ASUS GeForce GTX 980 ROG Matrix Platinum Video Card Review

ASUS goes for #1 position with its NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum, a total beast of a video card with no compromises.

Published
Updated
Manufacturer: ASUS
8 minutes & read time
TweakTown's Rating: 94%
TweakTown award

The Bottom Line

ASUS does not hold back with its GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum, one of the best video cards we've ever used. With plenty of additional headroom for overclocking, this is the best GTX 980 out there.

Introduction, Quick Specs and Availability & Price

If there's a brand that is synonymous with premium PC components, it would be ASUS. The company has been a leading force in the PC industry for decades now, and has been such a strong brand for so long, that they've entered the video card market in the last few years with quite a bang.

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As a young PC enthusiast, I still remember the premium ASUS boards back in the Pentium, Pentium II and Celeron days. Back then, I couldn't afford $500+ on a new motherboard, but the ASUS boards were always on my wish list, but outside of my budget. Before I started working for TweakTown, I used to work in a small PC shop building custom PCs for customers, and of course, myself.

ASUS became one of the brands we would always use, as we used to have next to no issues with their products, and it was a brand that I trusted. In the last few years, ASUS created its Republic of Gamers initiative, making hardware and products that have their own umbrella within ASUS. The GTX 980 Matrix Platinum falls under that ROG label, too. So, when I had the opportunity to grab a few of their new GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum cards, the excitement built up very, very quickly.

With quite a few custom GeForce GTX 980 video cards on the market now, the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum is one of the best you can buy. With one of the highest clock speeds on the market, one of the best coolers and slickest styles, I'm incredibly excited to see what ASUS has in store for us with it.

And as a very big tease, we have a few of these with us. This is a normal review on the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum, but next week we'll follow through with a look at two of these insane cards in SLI, and sometime very soon, we'll look at them in 4K Surround - 6480x3840 of ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum cards, in single card, and SLI tests. Mmmm.

Quick Specs

ASUS has clocked up its GTX 980 Matrix Platinum to dizzying heights, more so than the factory overclocked MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G LE we looked at just a few weeks ago now, and by a very large margin compared to the reference GeForce GTX 980 from NVIDIA.

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On their own website, ASUS says that the "ROG Matrix GTX 980 delivers 13% faster game performance than [the] reference design", which we're going to show you later in the review. The ASUS card is one of the fastest cards we've tested, and is our fastest GTX 980 so far.

Availability & Price

The ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum is on Amazon right now, in stock, for $639.99. This means you're paying a premium of around $100 over a competing factory overclocked GTX 980 from the likes of MSI or EVGA. At the time of writing, there was an additional $20 off through a post-purchase rebate.

Packaging

With this product falling into the Republic of Gamers line of ASUS products, we have a very premium retail experience with the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum. The box is quite heavy and large, which is great as it has ample packaging in the box to protect it during shipping.

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Starting with the front of the box, which is actually quite plain, ASUS does tease "record breaking performance" on the front of the box for the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum.

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On the back of the box, we have an insane amount of detail on the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum, which is great. If you were to find this box on the shelf and flick it around to the back, you're going to be inundated with information on the card.

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ASUS has slapped in a handle at the top of the box, as it's quite a heavy package.

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The front of the box opens up, and provides even more details on the card itself and its various cooling technologies, and features such as the DirectCU II cooler, CoolTech Fan Technology, Memory Defroster and so much more.

Detailed Look

Up Close and Personal with the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 ROG Matrix Platinum

The first thing you'll notice with the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum is that it is one of the best-looking video cards on the market. It's such a great looking card, and if you're someone who owns a Rampage motherboard with an Intel CPU, or a Crosshair motherboard on the AMD side of things, the ROG video cards are something you're probably looking at - or at least, wanting to buy.

Now we'll take a closer look at the card, up close and personal.

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Up front, the video card is stunning. We get a great look at the DirectCU II cooler, which keeps the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum up to 25% cooler than the reference design. We'll dive deeper into the DirectCU II cooler a little later on in the review.

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The back of the card is just as slick, with a huge backplate that keeps the card cooler than normal. There's a massive "ASUS MATRIX" branding at the top, which will flip to the bottom when it's in your PC.

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That flip we mentioned? Yeah.

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At the top of the card, we have the signature ASUS red and black theme. To the right, we have a ROG color-coded Load Indicator. This load indicator gives card owners an easy look at the GPU's load levels, as it goes through four color gradients.

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The GTX 980 Matrix Platinum requires two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

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On the far end of the card, we have a one-press VBIOS reload button, which gives overclockers much more confidence with this "Safe Mode" button. If you press the Safe Mode button, it will restore your GTX 980 Matrix Platinum back to its default clocks and voltages, which allows you to play around knowing that you'll be safe from pushing your card too high.

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Most GeForce GTX 980 cards have the same display connectivity, with a DVI-I port, three DisplayPort outputs, and a single HDMI 2.0 port.

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The ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum supports up to four cards in SLI for one of the most insane gaming setups you can buy.

Card Specifications & Cooling Setup

Card Specifications

The ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum video card is one of the best GTX 980s you can buy, with some of the highest overclocks performed to the GM204 core we've seen. Mixing this with the excellent DirectCU II cooling setup with a 10mm heat pipe, you're cooking with gas.

First, let's take a look at what we have in terms of specifications and how that compares to the MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G LE that we looked at a couple of weeks ago, and the reference GTX 980 directly from NVIDIA.

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Above, we have our video card comparison chart with the ASUS card on the far left, and to the right, we can easily compare it to the MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G LE and to the reference GTX 980 from NVIDIA.

Cooling Setup

ASUS has deployed its DirectCU II cooler onto the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum, which keeps one of the most overclocked GM204 cores nice and cool. The card is a work of art, with the cooler underneath quite an engineering feat.

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As you can see in the image above, as you begin to peel layers away from the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum, we begin to see what's going on. Once the front of the card is peeled away, we can see two CoolTech fans have been used, beneath that, we have the DirectCU II with 10mm heat pipe. Once that is removed, the PCB itself is exposed. There, we have DIGI+VRM with 14-phase Super Allow Power to the right, with a MOS heat sink next to it. On the back of the card, we have a very large aluminum back plate.

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ASUS details the DirectCU II cooler on its GTX 980 Matrix Platinum in considerable detail on its website, where ASUS compares it against the reference GTX 980 from NVIDIA. Comparing the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum against the reference GTX 980, the ASUS card is up to 25% cooler at 69C versus the 80C on the reference card.

As for noise, the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum is up to three times quieter at 25dB versus 33dB. We will do some of our own sound testing towards the end of our review.

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ASUS has used CoolTech fan technology which is an "exclusive hybrid and dust-proof fan technology that accelerates heat removal to ensure top-notch graphics performance that's highly stable". The CoolTech fan technology from ASUS uses a hybrid blade and bearing design that features an inner blade radial blower and outer flower-type blades, something that provides multi-directional airflow.

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The GTX 980 Matrix Platinum is a serious card, intended for use for normal consumers and enthusiasts, but also for the serious enthusiasts and overclockers. This means we have "Memory Defroster" technology, which is a brand new, ASUS-exclusive technology that "instantly defrosts your Matrix card's memory during subzero overclocking to ensure sustained stability". LN2 cold bugs? Not anymore.

Testing Method & Test System Configuration

Testing Method

Because I'm just starting out reviewing GPUs, we're going to slowly evolve our benchmarking setup. I'm not going to dive into the deep end and start testing out real-time FPS, as this will hurt the quality of the reviews. Instead, I'd like to nail these initial reviews and then we can start doing real-time numbers of games like Far Cry 4, and Star Citizen. For now, I've played Battlefield 4 on a 64-player server to provide some real-world performance numbers.

For now, I'm going to be using the same suite of benchmarks I've been using on my Tweakipedia articles, which uses a mix of synthetic benchmarks with Futuremark's 3DMark and Unigine Heaven. After that, we have a bunch of titles with built-in benchmarks (which does not represent actual in-game performance) but they are repeatable for you at home to gauge the performance of your PC or GPU.

Over time, I will be adding in new benchmarks and a new section that will concentrate solely on real-time gaming benchmarks. This will take more time per review, as I'll have to invest time into actually physically playing the games, but it'll be worth it in the long run. For now, let's get right into the synthetic benchmarks and see how this ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum performs.

Test System Configuration

We only recently built our new X99-powered system, something you can read about here. As for the detailed specifications, this is what we're running:

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  • CPU: Intel Core i7 5820K processor w/Corsair H110 cooler
  • Motherboard: GIGABYTE X99 Gaming G1 Wi-Fi
  • RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance 2666MHz DDR4
  • Storage: 240GB SanDisk Extreme II and 480GB SanDisk Extreme II
  • Chassis: Lian Li T60 Pit Stop
  • PSU: Corsair AX1200i digital PSU
  • Software: Windows 7 Ultimate x64
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We're running the system at stock CPU speeds, which will provide more of a 'real-world' feel to our benchmarks. Sure, this isn't an i7-5960X at 5GHz, but what person is going to team up an incredibly expensive CPU with a mid-range GPU? Not many.

Our GPU tests are changing, shifting toward more of a real-world feel. But don't worry, we will be doing some crazy balls-to-the-wall tests that will see serious overclocks, Extreme Edition processors, and much more in the coming months. For the most part, we will be doing more real-world testing by teaming up the right processor with the right GPU in its price category.

Benchmarks - Synthetic (3DMark and Heaven)

3DMark Fire Strike - 1080p

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3DMark Fire Strike Extreme - 1440p

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3DMark Fire Strike Ultra - 4K

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Heaven - 1080p

Unigine Heaven benchmark

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Heaven - 1440p

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Heaven - 4K

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How does the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum perform in 3DMark's Fire Strike benchmark? We have the ASUS card beating out the reference GTX 980 by 10%. At 1440p, the ASUS card beats the reference GTX 980 by 11%, and at 4K, the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum is 9% faster. So, a 10% average increase in performance, that ain't bad at all.

Moving over to Unigine Heaven, the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum is 17% faster at 1080p, while at 1440p, the ASUS card is 14% faster. What about at 4K? We have the ASUS card beating the reference GTX 980 by 8%.

Game Benchmarks (1080p)

Battlefield 4

This is one game that we did differently, as it does not feature a built-in benchmarking feature. When it comes to Battlefield 4, there are countless ways you can benchmark it. Some find a spot in the single player campaign which is easily repeatable, and use that. For our testing, we've chosen to use a 64-player online multiplayer server for real-time performance statistics.

We joined a 64-player map and played for five minutes using FRAPS, pulling our minimum/average and maximum FPS. We did this for each test, we run the game for 5 minutes at 1080p/1440p and 4K two times each. One time with Medium settings, and another with a custom Ultra preset (disabling AA). It's time consuming, but it gives us a perfect look into true real-world performance.

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And again, this time with the Ultra preset.

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Grand Theft Auto V

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GRID Autosport

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Metro: Last Light

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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

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Thief

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Tomb Raider

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BioShock Infinite

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DiRT Showdown

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You can find our performance summary of all of our gaming tests later in the review.

Game Benchmarks (1440p)

Battlefield 4

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Grand Theft Auto V

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GRID Autosport

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Metro: Last Light

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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

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Thief

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Tomb Raider

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BioShock Infinite

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DiRT Showdown

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You can find our performance summary of all of our gaming tests later in the review.

Game Benchmarks (4K)

Battlefield 4

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Grand Theft Auto V

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GRID Autosport

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Metro: Last Light

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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

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Thief

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Tomb Raider

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BioShock Infinite

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DiRT Showdown

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You can find our performance summary of all of our gaming tests later in the review.

Performance Summary

How Does the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum Perform?

I had high expectations of the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum, but once the card was in my machine and the testing began, all of those expectations were met, and some. The card runs quiet, doesn't use that much more power than our GTX 970s and reference GTX 980, and has a nice amount of headroom for some overclocking.

Performance at 1080p

As usual, we start with Battlefield 4 at 1920x1080 on the Medium preset, where the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum card smashed it out of the park with 119FPS minimum and 186FPS average. This is more than enough for any monitor (1080p 144Hz).

The ASUS card beat out the overclocked MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G LE by 13FPS, and the reference GTX 980 by 17FPS. On the Ultra preset (minus AA), the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum impressed once again with 165FPS average, which is equal to our reference GTX 980s in SLI, and just 7FPS lower than the Titan X.

The newer GeForce 350.12 drivers help the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum score 104FPS on Grand Theft Auto V, just 1FPS from the Titan X in SLI. GRID: Autosport enjoyed the power behind the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum, with 148FPS average, which has it losing to the awesome ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Core Edition by just 5FPS.

Something I was looking forward to seeing was Metro: Last Light, with the ASUS card pulling 94FPS average at 1080p. This has it beating the MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G LE by 7FPS, and just 6FPS away from the Titan X. In Shadow of Mordor at 1080p, the ASUS card equals the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition with 108FPS average.

Performance at 1440p

Cranking our tests up to 2560x1440, the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum was capable of 159FPS average on Battlefield 4 with the Medium preset, finding itself in between our ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Core Edition with 147FPS, and the MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G LE with 162FPS. On the Ultra preset (minus AA), the ASUS card managed 107FPS, losing out to the MSI card by a fair margin with its 121FPS. This could be an anomaly with our testing, but I did run it a few times to iron out the issues.

Grand Theft Auto V at 1440p saw our ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum with some great minimum framerates of 45FPS, against the Titan X with its 43FPS. Average wise, we have 94FPS on the ASUS card versus 86FPS on the overclocked MSI GTX 980. The ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum performed great with GRID: Autosport at 1440p, with 145FPS average, versus the 128FPS on the MSI card.

Metro: Last Light provided 62FPS average, versus the 58FPS average of the MSI card, while Shadow of Mordor saw the ASUS card with 69FPS average, versus the 78FPS on the MSI card.

Performance at 4K

I have to admit, I was the most excited for 3840x2160 - as I am with all high-end hardware. I wanted to see just how far the ASUS card could be pushed at 4K, and starting with Battlefield 4 we have 82FPS average versus the MSI GTX 980 with 91FPS. Not a great start, but let's see how we go in the Ultra detail. The Ultra preset (minus AA) has the ASUS card with 60FPS, while the MSI card scores 65FPS - not good at 4K.

Moving to GTA V, we have 75FPS which beats every other setup we have tested so far - but as I said before, we're using the newer 350.12 drivers here. In GRID: Autosport, the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum was capable of 82FPS, beating out the MSI card with its 76FPS.

The same domination happened in Metro: Last Light, with the ASUS card pushing 64FPS, leaving out the reference GTX 980 with its 51FPS, and the MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G LE with its 59FPS. As for Shadow of Mordor, the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum had 56FPS average, compared to the MSI card with 57FPS.

Overclocking

Overclocking - Let's See How Far We Can Go

ASUS has provided the GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum with a Core Clock of 1241MHz, which results in a Boost Clock of 1342MHz. This is quite high, especially against the reference GeForce GTX 980 from NVIDIA with a Core and Boost Clock of 1126MHz and 1216MHz, respectively. In saying that, I didn't expect to squeeze much more from the card, but boy was I wrong.

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[googleadr]With some effort and some additional power being pumped into the card, we were able to reach a huge 1364MHz on the Core, which has the Boost sitting at 1465MHz - an increase of another 123MHz! Considering ASUS is already pushing the pedal to the metal, we were chuffed with this result. But, does this additional overclock on the factory overclock result in more performance? Let's find out.

Battlefield 4

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Metro: Last Light

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3DMark Fire Strike Extreme - 1440p

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Heaven - 1440p

Unigine Heaven benchmark

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Power Consumption and Sound Testing

Power Consumption

With two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, the power consumption on the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum was going to be a bit higher than the reference GTX 980.

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With 320W of total system draw, it is not too bad at all.

Sound Testing

With the DirectCU II cooler on board, how does the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum perform in our sound testing?

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Not too bad at all, even when the two fans are cranked up to 100%.

Software - GPU Tweak

Squeeze More Out of Your GTX 980 Matrix Platinum with GPU Tweak

ASUS is on top of the software game when it comes to tweaking the GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum card, where you can download their GPU Tweak software from their website, weighing it at around 30MB.

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Opening up GPU Tweak will show you something very similar to MSI's Afterburner software, with some stats on your video card to the left, and the fun part on the right - tweaking.

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You can make the stats smaller, which is a nice touch.

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The main screen allows you to tweak options, with everything from GPU Clock, Boost Clock, Memory Clock and Voltages, and more.

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These two screenshots are the additional parts of the tweakable options, if you continue to scroll down in the software.

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In our final screenshot, this is GPU Tweak in all its glory.

What's Hot, What's Not & Final Thoughts

This is where you can fast forward to the final section of the review, and get a quick recap and points on the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum.

What's Hot

One of the Best Looking GeForce GTX 980s: The ASUS GeForce GTX 980 ROG Matrix Platinum has to be, without a doubt, one of the best looking GTX 980s on the market. ASUS doesn't just slap its ROG branding onto any old product.

Uber Level Performance: The out of the box performance is nothing short of impressive, but it still has a considerable amount of headroom to overclock it, too. Tweakers are going to get a fun card to play with, that's for sure.

Quiet Operation: All of the performance and none of the noise - just how it should be.

Maxwell Architecture: NVIDIA's Maxwell architecture is what makes most of this possible, as the GM204 core itself doesn't run too hot and allows ASUS' DirectCU II cooling to really do its job incredibly well.

What's Not

Strange Placement of PCIe Power Connectors: One of the big problems I have with the GTX 980 Matrix Platinum is the placement of the PCIe power connectors. You have to really fiddle to get the two 8-pin PCIe cables in, which isn't fun.

Final Thoughts

ASUS has handcrafted the GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum for enthusiasts, with a video card that simply doesn't hold back. Everything from the box down to the card itself is meticulous. The finish of the DirectCU II cooler, the color style and ROG branding - it all adds up to one of the best GeForce GTX 980s on the market right now.

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It doesn't only look great, but the performance is out of this world. The factory overclock provides a nice jump in performance over the reference GeForce GTX 980 from NVIDIA, but the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum also has a nice chunk of headroom to play with overclocking the card at home, too.

Being able to play everything at 4K 60FPS or 1080p/1440p at 144Hz makes buying a monitor with NVIDIA's G-Sync technology a breeze. If you wanted to have one of the best video cards on the market, you'll run out and buy the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum and at the same time, grab an ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q G-Sync monitor. It's an unstoppable combination of gaming technology.

TweakTown award
Performance (overclocking, power) 95%
Quality (build, design, cooling) 95%
General Features (display outputs, etc) 95%
Bundle, Packaging & Software 95%
Value for Money 90%
Overall 94%

The Bottom Line: ASUS does not hold back with its GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum, one of the best video cards we've ever used. With plenty of additional headroom for overclocking, this is the best GTX 980 out there.

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Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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