Test Methodology
Gigabyte GTX WaterForce specification |
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GPU Comparisons |
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| Graphics Card | GPU Cores | Base Clock (MHz) |
Boost Clock (MHz) |
Memory Size (MB) |
Memory Clock (MHz) |
Memory Bus (bits) |
Graphics Driver | |
| Gigabyte GTX WaterForce (3-card SLI) | 6,144 | 1,228 | 1,329 | 3x 4,096 | 7,012 | 3x 256 | 344.75 | |
| Gigabyte GTX WaterForce (2-card SLI) | 4,096 | 1,228 | 1,329 | 2x 4,096 | 7,012 | 2x 256 | 344.75 | |
| Gigabyte GTX WaterForce (1-card) | 2,048 | 1,228 | 1,329 | 4,096 | 7,012 | 256 | 344.75 | |
| MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G | 2,048 | 1,216 | 1,317 | 4,096 | 7,012 | 256 | 344.07 | |
| Asus GeForce GTX 980 Strix | 2,048 | 1,178 | 1,279 | 4,096 | 7,012 | 256 | 344.07 | |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 | 2,048 | 1,127 | 1,216 | 4,096 | 7,012 | 256 | 344.07 | |
| EVGA GeForce GTX 970 FTW | 1,664 | 1,216 | 1,367 | 4,096 | 7,012 | 256 | 344.07 | |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan | 2,688 | 837 | 876 | 6,144 | 6,008 | 384 | 344.07 | |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti | 2,880 | 875 | 928 | 3,072 | 7,012 | 384 | 344.07 | |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 | 2,304 | 863 | 900 | 3,072 | 6,008 | 384 | 344.07 | |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 | 1,536 | 1,046 | 1,085 | 2,048 | 7,012 | 256 | 344.07 | |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 | 1,536 | 1,006 | 1,058 | 2,048 | 6,008 | 256 | 344.07 | |
| AMD Radeon R9 295X2 | 5,632 | N/A | 1,015 | 2x 4,096 | 5,000 | 2x 512 | 14.12 | |
| AMD Radeon R9 290X | 2,816 | N/A | 1,000 | 4,096 | 5,000 | 512 | 14.7 RC3 | |
| AMD Radeon R9 290 | 2,560 | N/A | 947 | 4,096 | 5,000 | 512 | 14.7 RC3 | |
HEXUS High-End Graphics Test Bench |
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| Hardware Components | HEXUS Review | Product Page | |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-4770K (quad-core, overclocked up to 4.40GHz) | June 2013 | Intel.com |
| CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-D15 | April 2014 | Noctua.at |
| Motherboard | Asus Z97-A | May 2014 | Asus.com |
| Memory | 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro (2x8GB) DDR3 @ 1,866MHz | - | Corsair.com |
| Power Supply | Corsair AX760i | - | Corsair.com |
| Storage Device | Crucial M500 240GB SSD | July 2013 | Crucial.com |
| Chassis | Corsair Graphite Series 600T | October 2010 | Corsair.com |
| Monitor | Philips Brilliance 4K Ultra HD LED (288P6LJEB/00) | - | Philips.co.uk |
| Operating system | Windows 8.1 (64-bit) | October 2012 | Microsoft.com |
HEXUS Extreme Graphics Test Bench |
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| Hardware Components | HEXUS Review | Product Page | |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-5960X (octo-core, overclocked up to 4.40GHz) | August 2014 | Intel.com |
| CPU Cooler | Zalman LQ315 | November 2014 | Zalman.com |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte X99 Gaming 5 | August 2014 | Gigabyte.com |
| Memory | 16GB Corsair Vengance LPX (4x4GB) DDR4 @ 2,133MHz | August 2014 | Corsair.com |
| Power Supply | Antec HCP-1300 Platinum | - | Antec.com |
| Storage Device | Sandisk Extreme Pro 240GB SSD | July 2014 | Sandisk.co.uk |
| Chassis | Corsair Graphite Series 780T | September 2014 | Corsair.com |
| Monitor | Philips Brilliance 4K Ultra HD LED (288P6LJEB/00) | - | Philips.co.uk |
| Operating system | Windows 8.1 (64-bit) | October 2012 | Microsoft.com |
HEXUS Ultra-High-End Benchmark Suite |
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| Synthetic Benchmarks | |
| 3DMark | Fire Strike and Fire Strike Extreme |
| 3DMark Vantage | Extreme Feature Tests - Texture Fill and Colour Fill |
| Gaming Benchmarks | |
| Title | Settings at 3,840x2,160 (4K) |
| BioShock Infinite | AA Enabled, Ultra Preset inc. Depth of Field |
| Crysis 3 | 0xMSAA, Very High Textures, Very High System Spec |
| Grid Autosport | 2xMSAA, Maximum Quality Settings (Soft Ambient Occlusion On, Advanced Lighting On, Rear View Mirror Off, Global Illumination On) |
| Tomb Raider | FXAA, Ultra Quality Preset, TressFX Disabled |
| Total War: Rome II | AA Disabled, Ultra Preset |
| General Benchmarks | |
| Power Consumption | To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record system-wide mains power draw both when idle and while playing Grid Autosport. |
| Temperature | To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record GPU core temperature both when idle and while playing Grid Autosport. |
| Noise | A PCE-318 meter is used to record noise levels when idle and while playing Grid Autosport. |
| Overclocking | Maintaining out-the-box voltage, we increase the card's power target and aim for an optimal balance of core and memory overclock. With the heightened frequencies in place, the 3DMark and Total War: Rome II tests are re-run. |
Notes
The Gigabyte WaterForce is designed to run on an extreme system, so we've put together a suitable test platform for the purpose of this review. It includes an Intel Core i7-5960X processor overclocked to 4.4GHz, a Zalman liquid cooler, Gigabyte X99 Gaming 5 motherboard and 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory. Factor in a 1,300W Platinum power supply, solid-state storage, a 4K monitor and Gigabyte's three-way graphics, and the total build cost is close to £5,000.
We've retained benchmark results from single cards on our usual Z97 platform as a point of reference, but considering the extreme nature of the hardware, we've limited benchmarking to a high-end 4K (3,840x2,160) resolution. Making things interesting, we've benchmarked the WaterForce package in single-, dual- and triple-GPU modes to see how well the GTX 980 scales, and we've also included results for AMD's dual-GPU Radeon R9 295X2.
Where applicable, any vendor-specific enhancements such as PhysX and TressFX are disabled to help even the playing field. In-game benchmark results are recorded as average frames per second, and to provide further insight into the workings of multi-GPU configurations, we also take our SLI and CrossFire results and report the percentage of frames rendered within a specified time, as well as the time taken to render the slowest one per cent of frames during the benchmark run.
