In an effort to make sorting through all the results as easy as possible we have combined the results all of all the game results into an easy to digest summary format. By comparing it to similar products in all the games you will be able to easily find the game(s) you are interested in, see the improvement and decide if it is the worth the investment.
Put simply this card is more like a Lamborghini Huracán rather than a Tesla Model S. As such if you are trying to justify the additional price on its increased performance…you will have to start thinking about this card vs two cheaper SLI’ed cards, instead of this card vs a normal factory overclocked 980ti. Of course a good argument could be made on those grounds, and many consumers prefer to buy the fastest single card they can find; but honestly this card is all about being the fastest single card in existence. At this, MSI knocked it out the park, but phrases like ‘value’ are going to be frog marched out the nearest airlock long before you reach this level of performance. . In other words if you want the best, be prepared to pay for best.
Score Card and Summary
Packaging & Accessories: 9 out of 10
The shipping container and the accessories are nothing short of amazing. MSI not only covered all of the bases nicely they even added in nice little flourishes like a custom LN2 plate. That to us makes the Lightning 980Ti the gold standard upon which all others must be judged.
Functionality & Aesthetics: 18 out of 20
As with all high performance video cards you will either like the look of this card….or you will love it. Either way there is no denying that this cards TriFrozr custom cooling solution works! The only possible negative anyone will have with this card is its 3 slot form-factor, but even that is not that big a deal. You may feel otherwise.
Build Quality & Warranty: 19 out of 20
If there is any area that could be improved upon it is in the warranty department. If this card came with a 5 year instead of 3 three, this would have gone a long ways to justifying its price premium. Instead it has to do it the old fashioned way: build quality. Put simply this card is over-engineered to the point where we doubt all but the most extreme of consumers will kill it. As such we can only deduct 1 point from it for its industry standard warranty.
Performance: 30 out of 30
This card is the epitome of single core performance and to get better than it you are going to have to go the SLI or CrossFire route…as anything else simply wont cut it.
Value: 16 out of 20
On the one hand this card is designed and built like the premium grade card it is, on the other it’s rather pricey. As such even with improved performance ‘value’ is not this cards strong suit. Of course with flagship models value is never a major priority and we cannot really fault MSI for pricing this card the way they have. It costs a lot of money to bin parts, and to use higher grade components on a card. Taken as a whole we feel this card is a solid sweet sixteen on the value scale. You may feel different and are free to add or subtract points based on your particular needs/wants/desires.
Final Score: 92 out of 100
What this card lacks in ‘value’ it more than makes up for in sheer performance and quality. If you want a single card solution that can be quite as a church mouse but push pixels like nobody’s business, and is built like a tank this is the card for you. If on the other hand you are concerned about the price, maybe stepping down a notch to a ‘normal’ factory overclocked 980Ti Gaming 6G would be a more optimal choice.
