JerkMan
Right now on Newegg, Classifieds available!

Must have sold out, gone now.

Right now on newegg both 
 
EVGA 04G-2983-KR GeForce GTX 980 Superclocked 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 ACX 2.0 PCI Express 3.0
and
 EVGA 04G-2982-KR GeForce GTX 980 Superclocked 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0
are available ! 

Still no 970 for Europeans :(

Jagblade
I hope to get an answer with absolutely no bias or brand loyalty involved. Which card should I go for if I want the best performance for the money out of the box in terms of cooling, noise, and horse power for gaming? I will not be overclocking the card at all.

EVGA GTX 970 FTW or Gigabyte G1 Gaming?

I know EVGA has the best customer service, I've experienced that first hand. Based on what I've been reading though, it seems as though their cards are coming up short compared to their competitors this time around. They seem to be louder, hotter, and more expensive for some reason.

If you are wanting the one with more horsepower in raw numbers:
 
EVGA 970 FTW - Base clock 1216 MHZ  (+ 16% over stock)  Boost clock 1367 MHZ (+16% over stock)
 
Gigabyte G1 Gaming-  Base clock 1178 MHZ (+ 12% over stock)  Boost clock 1329 MHZ (+13% over stock)
 
FTW is the way to go. 
 
Looking a little into it, FTW is slightly cooler at idle while the G1 is slightly cooler under load. Im talking difference of less than 5c.
 
Noise level, I think the FTW is slightly louder. But you do get the full contact plate heat sink over the pipes.
 
If you want more power and best customer service, go FTW. 
Quieter and slightly cooler temps with a slightly lower price (I think $10?), go the G1.

bain64

EVGA_JacobF
Not likely!

Possibly this week still, or should we stop hitting F5 until next week? 

He said that yesterday and there they were on the EVGA website last night.  I got the email notification and wasn't even ready.  Needless to say, I missed out.

I am chasing two (2) 980 Classifieds.

LiMiTeD_DiAvOlO

rsbrownjr
I am chasing two (2) 980 Classifieds.

I am chasing 1x 980cls for now, and boy are my legs getting tired. Especially when race time comes and i dont receive notification

Yeah, I hear that.  And there's no specified time they release them.  It's arbitrary.  I'm sure it's good entertainment for them watching us scrap, scrape, grovel, and do whatever to get our hands on one, or two maybe.

It's 3:00 on the Left Coast.  C'mon Jacob.  Howza bout you throw some bait out there and do a little trolling?

bain64
WOOOOOOT !  970FTW on the way

Daaaaaammmnnn yooooouuuuu. I got the availability email and immediately started the checkout. By the time I was done with checkout less than 3 minutes later, it was sold out. I had to get the SuperClocked.

Tigerdirect Cancelled my order for the 980 GTX ACX 2.0 EVGA 04G-P4-2981-KR
 
Whats the ETA for the EVGA 04G-P4-2980-KR? Got the email that it was in stock within 15 minutes, but still wasn't fast enough to snatch one up.

bain64
 
2981 is in stock at EVGA right now, has been for about 2 hours now. Hop on it man, probably wont last much longer.
 

 
Edit: I know you asked about the 2980 (reference) but the exact model you attempted to purchase at Tiger is available now for $50 less than the 2980

Thanks for the info. The 2981 is very tempting, that's why I ordered it with tiger-direct in the first place. But with further research I think blower type GPU is better for extremely small cases.
 
The 2981 might cook my 4 HDDs, which it did happen with my current AMD FirePro W8100 which is a blower with 220 TDP

Are these delays still common for the 970s?  I ordered a non SC from ncix.com but it's still in 'pre-order' status. They claim to have backorders since October 6th.  I'm kind of nervous now and thinking I should change my order to another brand. I didn't care too much about the Pick your Path promo but at least it's worth something right now and only less as these delays get longer.  Are you guys mostly buying direct from the EVGA store and not 3rd parties like ncix or Tigerdirect?

Do we have an ETA for 980 SC/ 970FTW on the EU shop?