Power, Temperature and Noise
Chart-topping in-game performance should come as no surprise. The real challenge for Gigabyte's WaterForce is can it keep three GTX 980s running cool and quiet under load? A power-draw reading of 539W when gaming isn't particularly high for a three-card configuration, but there's still lots of heat to contend with...
That, frankly, is fantastic. The results speak for themselves and act as justification for liquid-cooling in an SLI configuration. The three cards are closely packed, yet courtesy of three 120mm radiators, core temp is kept as low as 53ºC when gaming.
Running a single, liquid-cooled card is ironically a tad warmer, and that's because two of the WaterForce fans were disabled in that scenario.
Rounding off an impressive showing, the low temps are backed by reasonable noise levels. There's hardly any increase in noise when games are fired up, and the whole package keeps relatively quiet. The only catch is that the WaterForce is housed on top of a chassis, so while the noise output is minimal, you're more likely to notice it as opposed to, say, a couple of radiators inside the case.
