GTX 980 G1 Gaming vs. Zotac 980 AMP! Extreme with HG10 n980 h80i

[blankdragon]

I guess my real question is which one would get a better overclock as well as which one would be cooler/quieter. Here's what my situation:

I am buying a new graphics card (specifically a GTX 980). I have it narrowed down to two cards in particular, the Gigabyte Geforce GTX 980 G1 Gaming Edition and the Zotac Geforce GTX 980 AMP! Extreme Edition. However, I noticed that the HG10 n980 is compatible with the Zotac card, but not the G1. Currently I have an extra h80i just sitting around and could use that with the Zotac card. Which one is more likely to get a higher stable overclock and which one will have the lowest temperature and be the quietest.

My setup is:
-Asus M5A99FX EVO R2.0
-AMD FX-8370
-Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
-8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-2133Mhz
-2 WD Black 1Tb in RAID0
-Corsair TX750W Power Supply
-Some Asus DVD Drive that I don't have plugged in most of the time
-CFI Prime 223 ATX Mid Tower Case
-ASUS R9 290x Reference Card

If you have any information or advice, it would be greatly appreciated

 

[geofelt]

How high you can overclock any product is largely determined by the quality of your particular sample.
Graphics card vendors are wise to this and bin their chips. The better ones go into factory overclocked versions that sell for more.
You could win the lottery with a stock card, but that may be a poor bet.

My advice is to spend your budget on a GTX980ti in the first place. A GTX980 is a nice card, but it is only one tier higher on tom's graphics card hierarchy list than your R9-290X. You are likely to be disappointed if you do not see big results.
Sell your H80i to help with the difference. Even a stock GTX980ti will be a bigger jump.

 

[junkeymonkey]

heck the evga hybrid 980 ti was just on sale at newegg for 699 free shipping

I thought those deals likr you showed for fro the reference board only ??

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/hydro-series-hg10-n980-gpu-liquid-cooling-bracket

now msi got a hybrid as well and like the evga's there factory oc'ed

for the non reference cards this is where you need to look

example

http://www.ekwb.com/configurator/step1_complist

in the end I would just go with the evga and all assembled and covered with there great support and warrantee and be done with it

 

[faalin]

Every card is different when it comes to overclocking. When i was younger and had money to just throw away I bought about 12 different MSI 580 cards, I would buy one OC it and if it didnt meet my OC'ing needs i would send it back and pay the restocking fees. Through all that i ended up with two cards that would OC to just over 1000Mhz from the stock 772Mhz, some didnt even make to over 800Mhz.

I would go with the Zotac, I've had two GTX 480 that would OC like a mofo as well. As for quite i dont know but if your putting a H80i on it it shouldnt really matter.