EVGA GeForce GTX 980 04G-P4-3988-KR 4GB CLASSIFIED GAMING w/ACX 2.0, 26% Cooler and 36% Quieter Cooling For Gaming Graphics Card

Pros: I've been putting off writing this review for about 7 months now. I don't really follow the proper format for this review, but it has a lot of good info for anyone looking to buy one of these. I have two of these cards in SLI. I have used them on air and currently liquid cooled. There is at least one company making water blocks for these now. In my opinion, if you're going to buy this card, then liquid cool it, or get a the reference model.
This card already comes with a pretty significant factory overclock. So many people will overlook that when reviewing it. Sure it doesn't OC well past the factory OC, but the overall max OC is respectable.
First of all, there are two versions of this card. A 2988 model and a 3988 model. The 3988 model has different memory chips and less BIOS support. The 2988 model has the Kingpin custom BIOS for it, allowing for some really nice overclocks. But this one, doesn't have any good custom BIOS that I have been able to find. If you buy one now, you're gonna get the 3988 version.
The best feature of this card is the triple BIOS support. I love that. You can always leave one of your BIOS slots at factory and you have two more slots to test other BIOS. Too bad there aren't any good BIOS for the 3988 version.
If you get this card and want to get any kind of reasonable OC out of it, you're gonna need the Classified voltage tool. Without it, you won't be able to adjust the voltage of the 3988 model. There is an overboost feature, which does work, with PrecisionX, but that bumps the voltage straight to 1.425v. Way too high for air cooling. I have run it there and beyond with liquid cooling. But these cards run very hot for the amount of power they consume. I've had cards run far higher wattage than these and run much cooler.
For the most part I am able to run a max stable OC, in any game or benchmark at 1530 MHz on the GPU, which is attainable on air. That's +110 MHz from factory clock. The memory OC's very well on these, which is why I don't understand why they don't really OC the memory on these from the factory. I've been able to run max 8600 MHz on the memory which is +800 MHz OC, effectively adding 1.6 GHz on the VRAM clock speed.
These cards will get noisey with the factory fans on them.
These cards are also like an inch wider than a normal card. They might not fit in some cases if they don't have any room to spare in front of the rear I/O port.
These cards require two 8 pin PCI-E power inputs. They do come with a 6x2 pin to 8 pin PCI-E power connector which I had to use on one of my cards. They are high quality converters and are holding up very well, even under heavy load.

Cons: This card is about an inch wider than standard graphics cards.
The fans, though quieter than the reference fan, are still loud under heavy load.
This card runs much hotter than I anticipated, based on it's power draw.
The 3988 model, which is what you'll get now if you buy one of these, has almost no custom BIOS support worth mentioning.
This GPU doesn't overclock well past factory clocks on air. Even with liquid cooling it doesn't overclock particularly well. To unleash this card you really need to have extreme cooling. I've seen people hit well over 2 GHz on the GPU and 17 GHz on the memory with LN2.
Overvoltage does not work without the Classified voltage tool. For anyone using the Classified voltage tool. You should buy an EVGA Probe It connector, which will allow you to check the voltage using a multimeter. But if you don't want to do that then you should know that on the 3988 model, wherever you set the voltage on the Classi voltage tool, the voltage will actually set .25v higher than that. So, if you want the voltage at 1.3v, then you need to set it at 1.05v. The first time I used it, I set it to 1.3v and when I checked it with the multimeter the voltage jumped up to 1.6v. The actual voltage you will read when the card is under load will be .05v higher than where you have it set. But when it's idle it will be wherever you set it. The on screen displays for various software and even GPU-Z don't report correctly with this card once you start adjusting the voltage with the Classi voltage tool.
There is a lot to know if you want to be able to do anything with this card outside of just plugging it in and using it
There have been a lot of people experiencing problems with the DisplayPort on the 900 series cards. For some reason, the screen will flicker black totally at random. It's been suggested that it's the SLI connector that is at fault or the power supply. But in the end, it's the Display Port itself. I don't know exactly what it is about it, but if your cable isn't connected just right, at least on some of the cards, you will have that problem. I had that problem and it drove me nuts. I would give this card a poor rating for that alone if other cards and companies weren't also experiencing it.
This card only has 4 GB of VRAM. I have encountered several games and there will be many more to come that require more than 4 GB of VRAM to run at 4K resolution. One of these cards is good for running nearly any game at 2560x1440 but for 4K you'll want at least 2. I just wish it had more VRAM.

Overall Review: I have been able to exceed 1530 MHz on the GPU core for some games and benchmarks. But for example, for Crysis 3, I was stuck at 1530 MHz no matter how much voltage I added. I had the same issue with my GTX Titans. I could run up to 1250 MHz on the GPU for some games, but for Crysis 3 the max OC was 1125 MHz. Because that game causes the cards to consume a lot more power than usual to run. I don't know why that is exactly, but that game is the most apparent in that regard. There are others. The max OC I have been able to achieve is 1650 MHz on the GPU and 8600 MHz on the VRAM.
The reason I bought these card was because I wanted an enthusiast model that would hold up to high overclocks and voltage for extended periods of time and not die on me. Since one of my last cards died on me.
I am confident that these cards will hold up much longer than a reference model. But in all honesty, I believe that you could get to the 1530 MHz mark, that would be stable for any game with a reference design card without putting too much voltage to it.
I had to set the voltage to 1.325, using the Classified voltage tool, which you can find on the Kingpin forums, because Precision X or Afterburner won't allow you to increase the voltage. Even if you could, the max voltage they allow isn't going to make any difference at all from the factory voltage. The Classified voltage tool will allow you to set it anywhere you want, as well as overvolt your memory as well. In order to exceed that clock speed massive boosts in voltage are required, far beyond the reach of this cards air cooler. To hit 1600 MHz I needed 1.425v and to hit 8600 MHz on the memory I needed 1.7v, factory voltage for memory is 1.6v on the memory and 1.212v on the GPU.
At this point, now that the GTX 980 Ti is out. I would recommend that anyone looking at this card that isn't going to use LN2 or any kind of extreme cooling get one of those, unless you can get it on sale. I actually got mine on sale. So technically for me it was a great deal. But it they hadn't been on sale I would have got the reference model.
This is a good card for the right person. It's not for everybody. I'm glad I have this card over the reference model as it will probably hold up better to the abuse I have in store for it.
I didn't do a lot of benchmarking with this card as it's inability to overclock far beyond 1600 MHz irritated me and OCing far beyond that just reduce my scores anyway due to the bizarre throttling clock speeds for no reason thing it does under high power draw. But here are some of my best 3D Mark benchmarks scores and some factory scores as well.

At factory clocks 3D Mark Fire Strike Scores:
Standard: 19545
Extreme: 10861

3D Mark 11:
Perf: 24595
Extreme: 12560

My Max Results 3D Mark Fire Strike:
Perf: 21479
Extreme: 12270
Ultra: 7049

3D Mark 11:
Perf: 25974
Extreme: 14046

Pros: Worked for about 10 min. Drivers installed. Ran a test benchmark(Heaven) failed after 30 seconds. Artifacts and system error. Reinstalled old card works fine. Tried again no drivers. No go, the card is bad

Cons: Going with a different brand. After reading reviews on this card I'm not dealing with EVGA on RMAs. Hopefully Newegg gives me the credit without issue.

Overall Review: Newegg has great costumer service. I have a premier account and they paid the return trip and issues store credit.