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

Picked up a 970 PNY reference cooler because the mitx case it's going into is small, and extra exhaust (along with a dedicated side intake) is muy bueno.
 
They're not the cheapest, but while you could save £60-70 by going with a cheaper card, I'd rather have the 980 PCB and fantastic blower than reused 760 PCBs and rebadged OEM 760 blowers (that weren't great back then either).


 
I got a PNY 970 and I think they reused the 670/760 PCB (judging by the short 9.5 inch PCB on the card). The heatsink is loud and hot, but I am getting 1.52 GHz stable with a 79.2% ASIC so I guess it's not that bad. The worst part is that you can't replace the heatsink without voiding the warranty though.
 
I should mention I've had 2 different pny reference cards and they both whined at full load but they were 980's so I'm not too certain about 970s
 
I should mention I've had 2 different pny reference cards and they both whined at full load but they were 980's so I'm not too certain about 970s

My card coil whined for the first hour or two after I pulled it out of the box but I don't hear anything anymore. Well, except the fan which is still obnoxious as hell.
 
I really want 2 x 970 blower cards, but I just cant justify spending the extra money for the OCUK ones.

Still havent seen anything concrete about the one Gigabyte was going to be putting out?
 
Did you look into the MSI 970 OCV1? Visually it looks much closer to reference 980s aside from the external material. Board design visually looks similar as well.
 
The OCV1 looks like a 980 PCB (missing one power phase), and the cooler looks like a non-heatpipe (definitely not vapour chamber) heatsink with a plastic (rather than magnesium) version of the NVTTM shroud. No idea how comparable the fan is.

If the OCV1 is available and cheaper than the OCUK, then it'll probably perform comparably other than not looking as nice.
 
I got a PNY 970 and I think they reused the 670/760 PCB (judging by the short 9.5 inch PCB on the card). The heatsink is loud and hot, but I am getting 1.52 GHz stable with a 79.2% ASIC so I guess it's not that bad. The worst part is that you can't replace the heatsink without voiding the warranty though.

Are you adding any voltage to get those numbers? I have a PNY 970 and for the life of me cannot get it stable at much past 1350. (and +0 on memory). I've added no voltage, a little, a lot. MWO crashes out hard without fail on anything other than stock clocks. Really kinda bummed. :confused:
 
Are you adding any voltage to get those numbers? I have a PNY 970 and for the life of me cannot get it stable at much past 1350. (and +0 on memory). I've added no voltage, a little, a lot. MWO crashes out hard without fail on anything other than stock clocks. Really kinda bummed. :confused:

Honestly I couldn't do 1.52GHz stable, that was for benching. Right now it's sitting at 1.48GHz stable I did add +87mV to get these number and I also modded the BIOS to raise the TDP. But I think you got a really bad card, even before modding the BIOS I could get about +100 out of my card without any problem. In retrospect though, modding the BIOS really brought out the best on this card but now my card is hitting 85 C so I plan to void the warranty and watercool it. Also check your ASIC quality.

Oh and also the frequency I'm talking about is the max boost frequency as observed in GPU-Z during benchmark not the stock or default boost frequency. 1.5 on stock frequency would be insane.
 
The thing that really kills me is that now the GAMES themselves crash hard, as in they quit to desktop.

With my old 750 Ti (EVGA FTW) I would get the occasional DRIVER crash where the screen would go dark and then 'recover' and the game itself would not be impacted at all. And that thing OC'd like a champ.
 
The thing that really kills me is that now the GAMES themselves crash hard, as in they quit to desktop.

With my old 750 Ti (EVGA FTW) I would get the occasional DRIVER crash where the screen would go dark and then 'recover' and the game itself would not be impacted at all. And that thing OC'd like a champ.

Sound silly but have you tried installing the latest driver and patch? Sound like a software problem to me. Does this happen on stock clock?
 
The thing that really kills me is that now the GAMES themselves crash hard, as in they quit to desktop.

With my old 750 Ti (EVGA FTW) I would get the occasional DRIVER crash where the screen would go dark and then 'recover' and the game itself would not be impacted at all. And that thing OC'd like a champ.

I think it depends on the card. I had a 560 where the screen would blink then the game would continue. Then I had another card where the PC would simply freeze or reboot. And I think my 680 was crash to desktop on too much oc. It just depends on what logic the overclock tickles first, there's no guarantee. What he implied above me ^^^ there should be no tdr / ctd / hangs / problems at stock clocks.
 
I think it depends on the card. I had a 560 where the screen would blink then the game would continue. Then I had another card where the PC would simply freeze or reboot. And I think my 680 was crash to desktop on too much oc. It just depends on what logic the overclock tickles first, there's no guarantee. What he implied above me ^^^ there should be no tdr / ctd / hangs / problems at stock clocks.

Agreed with the "depends on the board" part. I had a 770 and when it fails to OC it will flash black and then disable all OC until I restart the computer. My 970 also flash black but will not disable the OC setting, which sometimes cause freezes because it keeps applying the bad OC setting lol
 
Nvidia-branded reference 970 spotted in-store at Best Buy for $379..

DhAUfp6m.jpg


http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041238139&postcount=14468
 
I'm on a fresh install of 7 Pro with the latest Nvidia drivers. Decided I'd futz around with it some more and left the voltage at stock. Raised power/temp limit to max and swung for the fences on memory. +500 and it ran for a couple hours no sweat @ 8000 memory. :cool: My stock boost clock is 1228 so I added +172 core and was able to game uninterrupted at 1400/8000 for a good while. Awesome! Added about ~32 GB/sec bandwidth per Gpuz. :D

Now, this is on Hawken, which is DX9/UE3. Loaded up MWO (DX11/Cryengine) and was able to play a couple matches to my surprise. However it did eventually crash hard to desktop. I believe it does give the option to run in DX9 so I'll experiment with that. I have a couple other modern titles I'll need to test as well (Wolfenstein, Tomb Raider)

Overall much happier now. May end up keeping this card after all and just adding a 2nd for sli. Hard to beat the price ($330) even though that copper MSI is totally calling my name... must resist.... :eek:
 
Nvidia-branded reference 970 spotted in-store at Best Buy for $379..

DhAUfp6m.jpg


http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041238139&postcount=14468

Gods why cant they list these on their website????

Nearest BB to me is a good hour away....

I had a pair of NVidia branded 460's that came in boxes just like that though and those cards were top notch for oc'ing. Was a surprise really.

Hrmm... weekend trip to BB... assuming they have em in stock still...

Dont suppose anyone has a part/item number for the 970 model??
 
Must resist selling my PNY for that reference 970... I bought mine for $265 and it has an ASIC of 79.2% anyway so maybe that's a good reason to resist the NVIDIA board.
Can anyone who pulled the trigger on the NVIDIA 970 confirm how long the PCB is? Thanks!
 
Never mind I found this photo:
NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970-2.jpg

It seems like you're getting the long 980 PCB and cooler for the 970, which is great news since people all think that 980 PCBs are better :D
 
GOT ONE!!

i only saw one at the best buy in union city, california. the guy who checked the price for me said there may be another in the back of the store. if you're in the bay area, it's probably worth a check.

i'll post pictures in a sec
 
wtf are you sure it's labelled right? for me (and the person who first reported it) it was 379.9

edit: someone else on ocn posted 299.99 too. fuk life
 
They had 1 on the shelf at my BestBuy tonight when I went down after work for $379.99

They wouldnt do a $299 match for another BestBuy without a clear shelf shot or receipt shot with a date on it, but I did get them to price match to Amazon on the cheapest 970 there, so in the end I paid regular retail and not the massive overprice that BestBuy normally charges.

So 1 came home with me tonight and I've got 1 on order due in next week for the same price match. I'm rather happy with it overall since the Amazon price is what I would have ended up paying anyway, and it wouldnt have been for a blower model that I wanted.

I had a pair of NV branded 460's that I loved. Here's hoping these work out as well.
 
They had 1 on the shelf at my BestBuy tonight when I went down after work for $379.99

They wouldnt do a $299 match for another BestBuy without a clear shelf shot or receipt shot with a date on it, but I did get them to price match to Amazon on the cheapest 970 there, so in the end I paid regular retail and not the massive overprice that BestBuy normally charges.

So 1 came home with me tonight and I've got 1 on order due in next week for the same price match. I'm rather happy with it overall since the Amazon price is what I would have ended up paying anyway, and it wouldnt have been for a blower model that I wanted.

I had a pair of NV branded 460's that I loved. Here's hoping these work out as well.

The bestbuy one rang up as 379.99 and they wouldn't honor the shelf sticker and then promptly removed said sticker - so I didn't get it.

Your bestbuy price matched a non-reference gtx970? With a different model number and everything? If thats the case I might go back and try the same thing because I can't justify 379 without getting the free nvidia game - I'd prefer the strix or msi in that case.
 
The bestbuy one rang up as 379.99 and they wouldn't honor the shelf sticker and then promptly removed said sticker - so I didn't get it.

Your bestbuy price matched a non-reference gtx970? With a different model number and everything? If thats the case I might go back and try the same thing because I can't justify 379 without getting the free nvidia game - I'd prefer the strix or msi in that case.

They price matched it to this one....

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Superclocked-Graphics-04G-P4-2974-KR/dp/B00NVODXR4

Which, at $349 is still far better than $379 and its the blower model I wanted.

If you get lucky they might even price match to a $329 card (PNY/Zotac), but I didnt bother to try as I was in too much of a rush and didnt want to push my luck too far. I think he accepted the EVGA card since they do sell that brand in the store, though not that specific model.

Only thing that does sorta suck is not getting a code for a free game since BB isnt part of the promo.... just something to keep in mind.
 
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Picked up one of the Best buy Nvidia 970. Clocks to 1550mhz without any additional volts.It seems to run cooler/quieter compared to my reference 980.
 
Clocks to 1550 and stable at 1550 are different. Run any tests and benchmarks at 1550 to see?
 
Y'all should price match against the PNY. Paid $329 @ Amazon for mine.

Though I am seriously tempted to go check out my local BB (Can't believe I just said that)
 
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They price matched it to this one....

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Superclocked-Graphics-04G-P4-2974-KR/dp/B00NVODXR4

Which, at $349 is still far better than $379 and its the blower model I wanted.

If you get lucky they might even price match to a $329 card (PNY/Zotac), but I didnt bother to try as I was in too much of a rush and didnt want to push my luck too far. I think he accepted the EVGA card since they do sell that brand in the store, though not that specific model.

Y'all should price match against the PNY. Paid $329 @ Amazon for mine.

Wow, I've never heard of pricematching to a different brand/model!
 
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