That was some good info. I personally always have a hard time swallowing how expensive sone of those boards get. Those they're for benching, but still.

I'm sorely trying to wait til Pascal before I do my next actual build.

I really should sell some parts though, I've got too many old ones just laying around. They get so inefficient here so quick.

Here's what one of the world known OCer's (Has a GPU in his name) says about Maxwell:

(OCN's Classified/Kingpin owner thread) Originally Posted by k|ngp|n:

Honestly speaking, I think most end users don't even realize how maxwell gpus are voltage capped at ambient type cooling. I can tell by many of the comments at OC.net, elsewhere, and also here in these card XOC bios threads. Especially compared to kepler. KP 780ti scaled great on voltage with air/water temps. Basically, more voltage = more clocks no matter what temperature.
With 980 and later gpus including titanX, the scaling on air/water has all but almost gone. I would say about 95% of all maxwell 980,titan-X, and 980ti gpus NO MATTER what vga brand pcb it is on, DO NOT SCALE with more voltage than 1.25v-1.275v at temps warmer than 25c or so. There is no magical bios that can effectively remove this.

This is exactly why almost every moderate-good asic titanX, 980, and yes 980ti clock around 1550mhz MAX AVERAGE at say 45-60C loading temps.
If you put 0c and colder on the card, you will see MUCH different behavior than what you see on air (green garbage all over screen when raising volts over 1.23-1.25vv or so)
Cards with very good ASIC value (75% and up) will tend to have the most "overclocking", but just like about every other maxwell gpu, they cannot overvolt past 1.23v-1.25v.
So highest asic cards like 80% +are almost always going to be the ones that can 1600+ on air/water, and again they do it pretty much WITHOUT overvolting over 1.23v-1.25v. Maxwell gpus with lower asic value like 65% will not be so great at air/water because these low asic gpus need voltage to scale compared to match the overclock of the high asic gpus( USING SAME USABLE VOLTAGE 1.23-1.25v)

Posted 30th of March:

GERARD_FXCXCL12 update:

Zoltan's 980 reclaimed [25,606.92] fastest runtime and [1.462 ms] time per step.

RZ's 980 9% faster than DooKey's [1.616 ms.] Titan X and 11-19% better than GTX780ti [1.771 ms.]

Since GM200 March release - numerous GM200's attached to GPUGRID. Currently Petebe's GERARD_FXCXCL12 (newly released batches) 22k/sec 980ti runtime(s) 13.3% faster than XP's best 980's. The 980ti (1.289ms) per step 12.9% quicker (1.462ms).

XP OS light speed systems are leading the pack as always. (Maxwell upgrade) from Fermi and Kelper on XP or Linux garner significant performance benefits. 2WU at a time Maxwell GPU's WDDM system(s) almost make up the performance gap vs. XP/Linux one WU at a time.

Zoltan's test 980ti has the fastest GERALD_FXCXCL12 WU ever completed.
https://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=4100&nowrap=true#41570

(1.114ms. per step) 23% faster than (RZ) 980 XP system. The host that RZ tested the 980ti with also had a 970 completing GERALD's in 30.5k/sec. This is the fastest 970 GERALD single WUat ever recorded. Time per step was 1.745ms.

... The host that RZ tested the 980ti with also had a 970 completing GERALD's in 30.5k/sec. This is the fastest 970 GERALD single WUat ever recorded. Time per step was 1.745ms.

That GTX 970 is an EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SSC ACX 2.0+, and I haven't pushed it more than the factory overclock.

https://xdevs.com/guide/maxwell_big_oc/
980ti 'Kingpin' has an impressive feature set compared to the reference design and other custom PCB's. Cost is 200$ or more than the 980ti MSRP.