Anyone buy a 970 with blower-style fan (evga or pny)?

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cesium666

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I'm going to buying a 970 soon and would very much prefer one with a blower style fan, due to my tiny case. I saw that only evga and pny have such models, but have not been able to find any reviews of it. Has anyone here on [h] bought one, and if so, how is the noise and cooling?
 
I've got a pair of PNY cards coming Monday, I will post my results. Hoping for good acoustics and cooling for a mATX SLI rig.
 
I'd wait until a few more people have blower style fans. I am returning my eVGA GTX 970 SC because the fan is absolutely unacceptable. Not sure if it is a one off thing or if eVGA screwed up this one completely.
 
if it's the same-ish fan that eVGA had on their vanilla 670s - it's pretty loud when they spool up (and I work in a datacenter). If you game 100% with headphones then maybe you won't mind.
 
revenant said:
if it's the same-ish fan that eVGA had on their vanilla 670s - it's pretty loud when they spool up (and I work in a datacenter). If you game 100% with headphones then maybe you won't mind.
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I had that card and the fan drove me nuts. That's why I chose PNY this time. Never had a problem with EVGA blowers using reference coolers but their custom blowers sound like hell.

I'll report back on the PNY on Monday.
 
night_2004 said:
I'd wait until a few more people have blower style fans. I am returning my eVGA GTX 970 SC because the fan is absolutely unacceptable. Not sure if it is a one off thing or if eVGA screwed up this one completely.
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That's the SC with the blower or ACX?

xp3nd4bl3 said:
I've got a pair of PNY cards coming Monday, I will post my results. Hoping for good acoustics and cooling for a mATX SLI rig.
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Much thanks, I look forward to hearing how it is! I too have an mATX case, and my 690 only works at proper clocks if the side panel is off :D
 
night_2004 said:
The blower style. After reading about the ACX cooler I've decided to pass on eVGA for this generation of cards.
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Yeah that's what it seems, shame as I really like their customer service. Alright guess I'll either get the PNY - depending on xp3nd4bl3's report - or go with the Asus. The semi-passive nature of the Asus is desirable as I won't be gaming much.
 
Never bought anything MSI but I'd have to say their blower version appears to be on the better side for choice so I'd most likely go that route.
Maybe Gigabyte will release a default blower style, their triple windforce is effective but too damn long.
 
ep0x73 said:
Never bought anything MSI but I'd have to say their blower version appears to be on the better side for choice so I'd most likely go that route.
Maybe Gigabyte will release a default blower style, their triple windforce is effective but too damn long.
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What? All 970 cards are non reference and since when does MSI ever make a non reference blower? They offer two 970 cards neither of which has a blower. Even their 980 only has the exact reference blower as all other 980 cards.
 
All 970 are non-reference, how do you figure?
The blower is reference, windforce, ACX are not, they are custom in house solutions.

MSI has a 980 blower, not a 970 [least not yet].

EVGA has two blower flavors.

04G-P4-1972-KR_MD_1.jpg
 
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ep0x73 said:
All 970 are non-reference, how do you figure?
The blower is reference, windforce, ACX are not, they are custom in house solutions.
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You are not making any sense in this thread. You talked about the MSI blower version when there is NO MSI 970 with blower at all. MSI makes two 970 cards and neither use a blower. And Again there is NO such thing as a reference 970.

EDIT: And what does EVGA 970 having a custom blower have anything to do with what I said? And I already told you that the blower on the MSI 980 is reference like the other the other 980 cards. This thread is about 970 cards, ALL of which are custom and MSI has no 970 with blower.
 
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Dunno what he's talking about but MSI is actually set to release a set of blower cards. Look for the OCV1 series. From the look of things, they're very similar to the reference GTX 980 heatsink except the shroud is plastic.

Either way, those cards should be the blowers to go for.
 
tommye said:
Dunno what he's talking about but MSI is actually set to release a set of blower cards. Look for the OCV1 series. From the look of things, they're very similar to the reference GTX 980 heatsink except the shroud is plastic.

Either way, those cards should be the blowers to go for.
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I had seen nothing about that before but after seeing them just now they are just cheap low end solutions and would be the last choice I would make.
 
pandora's box said:
Isn't that the same blower from the GTX 670? AKA loud as fuck....
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Which one are you referring too? The upcoming MSI 970/970 cooler looks like a plastic version of the 980 cooler and normal size pcb.The card itself does not have any upgraded components like on their other 970 models though.
 
Low end in what way? Sure they're probably not packing "military grade" components but they won't be packing absolute rubbish that will explode. Remember that we're talking about Maxwell and not Hawaii. Blowers based on reference designs also have benefit of actually cooling the entire card well, unlike many aftermarket cards on the market seemingly skimping on VRM or RAM cooling. Performance doesn't seem to be an issue with the low end either since EVGA's (awful) offerings are still hitting 1400-1500mhz reliably.

If better components and more robust power delivery are essential, you unfortunately have few choices. Most GTX 970 blowers are very bare bones and there's not much you can do about this. The real differentiation factor here will be the cooling solution. If my system required a blower card for whatever reason, the MSI cards I mentioned are the ones to go for: the GTX 980 reference heatsink is undoubtedly better than many of the other blowers based on older reference designs (i.e. EVGA's GTX 970 that reuses the GTX 670 PCB and cooling solution). The fan speed ramps up far more smoothly and the heatsink is beefier. Better acoustic and/or cooling performance is always welcome over some nebulous benefit that "military grade" components bring to the table anyway.
 
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Its low end for them as it will not have any upgraded components or more power phases like on their other 970 cards. And the VRMs run hotter on the reference 980 cards with blowers than the G1. If you need a blower card then I understand though.
 
I edited my post to try and clarify my stance but I really doubt upgraded components and more robust power delivery is really important for a card with a blower. Maybe Asus' super alloy chokes might limit possibilities of coil whine but most upgrades seem a bit superfluous for a 145W TDP GPU that reliably hits 1400-1500mhz boost speeds regardless of model and make.
 
Gainward
p00954_pic2_1858541a6f618d53f.jpg


and Palit
p02406_bigimage_110154128cf6c9068.jpg


also have blower style cards.

But I don't know anything else about them :)
 
omniscence said:
http://www.techpowerup.com/205439/msi-announces-geforce-gtx-980-and-gtx-970-ocv1-series.html

I think I will wait till these are available. The GTX 970 in the picture has 3 DP outputs like the GTX 980. If they are really like that I may get it over a Titan cooler GTX 980.
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Maybe I'm not understanding you but if you think the cooler on the 980 is a Titan cooler then you're mistaken. The 980 cooler does not have a vapor chamber and only looks like the Titan cooler from the outside.
 
I got my two PNY blower cards in today and I'm very happy with them! Some initial thoughts:

  • PCB is very short, much shorter than the cooler, just like the old 670 reference design
  • The blower shroud feels cheap and plasticy and bendy when you hold it
  • Fan is very quiet at idle/desktop speeds but not inaudible like my Titan and 780Ti were
  • Still MUCH less annoying low speed than the EVGA GTX 670 that I still have nightmares about
  • At +215 MHz both cards seem to overclock to 1480's no problem but usually throttle down to about ~1440 under sustained load, presumably due to power restriction?
  • EVGA Precision X maxes out at 106% but the OSD reports them hitting 115%
  • The sound under load, while certainly audible, is a very pleasant sound -- more air noise than fan which is a big plus to me

My chassis is an FT03 with Noctua case fans at low RPM so I don't have the most well-ventilated case but all-in-all I'm extremely happy with these cards. No plan to return them or upgrade, which were options I had been considering before my testing.
 
Thanks SO much for your report! Can you turn down the fan speed at idle at all to make it quieter?

Definitely think I'm going to pick up a PNY now :)
 
cesium666 said:
Thanks SO much for your report! Can you turn down the fan speed at idle at all to make it quieter?

Definitely think I'm going to pick up a PNY now :)
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Yes, definitely, and doesn't really seem to affect idle temps.

The more time I spend with this the more thrilled I am with the results considering I'm running a small, quiet mATX rig. Glad I didn't jump the gun and buy two of the non-blower cards when they were available earlier.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2861953
 
picket23 said:
What makes you say that? Got any details on what is superior about this card? I haven't read anything about it but hopefully it is decent.
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I thought it was obvious. Those other blower coolers are those cheap crappy noisy ones like was used on the GTX 660 Ti and GTX 670. The one on the MSI card looks basically like the 980 cooler except made with cheaper plastic.
 
Where can we even buy / pre order the msi cards?
Also wish we got some reviews comparing the different blower cards? I can't make out any difference to them outside of the plastic shroud.
 
misterbobby said:
I thought it was obvious. Those other blower coolers are those cheap crappy noisy ones like was used on the GTX 660 Ti and GTX 670. The one on the MSI card looks basically like the 980 cooler except made with cheaper plastic.
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Do you have any photos of the internals of the MSI cooler, or of the PCB's backside? It's effectively impossible to determine the internal layout from the shroud (especially as it has a different shroud!), and the NVTTM design has the headsink base in the wrong position for the 970's shortened PCB.
One option to add a NVTTM cooler to a 970 would essentially use a 980 PCB with a 970 chip on. Some late-model 770s (I know EVGA made one, and IIRC some others did to for OEM) were built with 780 PCBs to allow NVTTM use.

I'd really like a 970 with a decent blower (for Ncase use), but the current crop with rebadged 670 'custom' blowers aren't looking too great.
 
Just wanted to report that I too bought the PNY card and am very happy with it. I've got it in a packed mATX case, and it's a bit quieter than my 690 at idle and very reasonable at load (pleasant sound signature, no coil whine). Haven't broken 72C with +100 gpu / +200 memory so far.
 
how exactly is a blower type GPU fan different from a regular GPU with two or three fans? does it blow the air outside the case?
 
How long is that PNY card with the blower? Would work well in an ITX case where space is a limitation and outside exhaust is a plus.
 
Items Ordered
1 of: PNY XLR8 VCGGTX9704XPB GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI
Sold by: Amazon.com LLC

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$329.99

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:D :D :D

Can't wait! Bumping up from 750 Ti. Definitely wanted a blower card this time and EVGA gets a big eff-u for various reasons.
 
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