhz(core)/1,241mhz (boost). The memory remains untouched and runs at 1,753mhz (7Gbps effective). Palit box artwork is always rather plain featuring just the name of the product, without any high resolution images on the front. Not much information is shared on the rear of the box with images from Grand Theft Auto 5 and Batman Arkham Knight highlighted. The less said about the latter title, the better we think. The bundle includes some power and video converter cables, a software disc, a sticker and some literature. We do recommend you snag the latest beta drivers direct from the Nvidia website. The Palit GTX980 Ti Super JetStream is a fairly attractive looking card, although we much prefer the appearance of the dual fan MSI GTX980 Ti Gaming 6G. The Palit cooler does flex a little bit in the hand, and doesn't feel as rigid as the MSI cooler either. Palit have fitted a decent quality backplate to the rear of the PCB, which is always good to see. While many of the Nvidia partners have opted for a dual 8 pin PCI e power cable configuration, Palit have decided to reduce the power intake to a 1x 6 pin and 1x 8 pin layout. It will be interesting to see if it reduces overclocking capabilities and power consumption later in the review. As with all GTX980 Ti cards, the Super JetStream is SLi capable in 2,3 and 4 way configurations. The Palit card ships with a single DVI-D port. There are three DisplayPorts 1.2 and a single HDMI 2.0 port along the bottom of the I/O plate. If you wish, you can use all these ports at the same time for triple monitor gaming. HDMI 2.0 is supported, so you are able to get 60hz at 4K resolutions, without the need for any adapters. The Palit card is equipped with a thick heatsink which spans the full length of the PCB, as shown above. We can see that thick copper heatpipes run across the full length of the shroud into two racks of aluminum fins and into the copper base which makes contact with the GM200 core. An overview of the hardware in the latest version of GPUz – as discussed on the previous page. This overclocked GM200 core runs at 1158mhz (1,241mhz boost) and is built on the 28nm process. The GTX980 Ti has 96 ROPs, 176 Texture units (Titan X has 192 texture units) and 2,816 CUDA Cores (Titan X has 3,072 CUDA Cores). The 6GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 1753mhz (7Gbps effective) and is connected via a 384 bit memory interface. On this page we present some high resolution images of the product taken with a Canon 1DX and Canon 28-70mm F2.8 lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. For the last 20 days we have been testing and retesting all the video cards in this review with the latest 15.6 Catalyst and 353.30 Forceware drivers. We have also selected some new game sections to benchmark during our ‘real world runs’. If you want to read more about our test system, or are interested in buying the same Kitguru Test Rig, check out our article with links on this page. We are using an Asus PB287Q 4k and Apple 30 inch Cinema HD monitor for this review today. Due to reader feedback we have changed the 1600p tests to 1440p, and we have also disabled Nvidia specific features such as Hairworks in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as it can have such a negative impact on partnering hardware. Anti Aliasing is also now disabled in our tests at Ultra HD 4K as readers have indicated they don’t need it at such a high resolution. If you have other suggestions please email me directly at zardon(at)kitguru.net. Cards on test: Palit Geforce GTX980 Ti Super Jetstream (1,152 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) MSI GTX980 Ti Gaming 6G (1,178 mhz core / 1774 mhz memory) ASUS STRIX Gaming GTX 980 Ti DirectCU 3 (1,216 mhz core / 1800mhz memory) Visiontek Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB (1,050mhz core / 500mhz memory) & (1,130mhz core) Sapphire R9 295X2 (1,018 mhz core / 1,250 mhz memory) Nvidia Titan Z (706mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) Gigabyte GTX980 Ti G1 Gaming (1,152mhz / 1,753 mhz memory) Nvidia Titan X (1,002 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) Nvidia GTX 980 Ti (1,000 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) Asus GTX980 Strix (1,178 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) Sapphire R9 390 X 8GB (1,055 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory) & (1,144mhz core / 1631 mhz memory) Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8GB (1,010 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory) & (1,125mhz core / 1637 mhz memory) Sapphire R9 290 X 8GB (1,020 mhz core / 1,375 mhz memory) Asus R9 290 Direct CU II ( 1,000 mhz core / 1,250 mhz memory) Asus R9 285 Strix (954 mhz core / 1,375 mhz memory) Palit GTX970 (1,051 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) Software: Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit Unigine Heaven Benchmark Unigine Valley Benchmark 3DMark Vantage 3DMark 11 3DMark Fraps Professional Steam Client FurMark Games: Grid AutoSport Tomb Raider Grand Theft Auto 5 Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt Metro Last Light Redux We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page. Game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia. Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings. The Palit GeForce GTX 980Ti Super Jetstream scores very closely against the Gigabyte GTX980 T1 G1 Gaming, scoring 62,864 points. We know this benchmark is old now, but it gives a good indication of Direct X 10 game performance. 3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads. Excellent results in this Direct X 11 benchmark, scoring 24,833 points in the graphics test. This places the Palit GTX980 Ti Super Jetstream ahead of the Titan Z and Titan X solutions. 3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance. Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good. To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.” Superb results in the latest Direct X 11 benchmark from Futuremark, scoring just ahead of the more expensive reference clocked Titan X.Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand. Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk. Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable: Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems Multicore CPU support Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles) Powerful C++ API Comprehensive performance profiling system Flexible XML-based data structures We test at 2560x1440 with quality setting at ULTRA, Tessellation at NORMAL, and Anti-Aliasing at x2. Tessellation performance from the Nvidia hardware is fantastic and the overclocked GTX980 Ti cards always score well in this benchmark - right at the top of the chart. Grid Autosport (styled as GRID Autosport) is a racing video game by Codemasters and is the sequel to 2008′s Race Driver: Grid and 2013′s Grid 2. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on June 24, 2014. (Wikipedia). We test with the image quality on ULTRA and 8x anti aliasing enabled. Complete overkill at 1440p, averaging 144 frames per second at these settings. Grid Autosport (styled as GRID Autosport) is a racing video game by Codemasters and is the sequel to 2008′s Race Driver: Grid and 2013′s Grid 2. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on June 24, 2014. (Wikipedia). We test with the image quality on ULTRA and 8 anti aliasing enabled. Super smooth at Ultra HD 4K, maintaining well in excess of 60 frames per second at all times and averaging 88 frames per second. Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far. (Wikipedia). We test at 1440p with the ‘ULTIMATE’ image quality profile selected. Tomb Raider is powered by a fully featured engine. The overclocked GTX980 Ti has no problems powering this game at 1440p, averaging over 100 frames per second.Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far. (Wikipedia). We test at 3840×2160 (4K) with the ‘ULTIMATE’ image profile selected. We normally reduce the image quality profile to ‘ULTRA’ at this resolution, but we decided to keep it at the highest image quality possible. At Ultra HD 4k the Palit GTX980 Ti Super Jetstream averages 51 frames per second and the game experience is perfectly playable from a single card. Obviously if you demand a solid 60 frames per second then you would need to reduce image quality settings to increase the minimum frame rate. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Polish: Wiedźmin 3: Dziki Gon) is an action role-playing video game set in an open world environment, developed by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt concludes the story of the witcher Geralt of Rivia, the series’ protagonist, whose story to date has been covered in the previous versions. Continuing from The Witcher 2, the ones who sought to use Geralt are now gone. Geralt seeks to move on with his own life, embarking on a new and personal mission whilst the world order itself is coming to a change. Geralt’s new mission comes in dark times as the mysterious and otherworldly army known as the Wild Hunt invades the Northern Kingdoms, leaving only blood soaked earth and fiery ruin in its wake; and it seems the Witcher is the key to stopping their cataclysmic rampage. (Wikipedia). We test with the highest image quality settings, although I have disabled the Nvidia Hairworks option specifically as it does kill frame rate on many cards. Graphics Preset is on ULTRA and Postprocessing is on HIGH. I have played The Witcher 3 for around 85 hours and I have completed the single player campaign. I tested the game today by playing 4 different save game stages for 5 minutes each, then averaging the frame rate results for a real world indication of performance - one of the map sections we tested is one of the most demanding in the game and our results can be considered strictly 'worst case'. The Witcher 3 is a dynamic world, so it is important to run tests multiple times to remove any discrepancies. This is one of the greatest PC games ever released in my opinion, so I spent around a total of 48 hours benchmarking it for this review alone - it should be on your must have list, if you don't have it already. I always enjoy playing this game again to test the latest cards to arrive in our labs. As we would expect the Palit GTX980 Ti Super Jetstream is capable of powering this game without a problem, averaging 72 frames per second. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Polish: Wiedźmin 3: Dziki Gon) is an action role-playing video game set in an open world environment, developed by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt concludes the story of the witcher Geralt of Rivia, the series’ protagonist, whose story to date has been covered in the previous versions. Continuing from The Witcher 2, the ones who sought to use Geralt are now gone. Geralt seeks to move on with his own life, embarking on a new and personal mission whilst the world order itself is coming to a change. Geralt’s new mission comes in dark times as the mysterious and otherworldly army known as the Wild Hunt invades the Northern Kingdoms, leaving only blood soaked earth and fiery ruin in its wake; and it seems the Witcher is the key to stopping their cataclysmic rampage. (Wikipedia). We test with the highest image quality settings, although I have disabled the Nvidia Hairworks option specifically as it does kill frame rate on many cards. Graphics Preset is on ULTRA and Postprocessing is on HIGH. I have played The Witcher 3 for around 85 hours and I have completed the single player campaign. I tested the game today by playing 4 different save game stages for 5 minutes each, then averaging the frame rate results for a real world indication of performance - one of the map sections we tested is one of the most demanding in the game and our results can be considered strictly 'worst case'. The Witcher 3 is a dynamic world, so it is important to run tests multiple times to remove any discrepancies. This is one of the greatest PC games ever released in my opinion, so I spent around a total of 48 hours benchmarking it for this review alone - it should be on your must have list, if you don't have it already. At Ultra HD 4K with these ultra high image quality settings, the Witcher 3 proves difficult for a single card to power. The Palit GTX980 Ti Super JetStream scores well, averaging 42 frames per second. Some image quality settings could be reduced further to improve the minimum frame rate.Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players can freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world of Grand Theft Auto V is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. The world may be fully explored from the beginning of the game without restrictions, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content. (Wikipedia). We maximised every slider – FXAA was enabled, although we left all other Anti Aliasing settings disabled - based on reader feedback from previous reviews. ‘Ignore Suggested Limits’ was turned ‘ON’. We found some intensive sections of the Grand Theft Auto 5 world and tested each card multiple times to confirm accuracy. The game demanded around 3.5GB of GPU memory at 1440p and just over 4GB at 4K. A smooth overall experience, maintaining frame rates between 53 and 77 at all times. Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players can freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world of Grand Theft Auto V is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. The world may be fully explored from the beginning of the game without restrictions, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content. (Wikipedia). We maximised every slider – FXAA was enabled, although we left all other Anti Aliasing settings disabled - based on reader feedback from previous reviews. ‘Ignore Suggested Limits’ was turned ‘ON’. We found some intensive sections of the Grand Theft Auto 5 world and tested each card multiple times to confirm accuracy. The game demanded around 3.5GB of GPU memory at 1440p and just over 4GB at 4K. A solid gaming experience averaging just under 50 frames per second. Adding another card for SLI reaps reward with this engine and would increase frame rates to 60+ at all times. On May 22, 2014, a Redux version of Metro Last Light was announced. It was released on August 26, 2014 in North America and August 29, 2014 in Europe for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. A compilation package, titled Metro Redux, was released at the same time which includes Last Light and 2033. (Wikipedia). We test with following settings: Quality-Very High, SSAA-off, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-Normal, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-off. At 1440p with these high image quality settings, the Palit GTX980 Ti Super Jetstream holds frame rates above 60 at all times, averaging 91. On May 22, 2014, a Redux version of Metro Last Light was announced. It was released on August 26, 2014 in North America and August 29, 2014 in Europe for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. A compilation package, titled Metro Redux, was released at the same time which includes Last Light and 2033. (Wikipedia). We test with following settings: Quality- High, SSAA-off, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-Normal, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-off. Another great experience at Ultra HD 4K, maintaining frame rates above 40 at all times. The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 23c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic. The cooler on the Palit Super JetStream is capable, holding game load temperatures at 63c, this is 1c behind than the Gigabyte GTX980 G1 Gaming but ahead of the MSI GTX980 Ti Gaming 6G and Asus STRIX Gaming GTX980 Ti DUC3. We install the graphics card into our system and measure temperatures on the back of the PCB with our Fluke Visual IR Thermometer/Infrared Thermal Camera. This is a real world running environment. Details shown below. The backplate on the Palit GTX980 ti Super JetStream helps to spread the heat evenly. There is a single hot spot on the rear, with temperatures hitting 68c under extended load. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA – High Quality Computer fan 40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator 50dBA – Normal Conversation 60dBA – Laughter 70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA – Orchestra 120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA – Threshold of Pain 140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum The card is almost silent when idle. The dual fans spin up actively under load to compensate for rising temperatures. We can see the dual fan GTX980 Ti's from Palit and MSI (Gaming 6G) are louder than the triple fan coolers fitted to the Gigabyte G1 Gaming and ASUS STRIX. The Palit GTX980 Ti Super Jetstream doesn't emit coil whine under extreme stress situations. To overclock today, we used the latest version of MSI Afterburner. We managed to increase the boost speeds from 1,241mhz to 1,406mhz - a 13.2% overclock. Memory could be pushed from 1,753 mhz (7Gbps effective) to 1,849mhz (7.4Gbps effective) We measure power consumption from the whole system when idle and when gaming, excluding the monitor. Under gaming load, the Palit GTX980 Ti Super JetStream system consumes 335 watts, very closely matched to the Gigabyte GTX980 T1 G1 gaming. The Palit GTX980 Ti Super JetStream hits our labs after previous analysis of Gigabyte G1 Gaming (review HERE), MSI Gaming 6G (review HERE) and Asus Strix Direct CU3 (review HERE) competing solutions. The Palit is a powerful gaming card and like all the overclocked GTX980 Ti's we have tested so far, is able to produce stellar gaming frame rates at both 1440p and Ultra HD 4k resolutions - with the eye candy cranked. The Palit GTX980 Ti Super Jetstream faces stiff competition from Asus, MSI and Gigabyte and it doesn't unfortunately stand out in any particular area. There is no doubt the twin fan cooler is capable, but it is louder than the MSI twin fan cooler and performs worse than the triple fan cooler fitted to Gigabyte's GTX980 Ti G1 Gaming card. The Asus GTX980 Strix Direct CU 3 is the quietest of them all, by a clear margin. Part of the problem is that Palit have not yet decided to adopt a triple fan cooling solution - giving the Asus and Gigabyte 980 Ti cards an advantage when it comes to fine tuning noise emissions against outright cooling performance. The Palit card is the most audible under load, and while not annoying, will be clearly heard in a quiet build, under load. Overclocking potential is similar to other GTX980 Ti's we have tested so far, and while Palit have swapped one of the 8 pin connectors to a 6 pin, it doesn't negatively impact overclocking headroom in software tools. Power draw is also pretty similar to the other models. You can buy the Palit GTX980 Ti Super JetStream from Overclockers UK for £549.99 inc vat, with a price reduction this week to £539.99 inc vat. It is one of the more affordable high end partner cards in this particular range. Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE. Pros: looks quite attractive. good build quality. backplate helps reduce hot spots. out of the box overclocked core speeds. excellent 4K performance. HDMI 2.0 support. one of the cheaper models available today. Cons: A triple fan cooler would have helped reduce noise while maintaining high airflow. Kitguru says: The Palit GTX980 Ti Super JetStream is an excellent graphics card which delivers class leading performance at both 1440p and 4K resolutions. It is also one of the less expensive modified GTX980 Ti cards available in the UK today.