Only reference 980 Tis with the reference blower-style cooler. You need the fan and midplate from the original cooler to use the EVGA Hybrid kit.

A difference in performance between the Classified 980 Ti and a reference 980 Ti?
If you're looking for an "extreme" overclocking card that you want to, at the very least, put under a real water loop, or use some type of exotic cooling, you probably want the Classified or KPE (not that they aren't fine on air alone also).
 
If you're just looking for a solid card to game on and maybe get some decent overclocks out of, a hybrid is one of the best. A good overclock is not guaranteed, of course (besides the stock OC that the hybrids come with). The EVGA hybrid kit and card have been in extremely high demand and difficult to find and buy, however.
 
There's also nothing wrong with the air coolers that the 980 Tis come with. People get very nice results from them.
Or you could always use an NZXT G10 or the upcoming Corsair HG10 N980 cooling brackets and pair your own AIO liquid cooler.

ItsLukeyo

Bunta714
A difference in performance between the Classified 980 Ti and a reference 980 Ti?
If you're looking for an "extreme" overclocking card that you want to, at the very least, put under a real water loop, or use some type of exotic cooling, you probably want the Classified or KPE (not that they aren't fine on air alone also).
 
If you're just looking for a solid card to game on and maybe get some decent overclocks out of, a hybrid is one of the best. A good overclock is not guaranteed, of course (besides the stock OC that the hybrids come with). The EVGA hybrid kit and card have been in extremely high demand and difficult to find and buy, however.
 
There's also nothing wrong with the air coolers that the 980 Tis come with. People get very nice results from them.
Or you could always use an NZXT G10 or the upcoming Corsair HG10 N980 cooling brackets and pair your own AIO liquid cooler.

Thanks man! TBH I don't OC anything lol, I just use the hardware as it comes usually. The reason I wanted the self contained water cooling kit is I want to keep temps and noise low even under load

In that case, I would either try to snag an EVGA hybrid (simplest solution, but could be difficult), or just pick up a nice 980 Ti and make your own hybrid with one of the brackets I mentioned. I've had the brackets on an R9 290x, 2x 980s, and 2x 980 Tis, and they have been cool and almost silent with the right fans. I've also been fairly lucky with OCs on them if you ever start to get into that.