Normal.

Ok - becasue it boosts so much higher, do you think there's more room to take it above +200mhz? Temps max are @70 degrees max

I would say there is plenty of room above 200mhz, judging off my own 980ti which boosts to 1500mhz on stock voltage, in the small amount of time I've had to play with it I've tested 10 runs of firestrike @ 1500mhz no problem so I will be pushing it just to see how high core speed it will go.

After a quick play with Firestrike, my Ti manages a boost of 1477mhz. That's with + 250mhz clock and + 400mhz memory. I tried breaking the 1500mhz barrier, but it crashed. May have to add some extra voltage.