2560x1440 gaming GPU

[Techhog]

They used cooler from another card. Resulted in no contact with some heat-pipes. Not something you expect from premium overclocking nvidia exclusive brand

They released an updated cooler which fixes this while being $10 cheaper.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I wouldn't bother with the Evga cards,to be honest as much as i have loved and used them in the pass they have the less interesting of aftermarket coolers right now.About as exciting as paint peeling off a wall.

The Gigabyte G1 970 is one i know i would get,its most likely the one i will be picking.

Op should eventually just consider a entire platform upgrade pretty soon after going with a 970,that or just use potential left over wasted gpu power to at least pump up AA or something till the proper upgrades are done and over with.

 

[nitromullet]

I wish AIB's also offered reference GTX 970s.

BB has one, but it's already on the pricey side, and after sales tax it would be over $400.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/nvidia-g...&skuId=9855169

Newegg has them too, but you can only buy it as part of a combo.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814132038

/shakes fist at newegg

 

[Techhog]

I get it but in your case this is actually counter-intuitive. Why buy a GPU so fast that it bottlenecks your CPU, and when you upgrade your CPU in 12, 15 or 18 months, a much faster GPU at $350 will have come out? In other words, you run the risk of overspending now to buy a GPU well beyond the speed that your current CPU is capable of producing in hopes that the GPU's legs will be stretched down the line when you upgrade to a faster CPU. The thing is, you'd be better off getting a GPU fast enough, pocking the savings and then selling that GPU and getting something much faster with the savings realized now. I rarely recommend someone overspending for a GPU and it's usually in cases where you are going from a GTX750Ti to an R9 270/270X and you can just apply extra AA for free due to a CPU bottleneck but usually the price difference is $20-40. In your case a 970 costs significantly more than say a used R9 290.



1. An after-market market R9 290 = Reference 290X.
2. You can buy a used Sapphire Tri-X 290 for $225-235, sometimes less. Alternatively a new Sapphire Tri-X is $255 with the $25 AMEX off $200 Twitter deal.
3. Reference 290X = after-market 290 = after-market 970 at your resolution in games with a proper modern CPU:

So why would you pay more to get identical performance with the 970? In fact, as I said, with your CPU, you can just buy a used HD7970Ghz/R9 280X and then once you upgrade the CPU, then consider buying something much faster from R9 300/GM200 series. Your idea to spend $350 now in hopes to keep the card long-term is a bad one since a $700 GTX780Ti's performance can now be had for $350 in a 970. You see how fast GPU's drop in price/get faster?

Get an HD7970Ghz for $120, get Skylake in 12 months, sell the 7970Ghz for $70, losing just $50 and get a way faster card than a 970 for $350 by early 2016. That's what I would recommend as one of the options.



Besides EVGA Classified 980, lower quality PCB components, worse cooler in terms of noise and temperatures vs. other brands. The main reason to get EVGA is warranty, but the card itself is lower quality than MSI Gaming, Gigabyte Windforce, Zotac Extreme AMP!, Inno3D, Galax, etc.

The 970 will run circles around the 290X overclocked though.

 

[Kenmitch]

I wish AIB's also offered reference GTX 970s.

BB has one, but it's already on the pricey side, and after sales tax it would be over $400.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/nvidia-g...&skuId=9855169

Newegg has them too, but you can only buy it as part of a combo.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814132038

/shakes fist at newegg

I have the BB reference 970. It's a nice card for sure. Solid card so far! 77.2 ASIC quality. Testing mine at 1531/8072 currently

Stop by the post office and pick up one of the movers packets. Should be a 10% off any 1 single item coupon code included in it. I used one without any issues along with some reward zone $'s to offset the price. The 10% off makes it competitive with other 970 offerings.

I'm in CA so I pretty much get raped with sales tax all over the web.

 

[nitromullet]

I have the BB reference 970. It's a nice card for sure. Solid card so far! 77.2 ASIC quality. Testing mine at 1531/8072 currently

Stop by the post office and pick up one of the movers packets. Should be a 10% off any 1 single item coupon code included in it. I used one without any issues along with some reward zone $'s to offset the price. The 10% off makes it competitive with other 970 offerings.

I'm in CA so I pretty much get raped with sales tax all over the web.

Thanks for the tip. I'll check that out.

I hear ya on the taxes... Amazon is based in Seattle, nuff said...

 

[raghu78]

The 970 will run circles around the 290X overclocked though.

not exactly. It takes a GTX 970 OC to match a stock R9 290X at 1440p. btw a R9 290X can overclock to 1150 mhz quite easily with a bit of voltage tweaking. agreed power consumption will increase a lot but still the GTX 970 is not going to beat a R9 290X when both are overclocked.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/11/03/asus_gtx_970_strix_directcu_ii_video_card_review/1

http://gamegpu.ru/test-video-cards/igry-2014-goda-protiv-sovremennykh-videokart.html

 

[Carfax83]

not exactly. It takes a GTX 970 OC to match a stock R9 290X at 1440p. btw a R9 290X can overclock to 1150 mhz quite easily with a bit of voltage tweaking. agreed power consumption will increase a lot but still the GTX 970 is not going to beat a R9 290X when both are overclocked.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/11/03/asus_gtx_970_strix_directcu_ii_video_card_review/1

http://gamegpu.ru/test-video-cards/igry-2014-goda-protiv-sovremennykh-videokart.html

That's kind of an older review, which used one driver revision post launch so I think it's too old to be used to support your case.

Maxwell is a brand new architecture, whereas Hawaii had been around for over a year when that review was done.

The first genuinely optimized driver for Maxwell architecture is the 347.09. I noticed a significant performance increase with those drivers compared to previous ones across all titles.

Anyway, gamegpu roundup uses the 347.09 drivers, but uses reference models only. The GTX 970 reference model is clocked pitifully low to keep it within the prescribed TDP threshold, and also to make sure that there is a large enough gap between it and the higher priced GTX 980..

 

[Carfax83]

To the OP, I don't think a single card whether it's a GTX 970, or even 980 is enough to fully master 1440p at this stage with maxed settings. At least not in the latest games like Dragon Age Inquisition, Far Cry 4 and AC Unity etcetera...

To do that, you'd need SLI. Regardless though, any benefit you'd get from upgrading your GPU would be severely limited by the rest of your system.

So my advice would be to just wait until you are able to FULLY upgrade your system, then buy a new GPU. Hopefully by then AMD will have come out with their 390 series which should pressure NVidia to drop their prices..

 

[pandemonium]

Well, I've decided I'll just wait for AMD to release their next generation cards then upgrade the entire platform all at once. I was getting annoyed at my GPUs being my bottleneck, hence the itch to only upgrade that and make it useful for the future build.

Thanks, all!

 

[kasakka]

Well, I've decided I'll just wait for AMD to release their next generation cards then upgrade the entire platform all at once. I was getting annoyed at my GPUs being my bottleneck, hence the itch to only upgrade that and make it useful for the future build.

Thanks, all!

If you are bothered by the waiting game, how about getting a used R290 or something similar now and then sell it later? Should do you just fine until prices drop and new hardware is on the market.

 

[Z15CAM]

2560x1440 Game Play and Video - I've been doing that for about a year and a half with 290x's under water in CF with an ASUS P8Z68V-Pro Gen3 and an i7 2700K and a $300 Korean Qnix 2710 Dvi-D EVO II PLS display.

BF4 at over 100 fps and have no problems playing 4100x2300 Res 35 Mbps 4k Video. Geez even an old nVidia EVO GTX 280 will play that video but can't compete in game playing compared to even a single 290 at 2560x1440 res.

 

[pandemonium]

If you are bothered by the waiting game, how about getting a used R290 or something similar now and then sell it later? Should do you just fine until prices drop and new hardware is on the market.

I normally don't do the buy used/sell used game, but I may consider that at this point. Thanks!

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Well, I've decided I'll just wait for AMD to release their next generation cards then upgrade the entire platform all at once. I was getting annoyed at my GPUs being my bottleneck, hence the itch to only upgrade that and make it useful for the future build.

Thanks, all!

You got a Q9400 (quad) on a P45 board= your going to upgrade anyway right? Over clocking on a P45 gigabyte is about one of the funnest things ive done in computing. Buy a nice after market cooler and have at it, oh and the higher yer overclock the less the bottle neck.
OR sell it as is, you can get good money for the board(which usually only go down in value) and the CPU n Ram.

Hell in the end your just going buy a newer quad core anyway, buy a mid priced Asus board that over clocks a lil bit and be done with it.

 

[WittyRemark]

Buy it.

 

[pandemonium]

Yup, it's been overclocked for about 3 years, hehe. I have a Xigmatek S963 that's worked pretty well the entire time. I was messing with the OC primarily around when Crysis 2 came out and boosted FPS by around 25% by the higher clocks. Got it stable and it's been there ever since.

I've heard that the P45 board is fairly sought after as well, so I may sell it if I don't make it a server machine. Kinda crazy there's a demand for it, but yeah, I agree: I enjoyed my OC experiences with it.

 

[RussianSensation]

I'm not saying get the EVGA over the STRIX, just pointing out the that the bashing of the EVGA cooler is a little overblown IMO.

Everything besides the warranty is worse about EVGA non-Classified cards:

- Inferior cooling performance to noise level ratio at both idle and load
- Inferior/cheaper VRM/Mosfet/digital power circuitry components
- Generally worse overclocking as a result

If we are talking strictly the card itself, not the service, MSI, Gigabyte, Zotac, Galax all make better products now. Plenty of reviews have confirmed the same.

The 970 will run circles around the 290X overclocked though.

Not even remotely true. 970 OC can't even run circles at 1440P around a 290 non-X OC.

Here is a latest review where 290X reference = MSI Gaming 970. They are identical in performance. We know that an after-market 290 matches a reference 290X.

MSI Gaming 970 boosts to 1279mhz. OC to 1.55Ghz gives us a 21% overclock. R9 290 has 15% OC headroom. That means a 970 will be faster by 5% and if you get 1.5Ghz overclock, more like 2% faster than a max overclocked 290. An after-market 290X is about 5-7% faster than a 290 non-X. Therefore, a max overclocked 290X and a max overclocked 970 will be very close in performance at 1440P. Considering OP's CPU, the performance difference on average will be non-existent between a 290/290X/970.

That's kind of an older review, which used one driver revision post launch so I think it's too old to be used to support your case.

Maxwell is a brand new architecture, whereas Hawaii had been around for over a year when that review was done.

The first genuinely optimized driver for Maxwell architecture is the 347.09. I noticed a significant performance increase with those drivers compared to previous ones across all titles.

Still keep ignoring that Dec 18, 2014 review of MSI Gaming 970 at TPU, huh?

Anyway, gamegpu roundup uses the 347.09 drivers, but uses reference models only. The GTX 970 reference model is clocked pitifully low to keep it within the prescribed TDP threshold, and also to make sure that there is a large enough gap between it and the higher priced GTX 980..

Why do you start making stuff up? GameGPU operates out of Russia. Reference 970 is only sold exclusively at BestBuy. Where in the world would GameGPU get a "reference 970" from? The gap in their review between a 970 and a 980 is reflective of the average 16-19% performance delta the cards have. I know it's hard for you to this day to admit that an after-market 290 and an after-market 970 are basically tied, besides from a 6% delta at 1080P, and that dual after-market $500-550 290s are nearly identical to dual after-market $700 970 G1s at 1440P and above, but those are the facts. The saddest part is instead of considering what works best for the OP, you once again decided to focus on 970 vs. 290, ignoring the context, which isn't helping him make the best purchasing decision/CPU+GPU upgrade strategy.

 

[R0H1T]

Yup, it's been overclocked for about 3 years, hehe. I have a Xigmatek S963 that's worked pretty well the entire time. I was messing with the OC primarily around when Crysis 2 came out and boosted FPS by around 25% by the higher clocks. Got it stable and it's been there ever since.

I've heard that the P45 board is fairly sought after as well, so I may sell it if I don't make it a server machine. Kinda crazy there's a demand for it, but yeah, I agree: I enjoyed my OC experiences with it.

Have you ever tried the XEON LGA 771 mod ? Maybe you can extend the life of your rig for another year or two & get skylake/cannonlake thereafter ?

 

[Magic Carpet]

The first genuinely optimized driver for Maxwell architecture is the 347.09. I noticed a significant performance increase with those drivers compared to previous ones across all titles.

That's kind of an older review, which used one driver revision post launch so I think it's too old to be used to support your case.

Still keep ignoring that Dec 18, 2014 review of MSI Gaming 970 at TPU, huh?

I agree with Carfax. Even their latest 900-family review of the 5th of January, 2015 used a dated driver (344.65).

-BUT-

I'll be starting a full rebench soon, with latest drivers and AC Unity + Far Cry 4. Gonna take me like 2 weeks non-stop.

Anyway, gamegpu roundup uses the 347.09 drivers, but uses reference models only. The GTX 970 reference model is clocked pitifully low to keep it within the prescribed TDP threshold, and also to make sure that there is a large enough gap between it and the higher priced GTX 980..

True. These "aftermarket" cards rarely make into general round-ups. TPU included. So, it's very important to have a nice reference card, even just for PR/reviews.

Wish those TPU "charts" had included non-reference cards as well. Drop down menu or smth. But yeah, all these numbers are just a bunch of numbers which can easily be prone to a statistical error / driver. 5,10%? Give or take.

 

[RussianSensation]

True. These "aftermarket" cards rarely make into general round-ups. TPU included. So, it's very important to have a nice reference card, even just for PR/reviews.

Right, but AT forum is not a PR site for selling AMD/NV reference cards. Here we can look at a dozen of competing cards from AMD and NV, scour the web for awesome deals , reference reviews of after-market cards and provide recommendations accordingly. There are certain members of this forum who either refuse to acknowledge this idea for some reason or flat out refuse to make recommendations outside the box. How long did it take for people to acknowledge that an after-market 7970Ghz was faster than a 680? A long time and only when R9 280X started trading blows with a 770. After that point, it was swept under the rug that 7970Ghz/R9 280X was about 10% faster and now all the reviews show 680 getting owned by a 7970Ghz/R9 280X just as we knew a long time ago.

It's almost a double standard since HD7970/7970Ghz reference card reviews rolled-out to compare reference AMD cards to the amazing after-market NV offerings, as if AMD doesn't even produce cool, quiet factory cards. Maybe it's even earlier than that with GTX460 FTW vs. reference HD6870. I've seen this double standard over and over when 7970Ghz reviews continued to ignore after-market 1Ghz+ 7970 cards and the same posters continued to ignore those offerings even when you physically could not buy a reference 7970Ghz card in retail.

Wish those TPU "charts" had included non-reference cards as well. Drop down menu or smth. But yeah, all these numbers are just a bunch of numbers which can easily be prone to a statistical error / driver. 5,10%? Give or take.

I agree that would be very helpful. However, we also have to keep in mind the CPU bottlenecks. I've seen time and time again people recommend someone spend $80-100 more for a 970 when a gamer uses a stock 2500K but the reviews in question are running overclocked i7 3770/4770/4790K chips. For example, the 6% advantage of a 970 at 1080P over a 290X will completely disappear in those cases due to a CPU bottleneck. That's why it's pointless to continue repeating the same thing over and over that a 970 > 290/290X in all cases. It's gotten so bad that people recommend a $350 970 over an after-market $200-225 R9 290. To justify their recommendation, they refuse to accept current reviews that show almost irrelevant performance deltas but a massive price premium difference. Our forum was never this biased in the past but now CPU bottlenecks, price/performance and recommendations specific to the OP are flat out ignored in favour of personal brand preferences. That's not objective advice.

In this instance even if somehow a 970 brings another 3-4% avg. increase in performance due to better drivers, it changes nothing about the overall conclusion for the OP. However, certain posters seem to lack the idea that context matters and refuse to recommend a competing brand when in certain cases, it's easily the better option. Furthermore, the double standard extends not only to noise and temperatures but to performance comparisons. While claims are made that an after-market 970/980 is faster than a "reference clocked" version, the same is rarely discussed about after-market R9 290/290X cards by the same members, despite the after-market 290/290X also providing 5-8% faster performance than reference designed versions. Whatever advantage is gained with after-market NV cards is also gained with after-market AMD cards, negating the entire point that reviewers use lower clocked 970s.

Can you care to guess why these double standards and ignorance of faster performing, cool and quiet AMD cards has perpetuated since HD6870 vs. GTX460 FTW reviews? ^_^

 

[Sohaltang]

The sad truth is the 900 series is all about efficiency and HDMI 2.0 for a select few 4K users. Once overclocked the cards efficiency drops off. A highly OC'd 780 or 780ti is still the fastest GPU you can buy.

 

[Rhezuss]

I believe this is why the Evga is not high on some peeps list:

The cooler was designed for earlier gen cards and rather than redesigning it for the 970, Evga just didnt bother. So the heat pipes dont fully cover the GPU core.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/evga-geforce-gtx-970-acx-has-misaligned-gpu-vs-heatpipes.html

Not sure if it was fixed but I did hear of newer coolers either for the 970 or 980.

lol...I have this cooler on my 970 SSC and my temps are good...please inform yourselves before posting bad reps.

Idle: 24C
Load (Unigine Valley after 30 minutes): 64C

Can't complain...

 

[Carfax83]

Still keep ignoring that Dec 18, 2014 review of MSI Gaming 970 at TPU, huh?

I'm not ignoring it, but as Magic Carpet said, TPU uses old drivers on a regular basis which is why I don't particularly like using them as a source..

Drivers do matter, especially for a new architecture like Maxwell. I suspect NVidia will be squeezing even more performance out of the architecture as they tune their drivers. Especially with Maxwell's large L2 cache, there is a lot of performance still on the table.

Why do you start making stuff up? GameGPU operates out of Russia. Reference 970 is only sold exclusively at BestBuy. Where in the world would GameGPU get a "reference 970" from? The gap in their review between a 970 and a 980 is reflective of the average 16-19% performance delta the cards have. I know it's hard for you to this day to admit that an after-market 290 and an after-market 970 are basically tied, besides from a 6% delta at 1080P, and that dual after-market $500-550 290s are nearly identical to dual after-market $700 970 G1s at 1440P and above, but those are the facts. The saddest part is instead of considering what works best for the OP, you once again decided to focus on 970 vs. 290, ignoring the context, which isn't helping him make the best purchasing decision/CPU+GPU upgrade strategy.

Unless they state specifically they are using aftermarket parts, one must assume they are using reference models.

The gap between the GTX 970 and 980 for aftermarket parts is LESS than it is for the reference..

As for the OP, I gave him the best advice, which was to buy nothing and simply wait. It makes no sense for him to buy a powerful card like the GTX 970, R9 290 or any other card whilst still retaining his current setup as he would be completely CPU limited.

 

[tential]

He did give decent advice. Wait for the 390x/GTX 980Ti and do a full system upgrade then.

 

[nitromullet]

Everything besides the warranty is worse about EVGA non-Classified cards:

- Inferior cooling performance to noise level ratio at both idle and load
- Inferior/cheaper VRM/Mosfet/digital power circuitry components
- Generally worse overclocking as a result

If we are talking strictly the card itself, not the service, MSI, Gigabyte, Zotac, Galax all make better products now. Plenty of reviews have confirmed the same.

The video on this page (that you posted in another thread) doesn't really support your noise level claim. The ACX 2.0 cooler is right about average in terms of noise compared to its rivals.

http://www.computerbase.de/2014-11/geforce-gtx-980-test-vergleich-round-up/4/

Also, all is not necessarily perfect with other cards. MSI appears to have/had (not sure if it's resolved) issue with their Twin Frozr V cooler with one fan spinning at 100% while the other sit still.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcTPwzJRCao
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=183618.0

Between their last cooler leaking oil all over the fans and this, I'm not sure how confident I am in MSI coolers either. Both of these issues point to poor quality control.

Again, I'm not suggesting the EVGA cards don't have some shortcomings (there usually are with budget conscious products), however, I feel there is a bit of hyperbole going about EVGA's cards in comparison to the competition.