I know that people can simply look around at the 980 reviews, but I wanted to add my thoughts.



I bought 2 reference 980 cards (EVGA) and have been playing with them in SLI using my PC (i7 4790k@stock speeds).



I'm measuring power consumption via the utility in my UPS, which has the PC as well as my 34" monitor and all the various bits like speakers, mouse, etc. During full load testing, I've not yet been able to get the combined UPS load to exceed 451W. In addition, it idles at 81W. Remember, that's display and all.



To generate load, I'm using 3dmark, Valley, Heaven, etc.. all the usual synthetic gaming benchmark tools. Temps have yet to exceed the mid 70C range, and I can't hear the GPU fans unless I take the side off the PC and put my head right next to them. Heck, my motherboard only runs case fans as needed, and the top 2 aren't kicking in for most of the tests, leaving only 1 front and 1 rear 120mm Noctua.



Just food for thought, regarding the card's environmentals.



Edit: Forgot a couple things. The card requires two 6 pin power connectors and will throttle at 80C using stock bios settings. I've not come up against that limit just yet.