Power, Temperature and Noise
In-game performance between the liquid-cooled 980 Tis has been closely matched, and power consumption continues that theme.
Here's the first noticeable difference. When it comes to keeping the GPU chilled, Gigabyte's all-encompassing liquid cooler is more effective than Inno3D's hybrid solution. 65ºC under full load is practically cold for a card as powerful as this.
And it isn't just extremely cool, it's also satisfyingly quiet. If you listen closely you can hear the pump, which of course will never be as quiet as an air-cooled card whose fans turn off when idle, but Gigabyte's WaterForce has the advantage of keeping quiet when gaming. At full load the card barely gets any louder, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that coil whine wasn't an issue, either.
It doesn't come cheap, but credit where it's due, Gigabyte's GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming WaterForce is one the quickest, coolest and quietest graphics cards we've tested.