What you should note about this mode over and above the expansion of the power draw limit is that the clock speeds are returned to the NVIDIA reference. It also comprises an additional six-pin PCIe power connector that is only utilized when the graphics card is set to LN2 or “Xtreme” mode. This isn’t just in the form of an overclocker’s BIOS which you may switch to via a button. For what is essentially a refresh, GIGABYTE has redesigned most of the card, upgrading the VRM/PWM circuit and giving a nod to extreme overclocking via an LN2 mode. This model has a few notable differences, mainly the cooling solution employed and its performance. As always though, the best of any series comes towards the end of its lifespan. The GTX 980 Ti Xtreme Gaming card is one such refresh product that makes me wish it was made available all the way back when the GTX 980 Ti was initially released. Other vendors have caught up with the G1 card and it’s time for a refresh. GIGABYTE’s G1.Gaming GTX 980 Ti was the first 980 Ti GPU we reviewed over a year ago, and it may seem strange to see the company release such a component when we are this close to the launch of Pascal GPUs (Q2 2016). There’s little to no need to go over the details of the GTX 980 Ti GPU once more, but suffice to say it remains the fastest GPU on the market, especially when it ships with a massive overclock like this card does.
