14 DAY TRIAL // The GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 graphics cards from NVIDIA may lack the “Ti” suffix designating them as enthusiast-grade video boards, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth overclocking.
In fact, not long ago a professional overclocker was able to push the GeForce GTX 980 to 2.2 GHz, a new record for video cards in general. The feat brought about new benchmark records as well.
Colorful wants to see its name on an overclock record-setting video card as well, but it doesn't seem to have plans to get directly involved in such things.
So it chose something else. When making its GeForce GTX 980 iGame graphics card, it gave it two BIOS chips.
Why Dual-BIOS matters so much
The use here is two-fold. First, each BIOS automatically sets the clocks of the GPU and memory to specific settings. The other is that if you manually overclock the card to the point where it fails and doesn't start properly anymore, you can revert to the other one and reset.
The first BIOS mode has the card set at 1,127 MHz base GPU clock and 1,216 MHz GPU Boost, while the second mode has 1,178 MHz Base / 1,279 MHz Boost. The 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM operate at 7 GHz and 7.01 GHz, respectively.
For comparison's sake, the reference GTX 980 from NVIDIA has a base GPU frequency of 1,216 MHz and a GPU Boost maximum of 1,216 MHz. So you could say that the first BIOS mode on Colorful's GeForce GTX 980 iGame is identical, save for 1 MHz extra speed on base mode. Negligible really. A push-type switch can be used to change from one mode to the other.
The other special perks of the card
Dual-BIOS is nice and all, but Colorful also gave the board a massive 14-phase VRM that, with the energy from two 8-pin PCI Express power ports, will let you push the performance very high indeed.
Tantalum capacitors (server-grade), high-grade DPAK MOSFETs and high-current solid-chokes will make sure the PCB and other parts don't melt before the GPU itself does. That last component should also reduce the “growling” that video cards tend to produce at high load.
As for the cooler, it is a triple-slot beast made from an aluminum fin-stack and three 100 mm fans. It's pretty ironic that it will be useless to enthusiasts, since the 14-phase VRM won't be properly used without liberal employment of liquid nitrogen.
Availability and pricing
The Colorful GeForce GTX 980 iGame graphics card with dual-BIOS should sell in the Asia-Pacific and EMEA regions, but the price is unknown. A GeForce GTX 970 iGame board, plus a GTX 980 iGame Kudan (even more overkill than this one) will debut later this month (October 2014).
