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NVIDIA’s two 900-series GPUs wow with small power draw, big performance

Last week, picking a new graphics card for your PC was an easy thing to do. Not so much now that NVIDIA has unveiled two new graphics cards that undermine the value of a lot of their own cards, which just this week we were happy to recommend.

That’s because they’ve taken the wraps off the GTX 980 and GTX 970, two new top-end GeForce graphics cards that not only use drastically less power than other NVIDIA cards, but which also outperform the current two top-end models (GTX 780/770) while costing around the same, if not less.

The new cards use the second generation of NVIDIA’s Maxwell GPU technology that was first spotted in the GTX 750 that came out earlier this year, and what makes them so appealing is they’re both ridiculously power-efficient while performing even better than the 770/780 do.

Just how efficient are they? Their official specs say they have a Thermal Design Point/Power (TDP) of 165W and 145W, respectively. TDP, as you can probably guess, is an indicator of how much power a computer component uses. Compare that to the 780 and 770’s ratings of 250W and 230W and the comparatively ridiculous 290W of AMD’s top-tier card, the R9 290X, and you’ll see right away just how amazing these cards’ figures are especially as they’re also really, really fast.

Via NVIDIA.
Via NVIDIA.

What that means for you, the gamer, is that you’ll get better performance in your games while using considerably less electricity which, in this day and age is a good thing considering Eskom’s rising prices. You’ll also be able to run two of these cards in your system in SLI and not need anything bigger than a 500w power supply.

Price-wise, Anandtech has the 970 at $329, the point the now-old GTX 770 occupied, while you can pick up a GTX 980 for around $549. That’s if you’re an American, of course – no word yet on local pricing. At R11 to the dollar, I’d expect the 970 to cost at least R4 500 and the 980 to cost more than R7k when they finally get here.

Hexus.net has a review of an overclocked GTX 970 that shows benchmark scores above those of AMD’s top-end R9 290X, which retails in the US for $570, making the 970 a brilliant choice for gamers who want excellent performance at a very good price.

[Source – NVIDIA]

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