GTX 970/980 owners thread

[RussianSensation]

Cant understand why anyone would go for a small 1080p monitor with a killer GPU nowadays. A 27" 1440p monitor would bring a far more satisfying, immersive gaming experience than a small 1080p one.

Great catch. I just noticed that. 970/780Ti level GPU with a 21 inch screen?

Refurbished ACHIEVA Shimian QH270 27" IPS 1440P is $219 and has been getting 5/5 star reviews.

 

[Zanovar]

Open up and let the devil in!

 

[lehtv]

Cant understand why anyone would go for a small 1080p monitor with a killer GPU nowadays. A 27" 1440p monitor would bring a far more satisfying, immersive gaming experience than a small 1080p one.

Or instead of 1440p, could go with 1080p 24" 144hz. For me, high refresh rate and framerate >>> high resolution at 60hz.

 

[Cerb]

Actually it depends on the case. Some gamers like Blackened made a good point that sometimes the dB rating doesn't correspond to how quiet the card actually sounds in reality. The case's presence of dampening material such as in Fractal R4 can drown out some of the fan clicking noises.

I'm not saying dBA takes it. Dampening can only go o far (without making a large custom case), and it does take a cooler that doesn't have high pitched or wide broadband noises. EVGA and Palit models have managed to get in the same dBA ballparks, but for that. A few dBA on its own is not going to make a difference, but what makes it up will. The video card is right against the rear of the case, so even if those vents are the only way for the soud to get out, it will get from there, and high-pitched unpleasant sounds doing so are worse than more even broad frequency range noise.

I really enjoy sound videos of the GPUs as that allows me to actually hear how the card sounds at load. Computerbase did a review of 11 GTX970s:

http://www.computerbase.de/2014-10/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-test-roundup-vergleich/4/

If you view the videos on an open test bed:
100% load
Quietest - Zotac 970 Extreme!
2nd quietest - MSI Gaming 970
3rd quietest - Zotac (small size) and Zotac Omega and Gigabyte G1

The Asus Strix 970 at load is actually one the louder cards. The Extreme, Gaming and G1 also run cooler than the Strix. They also show how the fan speed scales at 120 FPS, 60 FPS and 40 FPS.

Listen to the videos, and then how will that work out? The little Zotac is whining and buzzing like made, and the Asus and big Zotac are the only ones with really smooth broadband noise (though, one turns off when cool), but the MSI and GB are not far behind (the MSI's fans not necessarily matching speed probably has a lot to do with it seeming not as quiet, even w/o the coil whine reports). The GB has obvious bearing noise, though, and from experience, I can say that gets worse as the Windforce coolers get older, and makes its way out of the case very well, just like the screeching from that Galaxy card.

TBH, I was surprised at the Phantom--you'd figure taking the time to make that cooler design work, they'd use better fans behind it.

 

[CP5670]

Or instead of 1440p, could go with 1080p 24" 144hz. For me, high refresh rate and framerate >>> high resolution at 60hz.

Same here. I have an older 27" 1080p Samsung S27A750D, but don't plan to replace it any time soon since it does 120hz, is glossy and supports strobing the backlight (like Lightboost). Anything with a higher resolution would involve giving up one of these things.

 

[Cerb]

*** And we haven't even touched on Asus' horrible VGA RMA experience.

As I wait for mine (free non-Prime Amazon shipping), that is why I didn't get Asus'. The one time I do, I'll get poked by Murphy, and get a problem card . That nice, "whirr," likely drowned out by subrurban noises at all hours wouldn't be worth that.

MSI is awesome, EVGA pretty good, Gigabyte typical/good (good service, but long turn-around), and I haven't had RMA experience w/ other vendors of current Geforces within the last ~10 years. I figure if the load noise is sufficiently unlikeable, over time, I'll do what I've done in the past, and add a serious heatsink, like the MK-26.

Luckily, at this release, there seem to be >2/3 of cards that will not be even as as loud as a typical big OEM desktop, or that whine/buzz/screech too much, rather than just a few. And, with SPCR not getting much HW, these days, it's nice to have other sites offer recordings (I wish AT would, but there's a good bit of missing understanding about qualities of the noise going on, there, and it's already been discussed to death, before).

 

[CakeMonster]

As I wait for mine (free non-Prime Amazon shipping), that is why I didn't get Asus'. The one time I do, I'll get poked by Murphy, and get a problem card . That nice, "whirr," likely drowned out by subrurban noises at all hours wouldn't be worth that.

MSI is awesome, EVGA pretty good, Gigabyte typical/good (good service, but long turn-around), and I haven't had RMA experience w/ other vendors of current Geforces within the last ~10 years.

Still no BIOS fix for the MSI fan issue afaik. I wouldn't order it without being sure that was sorted.

 

[Cerb]

Still no BIOS fix for the MSI fan issue afaik. I wouldn't order it without being sure that was sorted.

But, custom fan profiles seem to do it. If they don't, I'll be here complaining about it . I found that vsync seems to take care of the whine under load issue, and Amazon had them in stock, so that's the one I have en route.

 

[tokie]

This launch has been ridiculous. Super high demand and low shipping volumes.

I finally found the short-length Zotac 970 I wanted. But I had to pay through the nose for it.

Final price: €380, or about €60 over MSRP+tax.

 

[tviceman]

Still no BIOS fix for the MSI fan issue afaik. I wouldn't order it without being sure that was sorted.

I set a custom profile on day 1. I didn't like the zero spin up until 60 degrees or so. To me, that means it takes forever for it cool down. I have the fan ramp down to zero from 60 till 40 degrees. This completely circumvents the fan issue users are experiencing.

 

[jfp555]

Therefore, Zotac Extreme 970 offers the best combination of temperatures, power consumption, noise levels and performance of all the 970 cards out right now but it costs too much at $410. The next best card on the list is MSI Gaming 970 but it uses substantially more power then the reference design, an aspect which jfp555 said is important to him. Thus, if we still want to pick a relatively quiet 970 but one that uses little power, the next best card is the Zotac (small size) at $330. Unfortunately that card is getting some negative reviews from overheating/crashes, which brings us to Zotac Omega, MSI Gaming and Gigabyte G1. Out of those 3, the MSI Gaming doesn't spin the fans up to 65C and is quieter than the G1 and is cheaper than the G1 or Omega.

Cant understand why anyone would go for a small 1080p monitor with a killer GPU nowadays. A 27" 1440p monitor would bring a far more satisfying, immersive gaming experience than a small 1080p one.

Gigabyte's GTX 970 would be the one to compare against, but sample variance will still make it an impossible call. There's good reason the 780 Ti prices have dropped, but are still higher than the 970, and the 980 are >$500, after all. For UPS sizing, assume it will be a bit higher, then oversize your UPS compared to that.

Guys thanks a lot for those incredibly insightful responses. This is exactly what I was looking for and something that was hard to get directly from reviews.

Sound is not that much of an issue for me (awesome sennheiser headphones), but temps and wattage are. In the summer months, the heat gets absolutely brutal and with regular power outages, it gets very hard to keep rooms continuously cooled with air conditioning.

Getting a r9 290 or 290x would have been a no-brainer but with their temps and wattage requirements, I do not think it would be a smart decision.

I also have to use the machine as a media creation platform, so it will often be used for video editing. And trust me, if you have to look at track timelines with tons of cuts and transitions on them, a high resolution puts more strain on the eyes after a few hours. And then I can always get a new monitor later. Personally, my preference leans more towards fps than to ultra graphics.

But of lately I have begun imagine of a life without jaggies and everything turned to low.

I also wished to know, that if I downclock a 780 Ti, lets say even aggressively, how much of a difference can I bring on its power consumption? At the moment, if the power consumption difference b/w an OC'd 970 and a stock 780 Ti comes out to less than around 50 to 60 watts, i think i might pick the 780 Ti.

 

[Gloomy]

You don't have to downclock manually. You can lower the power target and the card will try to stay within that power limit.

I'm not sure how low Nvidia cards' power target can go but my 290 will allow me to limit it to as low as 50% (125w). It should be as simple as that.

 

[aigomorla]

Amazing performance for those waterblocks. However, 45-50*C idle and 80*C load for GPUs are not dangerous.

:X

i am not a fan of having my gpu's run that hot... lol...

 

[FatherMurphy]

Proud new owner of an EVGA GTX 970 SSC! Replacing the Gigabyte Windforce GTX 670 I have in the sig!

The EVGA GTX 970 card is noticeably shorter and slightly lighter than the Gigabyte GTX 670.

I ran a few benchmarks. The EVGA card is very, very quiet, much quieter at load than the 670 (I can't hear either at idle). I believe the EVGA card must have gotten the promised BIOS update because the fan is not running at idle, and the card sits at 62 degrees C.

I've quickly dialed in +65 GPU, +250 Mem, GPU Temp Target of 80 degrees C, and 110% Power. The core stays locked at 1457mhz, except in a run of Firestrike, in which it seems to throttle down to 1404 because it was hitting the 80 degrees threshold. I still need to play with the fan settings, which I left at default. I can't hear the card at load, but I have a big case.

With these settings, and my 670 OC'ed to 1247mhz, here's the quick comparison (all at max settings, 2560x1440):

Bioshock Benchmark - Avg FPS
670 - 53.23
970 - 76.96 ----- +45%

Firestrike - Combined Score/Combined FPS
670 - 6491/13.62
970 - 9532/21.2 ------- +47%/55%

Heaven (4.0) - Avg FPS
670 - 22.6
970 - 33.2 ----- +47%

Valley (1.0)
670 - 28.3
970 - 35.9 ----- + 26%

So, about a 45% or more boost from the GTX 670, except for Valley, which only boosted 26% (curious...).

I'm pleased so far.

I do wonder if my 2500k is holding it back any.

 

[NickelPlate]

Getting a GTX970 for a 1080p monitor isn't pointless. I just recently snagged an MSI 970GTX gaming card and yeah for a lot of games at that resolution it's overkill. But what it does allow me to do is run really graphics intensive forced settings like multisampling AA transparency and high anisotropic filtering and still maintain vsync.

Also I'm really liking the new DSR feature. It's great for games that have poor or no AA support and can't be forced via the NV control panel. I'm running games at 2.5k resolution downsampled on my 1080 monitor and they look better than ever. I really like this feature.

I'm also hoping NV soon releases the MFAA feature which I thought was ready apparently is still in development.

Finally this card is dead silent, even under full load the fans rarely spin more than 45% and I still can't hear them. That's a big win in my book from my rather loud EVGA 670GTX FTW reference cooler.

 

[Rhezuss]

I was shopping for a new monitor and was lokoing at all the 1440p and 120+ Hz monitors out there. At first I was gonna buy the ASUS ROG Swift but it was not in stock.

BTW, I come from a LG W2353V-PF 23" 1080p/60Hz monitor...

After shopping more and more, read lots of stuff and seeing how high the prices were for what I wanted I decided to buy a Samsung S27D590P, PLS 1080p/60Hz 27" monitor. I needed a new monitor and wanted a 27". I realised that all the fancy features of "gaming" monitors would not serve me that well and like most electronic stuff I buy, I wouldn't use half those fancy features.

So I ended up buying another 1080p/60Hz monitor. Shame on me most will say but coming from a really basic monitor this Samsung is a monster. All my games look better, shaper colors, more screen view, brighter, better, cooler. It might just be me but the screen look a bit quicker than my former one (which I gave to my gf to replace her dell 1280x1024 monitor).

Couldn't be happier with my 300CAD new shiny monitor.

 

[Flying Knee]

Performence wise i've been happy with my MSI GTX 970 4G. That said coil whine when frame are uncapped and that "buzzing electrical" noise when the card is under load is a bit annoying. And look like i'm not the only one having these , a simple google search will show that quite a few people have it and not only with MSI but with other models as well.

I thought Twin Frozr V was supposed to be dead silent so i'm a little disappointed on that front. I could live with the coil whine when frames are uncapped but the buzzing noise is more annoying than that. The more load on the card , louder the sound is. And no it's not the fans so i'm not sure what it is (maybe it was mentionned in this thread , haven't read it completely)

 

[ocre]

Performence wise i've been happy with my MSI GTX 970 4G. That said coil whine when frame are uncapped and that "buzzing electrical" noise when the card is under load is a bit annoying. And look like i'm not the only one having these , a simple google search will show that quite a few people have it and not only with MSI but with other models as well.

I thought Twin Frozr V was supposed to be dead silent so i'm a little disappointed on that front. I could live with the coil whine when frames are uncapped but the buzzing noise is more annoying than that. The more load on the card , louder the sound is. And no it's not the fans so i'm not sure what it is (maybe it was mentionned in this thread , haven't read it completely)

Are you in process of an RMA?

Your card shouldnt be making noises like that. I have an MSI 760 TF and it has no whine. I actually never had a GPU that had a whine but I have heard of so many that it must be a common issue. Its not MSI specific, as you said. It is also not Nvidia specific. This is an issue that seems to hit every vendor.... somehow

 

[*kjm]

Question for the people going from AMD/ATI to Nvidia. What is the best way to remove the old drivers? I was just going to boot into safe mode and do an uninstall of catalyst drivers then do a quick search of anything AMD and get rid of it also.... is there a better way in Win7 64bit?

Other than that if it fits into my COOLER MASTER CM Stacker STC-T01 I'll be golden. If it does (fits my 5870 easy) not bad for a 8 year old case although it was a lot of money at the time

 

[yh125d]

Question for the people going from AMD/ATI to Nvidia. What is the best way to remove the old drivers? I was just going to boot into safe mode and do an uninstall of catalyst drivers then do a quick search of anything AMD and get rid of it also.... is there a better way in Win7 64bit?

Other than that if it fits into my COOLER MASTER CM Stacker STC-T01 I'll be golden. If it does (fits my 5870 easy) not bad for a 8 year old case although it was a lot of money at the time

I usually run Display Driver Uninstaller (formerly driversweeper) in safe mode, reboot into safe mode, install new drivers then reboot normal

 

[lavaheadache]

I do wonder if my 2500k is holding it back any.

I can promise you that it is but I can't promise you the difference is tangible.

run a cpu and gpu usage monitor and see what the results are. It's not fool proof but it'll help

 

[Binky]

Question for the people going from AMD/ATI to Nvidia. What is the best way to remove the old drivers?

Just use the normal windows uninstaller on the drivers, shut down, install the new card, and install the new drivers.

 

[007ELmO]

Is anyone using 3 GTX970s in SLI? Can each projector connect to a separate monitor, to achieve 5760x1080?

Thanks,
ELmO

 

[96Firebird]

Is anyone using 3 GTX970s in SLI? Can each projector connect to a separate monitor, to achieve 5760x1080?

Thanks,
ELmO

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/surround/system-requirements

 

[AgentUnknown]

What are some good games to show off 970? Arma 3 and dayz say no. I am thinking of assetto corsa.