swapped back to my original 980 (batch code ending in 438, not 540). disappointing... i originally swapped it out due to temp issues... now it's doing 4.538ghz stable at a bump higher than the other 980 (1.45 vcore over 1.44325 with the 540) and the darn thing is going fine at roughly 12*c COOLER now than the one i used to replace it... so even though lapping the batch 540 one WAS helpful in controling temps... the non-lapped batch 438 is randomly significantly 12*c cooler across all cores... not to mention it requires less VTT now for the same mem speeds as before AND does, on average, between 4-8gflops faster on linX... seems my original 980 was a much closer to a golden chip than the replacement...

i still want to see if i can't RMA this non-lapped one in and see about swapping it for a 990 with a slight expense difference.