GTX 970/980 owners thread

[Face2Face]

Can anyone with a Gigabyte 970 G1 post if it has vrm temp sensors?
TIA

Do any of the new Maxwell cards come with VRM temps sensors to your knowledge? I don't think monitoring VRM temps will be as important on Maxwell as it was on Kepler, Hawaii and Tahiti because of the lower power draw. Additionally, my NZXT G10 is rendered useless on these new 970 non-reference cards because their GPU phases are located on the left side of the card now.

 

[Fastx]

Do any of the new Maxwell cards come with VRM temps sensors to your knowledge? I don't think monitoring VRM temps will be as important on Maxwell as it was on Kepler, Hawaii and Tahiti because of the lower power draw.

I don't know, but the MSI 870 Gaming hit vrm temps of 87 at stock clocks under load so I like to have vrm temps sensors for SLI or for overclocking/gaming (single card)to keep an eye on them and incase I decide to over volt (single card) as the G1 has a dual BIOS if I get a 870, but still trying to resist. I like having vrm temp sensors to be able to keep an eye on them in varies conditions.

F2F are you going to be getting a 980 and if so which card are you looking at?

 

[Face2Face]

I don't know, but the MSI 870 Gaming hit vrm temps of 87 at stock clocks under load so I like to have vrm temps sensors for SLI or for overclocking/gaming (single card)to keep an eye on them and incase I decide to over volt (single card) as the G1 has a dual BIOS if I get a 870, but still trying to resist. I like having vrm temp sensors to be able to keep an eye on them in varies conditions.

F2F are you going to be getting a 980 and if so which card are you looking at?

Ouch! I didn't see that review. Well then, never mind.

Unless I grab a cheap 4K HDMI 2.0 TV this year, I plan on skipping the 970/980 and waiting for BIG Maxwell and also seeing what AMD has in the pipe.

On another note, ShadowPlay was finally updated for 1440/1600p @ 60FPS - 50mbps- recording on Kepler... I just noticed at least.

 

[toyota]

87 degrees is not hot for VRM and those are rated for much much higher temps.

 

[HurleyBird]

Just got my GTX 980, and had huge troubles getting it to cooperate with HDMI audio out of Intel integrated graphics (Nvidia's HDMI audio looks to be the worst of the bunch, forces stereo and lowest bitrate). Talked to a couple Nvidia support reps (one was a supervisor) who told me that it was impossible to have both working at once (the Intel rep I talked to on the other hand disagreed with that assessment), and I was ready to return the damn thing but I eventually figured out how (more like randomly did random things until it worked. Reminded me of getting eyefinity + HDMI audio working out of the same card with AMD) to get both working in spite of it all.

We'll see if cooperating with the Intel display controller becomes a persistent problem (it wasn't at all an issue with Radeon) but so far, I'm less than impressed with how the Nvidia drivers handle complex display configurations. I don't have enough info yet to say if they're better or worse than AMD in this matter though. So far, it seems like they both suck.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Also Bit-Tech had the MSI one as the best overclocker out of the three so it is no concidence that the heatsink design probably contributes.

I think it is WAY too early to say what is the best overclocker due to heatsink vs best overclocker due to getting a golden GPU sample. Several of the GPUs being sent as review samples were clearly hand picked for being "golden GPUs" which exhibit much better (lower) power usage and higher overclocking. Unless they looked at 30-50 different GPUs from each manufacturer off the shelf from a store, then I wouldn't trust any of those values as being related to a cooler at this point in time.

 

[Leakydog]

87°C on VRM at stock clock is ok, but how about OC clock? It have to be around 100°C. I don't like it. Gigabyte is much better with this.

 

[Rvenger]

Got my Gigabyte 980. I was nervous at first because my rig wouldn't post at first. I held the power button down, shut off and turned back on and now it works... odd.

AdamK47, did you have this issue on your X99 board? Also, 344.16 WHQL fail install too. Only 344.11 work for me so far.

 

[AdamK47]

I didn't have that problem. I removed my Titans, put he 980s in, started the system, and got video right away. I originally had 344.11, but I went with 344.16 once they were released. No problems installing them.

 

[Eymar]

Probably already did so, but did complete uninstall of old videocard drivers? I had switched from Titan to 970s and 344.11 would bsod when enabling sli. Had to use DDU in safe mode: http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html. Then resinstalled 344.11 and SLI enabled without issue.

 

[AdamK47]

I always uninstall the previous drivers before installing new. I did have a problem initially enabling SLI. I selected Maximum 3D Performance and hit apply. It went through it's configuration thing and then went back to disabled. I selected Maximum 3D Performance again and hit apply a second time and it stuck. I thought maybe the first time I did it I didn't confirm a dialog in time. It turns out there isn't a confirm dialog, so I'm not sure what happened. It's in SLI and that's all that matters.

 

[96Firebird]

Quick benchmarking results from my old cards and the new one. Sold my 770 SC on Friday, so benchmarked over that on Saturday. Put the 460 in and benched it Sunday. Got the 970 SC yesterday and benchmarked. Everything is ran on the highest settings, at 1080p or 1200p.

Next up is to OC the 970 further, then OC my CPU and see if that changes anything. That will have to be next week when I get back from Miami Beach!

 

[Rvenger]

I think the posting issue was the board not initializing since I swapped cards. Once I powered it on again, it worked and continues to work. I did clean uninstall the AMD drivers before I installed the 980. I manually selected PCI-E Gen 3 in the bios as a safety measure because it could be an early adopter BIOS bug too.

Thanks guys.

 

[Fastx]

Quick benchmarking results from my old cards and the new one. Sold my 770 SC on Friday, so benchmarked over that on Saturday. Put the 460 in and benched it Sunday. Got the 970 SC yesterday and benchmarked. Everything is ran on the highest settings, at 1080p or 1200p.

Next up is to OC the 970 further, then OC my CPU and see if that changes anything. That will have to be next week when I get back from Miami Beach!

Nice work and I like those charts!

 

[Rvenger]

I used DDU on the 344.11 and now 344.16 work. Woohooo! Appears that I received a higher leakage 980 (65.8% ASIC). Heheh, almost like my reference MSI 780. Has a little coil whine but not too bad. BF4 is smooth and runs noticeably faster too. So far the gaming experiences are good.

 

[toyota]

my 970 is here but I am too tired to fool with it now...

 

[RaistlinZ]

Get mine tomorrow. I'll run benchmarks 770 vs. 970 vs. 970 SLI vs 970 SLI (OC)

 

[tollingalong]

For the price the 970 is working out well. Close to 780 Ti speeds with lower power consumption. It's definitely not worth it if you already have a 780 or 290. The power saving varies depending on the task. The power consumption can rival a 780 in GPU intensive tasks.

I'm probably going to end up using the 970 on my Linux box. If the new Radeon is going to be 50% faster than a 290x I'll probably end up using that in my main rig.

 

[96Firebird]

Nice work and I like those charts!

Thanks! They're just Excel charts, amazing what I can do at work the day before vacation. ^_^

My ASIC score is low too, 63.4%. It idles at 29°C at the lowest fan speed (35%), I'm hoping EVGA releases an updated BIOS that can get the fan even slower...

 

[Fastx]

Thanks! They're just Excel charts, amazing what I can do at work the day before vacation. ^_^

My ASIC score is low too, 63.4%. It idles at 29°C at the lowest fan speed (35%), I'm hoping EVGA releases an updated BIOS that can get the fan even slower...

I have vertical bar charts in Excel, but I like the horizontal bars better. Check your PM.

 

[Face2Face]

87 degrees is not hot for VRM and those are rated for much much higher temps.

Agreed, for a card running at stock speeds and stock voltage it's fine. Once overvolting to or beyond+87mv, it can become a limiting factor. Once the custom BIOSes are released and Afterburner tweaks to increase voltage beyond +87mv, then it can become a limiting factor, as instability and throttling will become an issue when VRM temps are too high. For guys like FastX and I, VRM temps are rather important since we both owned Tahiti based cards.

 

[toyota]

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.

 

[Fastx]

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.

Toyota this is just a fwiw, I have researched on vrm temps about a year ago and from what I read AIBs use different vrms at times, some with lower quality then others and when you start pushing high temps overclocked problems like F2F said can occur from what I have read. I think someone from here (Revenger 290 AIB?) had his vrms pop due to quality/heat. IMO I wouldn't want to run VRM's at 100c+ on overclocked/SLI cards even if they are rated at 125c.

Also below is a link from an Asus rep saying 100c on vrm's is to high on an Asus 780Ti DC2.

Asus Rep
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36288921&postcount=11

 

[toyota]

Toyota this is just a fwiw, I have researched on vrm temps about a year ago and from what I read AIBs use different vrms at times, some with lower quality then others and when you start pushing high temps overclocked problems like F2F said can occur from what I have read. I think someone from here (Revenger 290 AIB?) had his vrms pop due to quality/heat. IMO I wouldn't want to run VRM's at 100c+ on overclocked/SLI cards even if they are rated at 125c.

Also below is a link from an Asus rep saying 100c on vrm's is to high on an Asus 780Ti DC2.

Asus Rep
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36288921&postcount=11

yes I am sure "Carol" knows all about VRM temps. anyway I know the ones on the high end MSI cards are rated for 125 so I am personally not the least bit worried about 87 or even 100 C on them if I was to see it.

 

[Rvenger]

Never had VRMs blow on my AMDs. Were always well cooled but I did have a 290x die for unknown reasons.