Which 970 Are You Buying?

guitarguy6 said:
Can't decide between getting the Evga SuperClocked ACX right now or waiting 2 weeks for stock on the MSI or Gigabyte. What would you guys do?
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I would stay away form the EVGA ACX cards and personally I dont care for Gigabyte cards at all. I would go MSI for sure and in fact I have done just that for 5 cards in the last 5 years. Even my non Gaming 970 can go over 1500 mhz at stock voltage while running cool and quiet. And even overclocked its using over 80 watts less than my stock 780.
 
misterbobby said:
I would stay away form the EVGA ACX cards and personally I dont care for Gigabyte cards at all. I would go MSI for sure and in fact I have done just that for 5 cards in the last 5 years. Even my non Gaming 970 can go over 1500 mhz at stock voltage while running cool and quiet. And even overclocked its using over 80 watts less than my stock 780.
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These cards are a g.d. dream. So glad I listened to advice here and went MSI 970 this time around.

To the guy a few posts back: I would just check TigerDirect and Newegg every day for the MSI 970 Gaming 4G, that's how I snagged mine. I don't imagine it'll be "2 weeks" before restock. I would probably avoid Amazon just because everyone and their mother is watching it and you're competing with way more eyeballs.
 
DPI said:
These cards are a g.d. dream. So glad I listened to advice here and went MSI 970 this time around.

To the guy a few posts back: I would just check TigerDirect and Newegg every day for the MSI 970 Gaming 4G, that's how I snagged mine. I don't imagine it'll be "2 weeks" before restock. I would probably avoid Amazon just because everyone and their mother is watching it and you're competing with way more eyeballs.
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I can get a better deal from my local PC shop so I'd have to wait until they have more stock. I guess I'll just wait for the MSI. I had an MSI 280X that I really liked.
 
misterbobby said:
I would stay away form the EVGA ACX cards and personally I dont care for Gigabyte cards at all. I would go MSI for sure and in fact I have done just that for 5 cards in the last 5 years. Even my non Gaming 970 can go over 1500 mhz at stock voltage while running cool and quiet. And even overclocked its using over 80 watts less than my stock 780.
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why not EVGA?. (taking apart the problems in the 970-980 series) but my 780 ACX work extremely great with an excellent 1228mhz at stock voltage by just increase the power target..
 
I received the Zotac GTX 970 this week. I must say the performance is just great! This particular card is quite small too. If these were in 3-way SLI it would look pretty different as they are much shorter than previous generations of cards. I plan to go SLI but have to sell the old cards first.

Let me know if I can answer any questions about this particular model.
 
THX152 said:
I received the Zotac GTX 970 this week. I must say the performance is just great! This particular card is quite small too. If these were in 3-way SLI it would look pretty different as they are much shorter than previous generations of cards. I plan to go SLI but have to sell the old cards first.

Let me know if I can answer any questions about this particular model.
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EDIT: NVM i thought it was the Zotac Extreme edition which its a kinda large...
 
misterbobby said:
If you are referring to the cooler from the 980 then that is not a Titan cooler. It may look like it but it does not have the vapor chamber underneath. All 970 cards are customs but EVGA will probably offer the 980 cooler at some point like they offered the 780 cooler on the 770.
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That is a bummer. There wasn't much coverage over the GTX 970 cards on release day. The early reviews I found suggested that the reference 970 would have the same cooler as the 980. I am okay with the vapor chamber gone since the new cards don't output as much heat. But all the blower style cooler on vanilla cards seem cheaply made compare to the reference 980.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_970_and_980_reference_review,2.html
 
THX152 said:
I received the Zotac GTX 970 this week. I must say the performance is just great! This particular card is quite small too. If these were in 3-way SLI it would look pretty different as they are much shorter than previous generations of cards. I plan to go SLI but have to sell the old cards first.

Let me know if I can answer any questions about this particular model.
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I have two of these in my basket with my finger hovering over the paypal buy option... soooo tempted. my gigabyte oc 770 4g cards run so well but it's been more than a year... agghh... damn upgrade bug. :p

PS: and wow yes they are tiny.. about 1/3 shorter than my windforce cards. :eek:

edit: and ordered. wth eh, you only live once... let's upgrade. :)
Zotac ZT-90101-10P GeForce GTX970 4GB PCI Express 3.0 x16 Video Card. Retail Box $329.99 qty=2 in stock=Yes $659.98
Subtotal: $659.98
Shipping: $20.00
Tax: $0.00
10% savings: -$66.00
Total: $613.98

Directron. Haven't used them in a long while. The price was right and they were in stock.
 
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guitarguy6 said:
Are there any major differences between the MSI Gaming and MSI Tiger 970's?
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Go for the Gaming. I have the non gaming version and it throttles and drops voltage even out of the box under heavy load. Even if I move the power target slider to its max of 106% it will still do that. I can hit really high clocks if I oc but it just cant come close to maintaining it because of the TDP.
 
misterbobby said:
Go for the Gaming. I have the non gaming version and it throttles and drops voltage even out of the box under heavy load. Even if I move the power target slider to its max of 106% it will still do that. I can hit really high clocks if I oc but it just cant come close to maintaining it because of the TDP.
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same issue maybe that happened with the 280X?. i had a MSI 280X Gaming that had to be update the BIOS due VRM overheating and cause throttle under heavy loads even at stock..
 
misterbobby said:
Go for the Gaming. I have the non gaming version and it throttles and drops voltage even out of the box under heavy load. Even if I move the power target slider to its max of 106% it will still do that. I can hit really high clocks if I oc but it just cant come close to maintaining it because of the TDP.
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Good to know, I'll go for the gaming edition.
 
Im waiting for the perfect card:
I/O of the gigabyte g1
VRM cooling like the strix
and blower cooling


i know i can get any card with the right I/O and wait for the water blocks to come, but i havent gotten into watercooling outside of the h100.... yet
 
misterbobby said:
Go for the Gaming. I have the non gaming version and it throttles and drops voltage even out of the box under heavy load. Even if I move the power target slider to its max of 106% it will still do that. I can hit really high clocks if I oc but it just cant come close to maintaining it because of the TDP.
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I have the Gaming and it throttles too under load while overclocked, even with 110% power limit. Voltage sometimes drops randomly. I guess it's just an MSI issue.

I've read you can try to modify the BIOS but I don't think it's really worth it. The card is fast whether it's running at 1550 boost or 1530 boost. :p
 
hmmmmmmm.. well, this will be an interesting comparison going from my nice gigabutt windforce 770 4g cards to the very vanilla 970... the pixel rate on these 970s with the extra stream processors and ROPs should win out - the mem bw is about the same but I can hit 8ghz on the mem no prob on my 770s and hold 1300 on the cores.. I have some pretty intense ventilation in my case though, that'll help keep them cool. I have my side fan turned to exhaust also because the windforce cards DUMP heat out of the side, which I figure this Zotac cooler will do also.. and that's been working out fine.. my TJ09 has that weird center video card fan so I get cool air to the card pair from that.. yadda yadda.. I guess we will see what happens but I will hold onto my 770s for a bit until I can push the 970s enough and feel good about them.
 
Darksword said:
I have the Gaming and it throttles too under load while overclocked, even with 110% power limit. Voltage sometimes drops randomly. I guess it's just an MSI issue.

I've read you can try to modify the BIOS but I don't think it's really worth it. The card is fast whether it's running at 1550 boost or 1530 boost. :p
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Mine is throttling way more than that though. Again right out of the box it will drop voltage and clocks under full load. The more I oc then the bigger the gaps are between actual clocks.
 
50Cal said:
Im waiting for the perfect card:
I/O of the gigabyte g1
VRM cooling like the strix
and blower cooling


i know i can get any card with the right I/O and wait for the water blocks to come, but i havent gotten into watercooling outside of the h100.... yet
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The Gigabyte 970 has the best VRM cooling as well. VRMs run at about 60-65C and those are really good temps.
 
revenant said:
hmmmmmmm.. well, this will be an interesting comparison going from my nice gigabutt windforce 770 4g cards to the very vanilla 970... the pixel rate on these 970s with the extra stream processors and ROPs should win out - the mem bw is about the same but I can hit 8ghz on the mem no prob on my 770s and hold 1300 on the cores.. I have some pretty intense ventilation in my case though, that'll help keep them cool. I have my side fan turned to exhaust also because the windforce cards DUMP heat out of the side, which I figure this Zotac cooler will do also.. and that's been working out fine.. my TJ09 has that weird center video card fan so I get cool air to the card pair from that.. yadda yadda.. I guess we will see what happens but I will hold onto my 770s for a bit until I can push the 970s enough and feel good about them.
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you can't compare the efficiency in maxwell with the compression versus the 770.. a 970 its even able of equal the performance of a 780TI with much less shaders and bandwidth...
 
Araxie said:
you can't compare the efficiency in maxwell with the compression versus the 770.. a 970 its even able of equal the performance of a 780TI with much less shaders and bandwidth...
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Yep.. I just did a lot of reading. Been out of the loop for a while. :eek: The 980/970 is a whole new beast which dispels any of my worries. I guess I should read before I post. ;)
 
any reviews of the zotac 970? wonder how it compared to others out atm
 
this is all I could find ... if you scroll down you can see they ref a ' overclocked zotac 970' which I assume would be the vanilla one due to the PCB pic.. I know the PCB is tiny but the stock 670's pcb was tiny also and those ran really well. I am guessing this will not be a big overclocker but who knows.. (the pcb pic is at the very end.. long ways down). :eek:

FRZ said:
any reviews of the zotac 970? wonder how it compared to others out atm
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The Galax 970 looks very interesting. Although I can't find any info regarding the quality of components they used, it does have an 8 pin and 6pin power input configuration, as well as a backplate. Also they are selling them for base MSRP of $329. I'd really like to see a review
 
I'm very tempted to get a 970 but part of me also wants to wait awhile longer to see if Nvidia really is planning on releasing another high end non-Titan card in 2014 with more VRAM...since I really only need the 970 starting with Witcher 3, I have until February to decide...and by that time more 970 options will be available (custom coolers) along with cheaper prices...that being said if I can snag a 970 for around $300 I'll most likely bite
 
So what's the verdict guys. I can't seem to decide between MSI and Gigabyte. Safer option would be to go for Gigabyte. Even if they don't hit the 1500 mark, I think I can still pull off a decent overclock on them. How would they do in SLi given they have blower style coolers?
 
KickAssCop said:
So what's the verdict guys. I can't seem to decide between MSI and Gigabyte. Safer option would be to go for Gigabyte. Even if they don't hit the 1500 mark, I think I can still pull off a decent overclock on them. How would they do in SLi given they have blower style coolers?
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The gigabyte doesn't have a blower but I think that was just a typo? Not sure what you mean by the "safer" option. Get either one as they both appear to be good cards. If for whatever reason you want three DP port then go the gigabyte. If you prefer a shorter card go with the MSI. On the other hand there are many more OCing results being posted by users of the MSI and they do clock well. The gigabyte might be even better, but there are so few giga g1 users posting their results it's hard to say.
 
KickAssCop said:
So what's the verdict guys. I can't seem to decide between MSI and Gigabyte. Safer option would be to go for Gigabyte. Even if they don't hit the 1500 mark, I think I can still pull off a decent overclock on them. How would they do in SLi given they have blower style coolers?
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If you have the room in your case and don't care for 0dB operation while idle, get the Gigabyte. All around better cooling (especially on the VRMs), and of the 2 reviews I could find that bothered to OC the card, one hit 1328 MHz core (1516 boost), while the other hit 1318MHz core (no mention of boost, but likely over 1500 MHz as well).

The Gigabyte is literally 1.1 inch longer than the MSI (297mm vs 269mm), so it's not a day and night difference.
 
Don't give a crap about length of cards.

Blower was typo, I meant non-blower style coolers.

Safer because it has VRM cooling and MSI has too many coil whine and high VRM temperature reports. Also I have had forum members complain about MSI gaming cards for the 290X and 780 series with either fan issues, coil whine and so on. On newegg and Amazon combined 13 reviews of MSI gaming 970s, 2 had coil whine. This is too much of a risk.

I will import all the way from US and for me that means that if there is a warranty issue then I will end up paying about 980 price on the card to get it fixed. Never had an issue with Gigabyte cards except that they don't overclock that well. My current cards barely broke 1200 MHz on the 780s whereas, everyone and their mothers were able to pull 1250 or higher on 780s.
 
I absolutely can't decide :(. ASUS Strix GTX970 looks like my ideal card from sound aspect - passive & quiet at load. On other side Gigabyte & Zotac have the ideal port layout (3x DP). Absolutely can't decide; i wish there would be Strix 970 with 3xDP :(. Wish i could trust Gigabyte, but the WindForce on the GTX660 was total crap, extremely noisy at idle, and let's not start talking about load at all.
 
Gigabyte windforce 3X has been fine since the 7XX series. Gigabyte made very conscious improvements to it. They even introduced Rev 2.0 for GTX 6XX series.
 
KickAssCop said:
Gigabyte windforce 3X has been fine since the 7XX series. Gigabyte made very conscious improvements to it. They even introduced Rev 2.0 for GTX 6XX series.
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Hmmmkay... The Windforce cooler that was on my GTX 780 Ghz Edition sucked big time. It was noisy, it wasn't cooling well and one fan had rattling issues. Also the fan speed was not stable and sounded annoying. On top of that the card had horrible coil whine issue. MSI R9 290 Gaming was much quieter and no coil whine. ASUS GTX 780 was way cooler and much, MUCH quieter.

People have reported coil whine from Gigabyte 970's.
 
n=1 said:
If you have the room in your case and don't care for 0dB operation while idle, get the Gigabyte. All around better cooling (especially on the VRMs), and of the 2 reviews I could find that bothered to OC the card, one hit 1328 MHz core (1516 boost), while the other hit 1318MHz core (no mention of boost, but likely over 1500 MHz as well).

The Gigabyte is literally 1.1 inch longer than the MSI (297mm vs 269mm), so it's not a day and night difference.
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When you're talking about a computer case, 1 inch makes a pretty big difference.
 
Tup3x said:
Hmmmkay... The Windforce cooler that was on my GTX 780 Ghz Edition sucked big time. It was noisy, it wasn't cooling well and one fan had rattling issues. Also the fan speed was not stable and sounded annoying. On top of that the card had horrible coil whine issue. MSI R9 290 Gaming was much quieter and no coil whine. ASUS GTX 780 was way cooler and much, MUCH quieter.

People have reported coil whine from Gigabyte 970's.
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I see. Thanks for letting me know. So which brand then? lol
 
bpizzle1 said:
When you're talking about a computer case, 1 inch makes a pretty big difference.
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Sure if you have an mITX case, but I doubt the Gigabyte card would even fit in most mITX cases. Really for an almost 12" card you should have at least a mid tower. If that's the case (ha) 1 inch shouldn't make or break you. If it does time to get a new case :p j/k
 
n=1 said:
Sure if you have an mITX case, but I doubt the Gigabyte card would even fit in most mITX cases. Really for an almost 12" card you should have at least a mid tower. If that's the case (ha) 1 inch shouldn't make or break you. If it does time to get a new case :p j/k
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Naw though. A lot of the smaller midtower cases with various configurations (like those with non-removable HDD trays) only have about 11" clearance for graphics cards. I had one with 11.25" before and I couldn't get certain 7970s to fit so I ended up getting an Nvidia card later.
 
Ok yeah towers with non-removable HDD cages would really tend to screw things up.

This is why I always go the "full tower or bust" route when buying cases, however overkill and "wasteful" it may be. My reasoning is that more space = less build restrictions and better airflow, so empty space isn't exactly wasted.
 
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