14 DAY TRIAL // The GeForce GTX 980 Strix may not be available in most shops, but some people still managed to get their hands on it, among them being Swedish overclocked Elmor. And he's not just any overclocker, but a really good one.
You could draw that conclusion for yourselves if you were to check the new GPU world records registered on the HWBOT website.
And yes, we do mean records, as in plural. Elmor managed to set two of them with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 graphics card. Or, rather, ASUS' version of it, or one of them: GeForce GTX 980 Strix.
How the GeForce GTX 980 normally performs
The graphics card, based on the 28nm GM204 Maxwell graphics processing unit, has a base GPU clock of 1,126 MHz and a GPU Boost clock of 1,216 MHz. Also, it boasts 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM whose frequency is of 7 GHz.
Between these parameters and the 2,048 CUDA cores, 64 ROPs and 128 TMUs, as well as the 256-bit memory interface, the card is slightly better than the GeForce GTX 780 Ti while using a lot less energy.
Had NVIDIA been able to build the GPU on 20nm technology, the performance would have probably been a lot higher, as would have the efficiency. As it is, the company had to make do.
NVIDIA is holding the GM210 in reserve, probably until the 20nm node does become available, so that will be the true Maxwell flagship.
That didn't stop Swedish overclocker Elmor from pushing the GTX 980 beyond its limits though.
What the overclocker managed to pull out of ASUS GTX 980 Strix
The ASUS Strix GTX 980 is already faster than the normal board, with 1,178 / 1,279 MHz GPU Base/Boost settings.
The overclocker was able to push it to 2,202 MHz though. In the meanwhile, the 4 GB of VRAM went from 7 GHz to 8.4 GHz.
This was a record in itself, as least for the GPU. Said record also led to a new high score being achieved in 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark, of 9,568 points, beating the previous record (held by Kingpin) by over 100 points.
The computer that allowed for this to happen
The feat was made possible by a system run by an Intel Core i7-5960X CPU (itself overclocked to 5.586 GHz), 16 GB of G.Skill DDR4 RAM, and a V1200 1200W 80 Plus Platinum power supply unit from Cooler Master. Needless to say, a lot of liquid nitrogen was involved.
