GTX 970/980 owners thread

[Face2Face]

those VRMs are rated for 125 C so even with overclocking there is no way it will become an issue. anyone thinking 87 C is too hot for high end card VRMs is being foolish.

I have experienced it first hand with my 7950 @ 1300Mhz @ 1.235v. With the core temps in the high 60's when the VRM # 1 temp hit 105c - CRASH or LOCK - I experienced this many times when playing Crysis 3 and running Valley benchmarks. I spent a lot of time trying to remedy it, but it wasn't feasible on air without dropping the core voltage.

While most VRMs are capable of up to 125c, OCP usually kicks in before hand. This is why most overclockers look for cards with good VRM cooling, more GPU phases, or higher amperage phases.

Also to note the 820uF solid capacitors used on the MSI Gaming 970 are rated for 55c-105c. Not entirely sure of the load life, but it's between 5K-12K hours.

High MOSFET temps (Hottest component or a VRM) = lower efficiency.

This is nothing new, this has been an issue for overclockers since the Radeon 5000 and GTX 400 series.

 

[Abwx]

VRMs temps are higher on Nvidia cards but silicon junction temp limit is 175°C officialy, reality is close to 200 since power mosfets are known to be extremely rugged and when i say rugged i mean that they can withstand quite big peaks above their continous current ratings assuming it s not sustained for too long, wich is the case in GFX even with viral benches, the problem can only arise from a bad thermal contact, that is, a faulty manufacturing.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/900-5/bruit-temperatures.html

 

[AdamK47]

3DMark is now officially recognizing 980s as valid cards for their Hall of Fame results.

As of 10:30AM
#8 in Fire Strike Performance
#14 in Fire Strike Extreme
#2 in Sky Diver
#5 in 3DMark11 Performance

Not bad for my everyday overclocks. CPU @ 4.0GHz, memory @ 2666 with 14-14-14-36 timings. The 980s are at +50mV, +25 core, 105 power level, 89° temp limit, and +75 memory in Afterburner. Not much, but at least I know it's going to run everything I throw at it. GPUs boosts to ~1400MHz.

I'm sure my scores will get blasted away once more 980 owners run their tests.

 

[badenglishihave]

VRMs temps are higher on Nvidia cards but silicon junction temp limit is 175°C officialy, reality is close to 200 since power mosfets are known to be extremely rugged and when i say rugged i mean that they can withstand quite big peaks above their continous current ratings assuming it s not sustained for too long, wich is the case in GFX even with viral benches, the problem can only arise from a bad thermal contact, that is, a faulty manufacturing.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/900-5/bruit-temperatures.html

It seems like most people posting about VRM temperatures are worried they will explode/die with sustained high temperatures, but I would say my biggest concern from an overclocking perspective is voltage droop/noise. I just took a look at data sheets for some high power (~150W) VRM modules and they a state worst case voltage noise/ripple of 50mv under adverse conditions (temperature, high current). For this reason I have to think keeping the VRM temperatures under 90C is desirable not for board longevity but overclocking potential/stability. Maybe another electrical engineer can reply and tell me if I'm totally off my rocker :biggrin:

Back on topic... still waiting for Amazon to re-stock but I've pre-ordered the GTX 970. Judging by GTX 970 - nowinstock.net the Gigabyte has had the least availability over the past few days but I'm keeping my hopes up.

 

[Subyman]

Sent my EVGA ACX 970 SC back to Amazon and ordered 2xMSI Gaming 970's instead. The 4 phase VRMs gnawed at me and the response to the backplate issue wasn't ideal, plus the cooler was really loud. I got it up to around 55% fan speed and it could be heard through my typical gaming audio volume. I'm extremely pleased with the GTX 970 GPU though. Great GPU.

 

[AdamK47]

A Fire Strike compare of my system with the Titans and now the 980s

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/2771131/fs/2822800

 

[tviceman]

3DMark is now officially recognizing 980s as valid cards for their Hall of Fame results.

As of 10:30AM
#8 in Fire Strike Performance
#14 in Fire Strike Extreme
#2 in Sky Diver
#5 in 3DMark11 Performance

Not bad for my everyday overclocks. CPU @ 4.0GHz, memory @ 2666 with 14-14-14-36 timings. The 980s are at +50mV, +25 core, 105 power level, 89° temp limit, and +75 memory in Afterburner. Not much, but at least I know it's going to run everything I throw at it. GPUs boosts to ~1400MHz.

I'm sure my scores will get blasted away once more 980 owners run their tests.

Have you considered going to custom water cooling?

 

[Face2Face]

A Fire Strike compare of my system with the Titans and now the 980s

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/2771131/fs/2822800

Nice jump on the graphics score :thumbsup:

Graphics Score

TITANS
38983

GTX 980's
51258

 

[n0x1ous]

Have you considered going to custom water cooling?

I believe he has mentioned that hes not interested due to how frequently he upgrades.

 

[Leakydog]

gtx970 from MSI - VRM temp without OC

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E3Mc0oDvFQ

 

[guskline]

AdamK47, thank you for the posting. My goodness, those framerates are incredible!

 

[TazFTW]

Upgraded from a 460 to a Gigabyte 970.

I didn't realize how big it would be.

But it does fit in my case.


I only had time to play Marvel Heroes. The 460 needed about 70-75% fan to have it hover around 70°. The 970 needed about 45% fan for temps around 46° running at Gigabyte's "stock".

 

[Rvenger]

That card is absolutely huge! I wonder if they use the same cooler for the 980 as well.

 

[HurleyBird]

You can find my ordeal with the GTX 980 here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2401226

Suffice to say, I'm going to return the damn thing.

 

[toyota]

That card is absolutely huge! I wonder if they use the same cooler for the 980 as well.

980 PCB is longer and cooler is bigger. http://www.techspot.com/review/885-nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-gtx-980/

 

[Freddy1765]

I got my MSI Gaming 970 today, upgraded from a Windforce 670. I wanted to go for the Gigabyte 970 as it looks so much better, but the fanless operation of the MSI won me over. Silence is king.

First impressions are a little iffy; upon installation I noticed the card sagged a bit. The cooler seems pretty dense and for the life of me I cannot understand why they omitted a backplate. The card also suffers from coil whine; it is very faint at idle where it's inaudible if my ear is not right up against the card, and gets louder under load. Still, I should stress that it is not at all intrusive when my case fans turn on as the CPU is stressed.

The MSI logo on the side looks pretty cool as it lights up, although, again I favor the Gigabyte in this respect.

Overclocking-wise I think my chip is kind of average; Fire Strike began artifacting when the core clock exceeded 1500MHz boost. Haven't tested memory extensively yet, but it is currently sitting at 7600Mhz. Forgot to save the score, but as I recall it was something like 11200 with 13500 GPU and 12500 Physics.

I don't currently have a whole lot of games on hand to test, but a part of me is hoping the chip will allow me to increase core clock further while remaining game-stable.
Played a quick round of BF4, which now runs at a constant 60 (vsync on) on Ultra (2x MSAA) @ 1440p; I think that is very impressive.

The cards' fans have been behaving rather strangely. Setting a custom fan profile in Afterburner apparently results in one fan not spinning at all, while the other ramps up to 100% regardless of the fan speed value I assign in AB.
GPU-Z reports the same fan speed % as the value I set in AB, while displaying RPM=0.

I've now disabled the option to set user defined fan curve in AB, which means the card reverts to the default fan profile. This results in the card reaching the high 60s under load; I know that is well within safe limits, but a possible SLi config could be in the not-too-distance future where a more aggressive approach to cooling might be required.
Not sure if anyone else has experienced this issue, but I'd be interested in a possible fix.

That pretty much summarizes my impressions thus far.

 

[Rvenger]

980 PCB is longer and cooler is bigger. http://www.techspot.com/review/885-nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-gtx-980/

How can it be longer than the 13" the 970 has? It wouldn't fit into most cases. If you look at the 970 PCB it is quite a bit shorter than the cooler. EDIT: Nevermind, they beefed up the contact plate and heatpipes. Kudos to Gigabyte with these superb coolers.


BTW, how is your vanilla MSI 970 turning out? I was going to purchase that one as well, and I am willing to bet its at least a step up from the ACX 970s.

 

[toyota]

How can it be longer than the 13" the 970 has? It wouldn't fit into most cases. If you look at the 970 PCB it is quite a bit shorter than the cooler.


BTW, how is your vanilla MSI 970 turning out? I was going to purchase that one as well, and I am willing to bet its at least a step up from the ACX 970s.

the coolers are the same length I guess but the 980 cooler looks beefier and article says it bigger.

just about to install it now.

 

[TazFTW]

How can it be longer than the 13" the 970 has? It wouldn't fit into most cases. If you look at the 970 PCB it is quite a bit shorter than the cooler. EDIT: Nevermind, they beefed up the contact plate and heatpipes. Kudos to Gigabyte with these superb coolers.

Sorry, I just realized that my pic is misleading. The brackets were lined up on the 1 inch line (old habit of needing some space on the left side), so the Gigabyte is just over 12 inches.

 

[AdamK47]

What's the average memory overclock for these cards? Are there different memory chips being used? The Titans I had couldn't go much further beyond stock, so I left the memory speed at stock. I think I'll get adventurous and see where I can go with the memory on my 980s.

 

[Fastx]

A couple YT vids I thought were interesting/good on the Gigabyte 970.

G1 970 OC 1807 boost clock but not perfectly stable but is stable at 1680 boost clock, GPU temp never exceeded 64c which is impressive imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cxCn_7MZZE


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYNA78wYt4o&list=UU9Tn-atYOt8qZP-oqui7bhw

 

[RaistlinZ]

THEY'RE HERE AT LAST!!

 

[AdamK47]

Very nice!

 

[toyota]

my clocks move around quite a bit. for example I may range from 1278 to 1340 on a scene even if under full load the whole time. my 780 always stayed at full boost clock if under full load.

 

[AdamK47]

my clocks move around quite a bit. for example I may range from 1278 to 1340 on a scene even if under full load the whole time. my 780 always stayed at full boost clock if under full load.

What are your temps like? You may want to look at max power and temp settings.