GTX980 Versions - Why the massive price difference?

[JoshDBoyle]

Hello Community!

I'm in the market for a GTX 980 and I'm finding a very wide price range on the card. To be clear, I have a bunch of Best Buy gift cards/store credit I'm going to be using so I need to shop from there. In looking at this card, I find the following examples:

Cheapest: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/pny-geforce-gtx-980-4gb-gddr5-pci-express-3-0-graphics-card-silver-black/1312358179.p?id=mp1312358179&skuId=1312358179

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-4gb-gddr5-sdram-pci-express-3-0-graphics-card-black-red/6916327.p?id=1219667167590&skuId=6916327

Most expensive: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/evga-geforce-gtx-980-graphic-card-1-29-ghz-core-4-gb-gddr5-sdram-pci-express-3-0-x16-dual-slot-space-required-multi/1312980844.p?id=mp1312980844&skuId=1312980844

Why the massive price differential here? I see some obvious difference such as clock speed and the fact that the most expensive card needs two PCI slots, but which would you buy and why? My goal is simple here: I really want a card that is going to last me a few years and can play anything on the market right now completely maxed. As a benchmark, I'd consider a game like The Witcher 3 completely maxed. While 4K gaming would be nice, there's not many games that support it yet so I'm totally happy with 1080p.

Am I going to notice a difference between these three cards? Which should I buy and why?

Thanks so much for your assistance!

EDIT: As a side note I just noticed that the most expensive card doesn't even support 4K while the cheapest one does. Now I'm really confused at the price difference.

EDIT 2: Added clarification around resolution.

 

[rgd1101]

the most expensive one is water block. the cheapest one is reference design
and go to the manufacturer website to get the full spec. the most expensive one support 4k
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=04G-P4-2989-KR

 

[Rogue Leader]

All GTX 980's support 4k, as well they all require 2 slots (the second slot it covers over with the cooler it doesn't actually use). The cheapest one is a base reference design from Nvidia, the cooler is a little louder, and it doesn't overclock as well. That Really expensive EVGA one has a water cooler built in and is likely heavily factory overclocked. You would need a water cooling system set up in your PC to even use it.

TBH any GTX 980 will last you a long while. While the overclocked watercooled one will give you some more FPS, driving it hard like that also reduces its lifespan. At least with todays games you may not even notice the difference in performance unless you benchmark it. However maybe 4 or so years from now it could make a small difference.

 

[Suztera]

There are all the same GTX 980 chip used. The difference is the other components used. The first link is the reference design for the GTX 980. The second is MSI custom PCB and cooler used on a GTX 980. The third is a pre-applied water block on a GTX 980 for water cooling builds. They all support the same max resolution. They will all perform near the same unless you overclock further than the factory settings.
The MSI custom cooler will cool better than the reference design. The waterblock on the GTX 970 can provide the maximum cooling for your gpu depend on what radiators you using.
For most people, a non-reference design such as the MSI GTX 980 is enough.

 

[Quixit]

Honestly, the stock cooler for the 980 isn't that bad so even if you buy that one you should be just fine. The MSI card will probably clock a bit higher and run a bit quieter at load.

The water cooled one requires a custom watercooling loop, so don't buy that if you don't already have one, they're very expensive.

 

[JoshDBoyle]

It's hard to pick a good solution because you all contributed extremely well. Thanks for the responses all! I think I'm going to settle for the cheapest option there as I have no need to overclock and extra noise isn't a concern of mine at all as I use noise-cancelling headphones whenever I'm on the PC anyway.

Thanks again!