Pros: Runs very quiet even when benching the card. I installed it and on benchmarks one card went to 1418 with absolutely no adjustments. The second card did 1405 with no adjustments. Coming from the 780 ti, that is huge. Most people were using ridiculous voltage to get anywhere near that on the 780 ti's, I know, I had 7 of them. This thing cuts through games at decent frame rates. I was coming from 2x SLI 780ti Kingpins under water, so I was expecting a "meh" upgrade. Not so. One card is comparable to about a 30-60% fps increase on synthetic benchmarks, like 3dMark. Consistently. WIthout messing with anything out of the box. The higher the resolution, the bigger the difference. Having two, they scale very well also. I was surpiised to see HOW MUCH better the pair of 980 tis did compared to the 780 ti Kingpins. Silicone lottery stuff aside, ASICs were 76.8% and 71.0%. The 71% card boosts 1 step lower than the 76.8 (13 mhz steps) by default, but it actually OC'd solo to 1523 no problems at all. Again - I haven't pushed them yet and won't until they're under water. Even if it only clocked what it's supposed to at 1291 - that's still fantastic. I was able to get to 1507 on both cards with zero hassle. And the ram overclocked a good bit too. I am just testing it now, but once I get them under water I'll push them a little bit. To people complaining about them "only clocking to 14** or 15** out of the box" - get real lol. That, for a stock overclock - is amazing. You should feel really fortunate that they do that - without any adjustments, or input, or additional issues or risk - I'm absolutely impressed. One card in the PC, no problem. 2 cards, expect to see some quickly rising heat. It won't hurt anything - especially if you're not overclocking them, and EVGA sets the BIOS to throttle back if they get hot anyway, but I haven't seen them do it. Hald of me wants to keep the stock cooler on them and leave it be - they're just that good "AS IS." I am very happy with 1, and am overjoyed by having two. And frankly, I could ditch one card to cut some cost out of this upgrade and other than benchmarking, I'd probably never know it, because I run 1440p on my gaming right now. But I'm in the market for a good 4k monitor now, which is why moved to the 980 platform and it's 6GB GDDR5 banks. So, believe what you like, but I'm telling you straight from my own experience with them, just today alone. It's worth it. Buy one of these if you want it fast and smooth and reliable and cost effective. Buy two or more for benchmark bragging rights and ridiculous frame rates your brain stem can't even interpret. Oh and power needs? 2x SLI 980 ti Classifieds, at 1506 core and 7812 ram, test benching on air, I was only pulling 730 watts at the wall socket on my AX1500i at >92% efficiency (671 watts DC). For comparison, I've pulled 1750 watts on 2 KPE's on chillers at 1515 core with the added voltage. This is GREAT

Cons: Everyone will say cost, I say you get what you pay for. The non-reference PCB leaves the door open to turning up the power even if that's not your goal today. You can't go wrong with a non-reference PCB from EVGA anymore. Size - maybe - but plan ahead. I got smart with my last overhaul when I went to KPE's and finally bought a REAL case from CaseLabs. Then you don't ever have to worry about it again! Weight? Maybe - in a typical tower case. I went horizontal last year on motherboard trays for taking the strain off VGA cards with waterblocks. It's a fantastic idea for a lot of reasons! Power consumption? I took my cards out and before installing these, I ran my i7 onboard HDMI to do some basic tasks and laughed at the 76 watt power consumption. But even with two of these installed and basic overclocking testing, I was still under 750 at the wall. If you're not willing to buy a good power supply you'll likely have a bad time with performance cards. Otherwise, buy the right one and don't sweat it. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. Oh wait - Fans / Fan Noise. They stop spinning when the card is below 60C I believe. They're not on right now. Hard to beat a fan that isn't running for noise levels. Running tests, with open try and no case sides or front on, it was hard to hear them when they came on. Closed up I bet I wouldn't even notice, and I don't use headphones. I set them to 100% max and of course that's pretty loud - but it also pumps a TON of air and really cools them well and especially gets them back to cool after a test really quickly.

Overall Review: I think if you're looking at this you should probably just click the buy button before they sell out. I was going to buy the hydrocoppers but they were out of stock and I'm glad they were out of stock now that I've gotten a chance with these 2 . This makes 6 classified EVGA cards for more in the last 12 months, and they've all been very good in their own right. These cards are better in person that reading about on the internet. If you're not sure - you could try a SC card and might get lucky (I've had a couple really good ones), but for $20 more this is a no brainer. Plus it does look cool and the LED lighting is a nice touch. Another reason I'm thinking about leaving the stock coolers on. I hope what I found and shared here on my $1400 gamble helps someone. Just buy one. If the cost doesn't bother you, go 2, 3, or 4.

Pros: * Excellent Build Quality * Pretty Quiet Operation * Decent Cooling * Solid Warranty * Backplate provided * Dual Bios

Cons: * Fans can get loud if ramped up

Overall Review: I had been using my MSI GTX 980ti Gaming 6G happily since 6/2015, but I have always been a fan of the EVGA Classified cards, with my last one being a 780ti that I loved. With the recent sale at NewEgg I decided to give one a try. So how does it compare to my MSI 980ti Gaming 6G? Build quality of both cards is excellent with backplates, memory cooling plates and excellent design. The Classified has a couple small advantages over the MSI including extra power phases, higher stock boost clock and slightly more robust cooler, but for most users, the differences are minor if using the stock cooler. Stock Boost Clock on my Classified was a hair under 1400Mhz. Overclocking on the Classified topped out at 1494Mhz on the core and 8100Mhz on the memory @1.21v and 115% power target. My Asic was 71% and came with Samsung memory. The core will game/bench higher than that, but not with 100% stability, so 1494Mhz is where I settled and the power limit is never tripped so the clock speed is rock steady at all times. With the fans manually set to 70%, max temp was 71C after a couple hours of gaming with the new Tomb Raider @ 1440p. At 90% fan speed, temps drop well down into the 60's, but are pretty loud at that speed and not personally what I would use daily. Using default fan setting is very quiet but allows the temps to get to 80C, so I opt for a custom fan profile. Compared to my MSI Gaming, which clocks very similar @ 1.23v, but often hits it's power limit so it throttles down to 1450-1460 range under the same gaming situations. Cooling ability per decibel is similar on the Classified compared to the MSI Gaming 6G. The MSI at 80% fan has a similar noise profile to the Classified at 65% fan with temps being very close at those speeds, with perhaps a couple C advantage to the EVGA cooling solution. 60-70% fan speed on the Classified is very tolerable in my opinion and not very loud. Beyond that, noise does start to scale unfavorably. Overall I am very pleased with the EVGA 980ti Classified. My personal example is just a mediocre overclocker, but there is no denying the high quality of the build. Throw in EVGA's excellent customer support and a solid 3 year warranty and you end up with a great card. For $620 after rebate + two free games (at time of purchase), it is impossible to not recommend.

Pros: This is an awesome, super quite and fast graphics card for your build! Right out of the box without any tweaking i was pulling 1310 mhz and i haven't even manually overclocked the GPU yet...I have been a loyal fan to MSI products since they began but after reading reviews on this card, I had to try it out. It can handle Witcher 3 at ultra settings, no aliasing, on a 4K monitor around 70 FPS...everything i throw at it on 4K looks fantastic and there is absolutely no lag input. Cosmetic wise, the LED on top of the card and in front of the card lights up bright white and looks pretty good.

Cons: There was a couple things i noticed with this card...one was the install in my pc case. I ended up getting the Carbide Air 450 because my old case wasn't big enough to fit the GPU. This thing is massive and extremely heavy...i would recommend tightening down the GPU on both sides to reduce sag. Another thing was the stock auto fan speed curve was just not cutting it. After about 4 hours on Witcher, the GPU was running 83C....had to fix the fan curve. its runs alot better now at lower temp...but just keep that that in mind when you want to push this card to the max. Also, the fans are super super super quite...I seriously had to get up several times to make sure my GPU fans are even working.

Overall Review: Other than the size and the fan curve....absolutely wonderful card EVGA has put together here. It looks great, it runs great and I am definitely going to purchase another one to run in SLI order.

Pros: -Boosts to 1430mhz out of the box. -Mine reached 1554mhz, 7800mhz on the memory. -Quiet fans, quiet card, meaning no coil whine. -Backplate - only 20 bucks over the SC w/ backplate

Cons: Maxwell doesn't respond to voltage like Kepler. Even if you feed these cards more voltage, you won't achieve better clocks unless you find a way to keep them cold under load. Under Air and even water, these non reference boards can be equal or worse than non reference boards in terms of overclocking. What I would like to see on these "overclocking cards" is responsiveness to voltage, like it was with previous generations.

Overall Review: Adding a water block, may not even be worth it, unless you have a chiller. The GPU clock speed gains will be very minimal. I still recommed this over a reference board, since it's only 50 bucks more than a base 980ti.

Pros: - Very well overclocked 980ti with a massive cooler. - Ability to run with passive cooling when idle - Tons of headroom in the power delivery - All RAM appears to be covered by some type of heat sink - Running games at 4k at playable or very nearly playable framerates at highest settings - Not much (if any) more expensive than other EVGA 980Ti OC cards. In fact, I've noticed the Classified is cheaper at times than the FTW edition.

Cons: - Large card. Make sure it fits in your case first - Seems a tiny bit "wider" than two PCI slots. Very likely can't SLI something next to it, at least I couldn't on my MicroATX board without massive air starvation. - Not the 100% Best 980Ti Ever (seems like the MSI G1 will clock a bit higher) but i'll give up 15-20Mhz on the top end OC for the passive idle. - Dumps tons of hot air. I thought the 3 fans I had in my Mini XL would do it... no. Four more 140mm fans later and it's perfect. Make sure you can move enough air around it.

Overall Review: I spent a few days tweaking it and came away happy. It's not a massive overclocker, but then again nothing on Maxwell seems to be. I'm using the stock air cooler. I was able to get a stable +75Mhz out of the clock and I lost my nerve at +500 on the (Samsung) memory, but it seemed to have more headroom available with no visible artifacts at +550 or more. 68.8% ASIC. It's temperature dependent. On a 100% stock default card, I got a boost of 1367mhz with a displayed voltage of 1.175v @ 85-87C. I stepped the core clock up until it was no longer stable, then backed it down. Same with memory. In games, it would hit 1441mhz with the same 1.175v. I then noticed the voltage would go as high as 1.2v while the card was cold, then down to 1.187v at ~70C, and 1.175V @ ~80C, bringing the boost clock down with it. I adjusted the fan curve to be much more aggressive, 100% speed at 70C. This kept the temps below 75C and the voltage at a steady 1.2v, allowing the boost to hit 1467. That's as far as I care to push the card.

Pros: - Runs all my my games at ultra on a 1440p monitor 60+ FPS

Cons: - Not cheap but I did manage to get a rebate plus Tomb Raider so it was a great deal. - Mail in rebates are soooooo out dated.

Overall Review: - I started my build with a 970 and didn't plan on going above 1080p but Newegg had a deal on the Acer XB270HU that I could not pass up and quickly realized the 970 wasn't going to cut it.

Pros: put in tomb raider turned up EVERYTHING in 4k. Not one hicup. got to 85c at first but after cool down for a few hrs maxed at 77 playing the game. may get a little cooler,hopping any way. ;)...(oc time!)

Cons: the only thing I can say is a sticker was wrinkled!! lol. im ok though wont see it anyway. also when i launched a burn in program from oc scanner i couldnt get out of it,seriously. had to crash it. so i just played the game!!

Overall Review: it is a tall card the wires had to be "formed" to get my side panel on!! lol. best card ive had though. well spent 300$ more too!!

Pros: * Excellent performance * Decent overclock capabilities * Dual BIOS switch on card is useful when OCing * Includes backplate * SLI performance is definitely noticeable and seems more capable than past cards * Reliable

Cons: * Price * Fan noise is loud when under heavy load

Overall Review: I have two of these in SLI. So far, they have been able to run anything at 1440p/144 FPS on Ultra easily. 4k at 60 FPS on nearly everything, though Witcher 3 with all settings on Ultra brought it down to 40-45 FPS. Highly recommend this card.