Power, Temperature and Noise
Such liberal flaunting of core and memory frequency bodes well for in-game framerate, but there is an inevitable trade-off - system-wide power consumption is markedly higher than reference. You don't get higher performance for free.
Now how's that liquid cooler? Well, it has zero problem keeping the GPU running suitably cool at all times, though 72ºC under load is actually a tad warmer than we were expecting. This can possibly be attributed to the fact that the radiator assembly sits awfully close to the large Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler in our test platform. So close, in fact, that we had to position the fan as an exhaust this side of the radiator - we reckon GPU temperature would be even lower were the fan used as a rear intake, pulling in cool air over the radiator.
As for noise levels, that's a little more interesting. We're particularly fond of deadly-silent PC hardware and the Inno3D iChill GeForce GTX 980 Ti Black is intriguing in so much as it's close to being ultra-quiet but falls short due to a few concerns. The radiator fan proved quiet enough, and we like the fact that the onboard fan turns off at low load, however we found the pump to be audible most of the time and our sample also exhibited a fair amount of coil whine.
The card can still be deemed quiet - you'd barely hear it in a full-on gaming rig - but in a PC optimised to run at a whisper you may find the whine distracting.
