GTX 970/980 owners thread

[yh125d]

Screen tearing shouldn't really depend on your card. If you're not running Vsync, you're going to see tearing anyway regardless of card and framerate.

I've been having it with Vsync, and what is strange is that it seems a little better if I turn Vsync off. I've only seen it in a couple of games though.

 

[*kjm]

My first time back on NV since I swapped my 8800GT for a 4890 (then 7850, then 280x).

First for me.... ran a 8800GT for a stint but after the voodoo 3 had a 3d prophet then ATI AIW 9000 then a 3870X2 then the 5870 now this.... going to be a heck of a jump this time

 

[lehtv]

I've been having it with Vsync, and what is strange is that it seems a little better if I turn Vsync off. I've only seen it in a couple of games though.

Try enabling a framerate cap to 58, 59 or 60. You should be able to do that with RadeonPro or Dxtory (I find Dxtory works better, and also works with NVIDIA)

 

[aigomorla]

got my Koolance VID-NX980 blocks today...

how do they perform?

(gpu-shark seems to like to flip my cards in SLI mode.. Card2 = Card1)

Stock Air.
Idle.... Terrible ~ 45-50C
Load... Scary ~ 80C

WaterCooling - Koolance VID-NX980 Waterblock.
Ambients recorded at 25C
Idle Temps: 27C
Load 98% : 37C (running benchmark on unigen)


Debating if i should overclock them, they are pretty quick at stock as it is for the games i do play.

Adam watercooling on your GPU is very nice...
U should just commit already.

 

[AdamK47]

No thanks.

 

[Rvenger]

got my Koolance VID-NX980 blocks today...

how do they perform?

(gpu-shark seems to like to flip my cards in SLI mode.. Card2 = Card1)

Stock Air.
Idle.... Terrible ~ 45-50C
Load... Scary ~ 80C

WaterCooling - Koolance VID-NX980 Waterblock.
Ambients recorded at 25C
Idle Temps: 27C
Load 98% : 37C (running benchmark on unigen)


Debating if i should overclock them, they are pretty quick at stock as it is for the games i do play.

Adam watercooling on your GPU is very nice...
U should just commit already.

What kind of ambient temps are you running? Mine is a mere 32c idle. But I do get a nice burning smell if I don't run a fan curve.

 

[aigomorla]

What kind of ambient temps are you running? Mine is a mere 32c idle. But I do get a nice burning smell if I don't run a fan curve.

similar Ambient... 25-27C.

Maybe a tad bit higher...
I think the second video card was adding heat to the overall bottom chamber in my case where the videocards are situated.

Now i cant even break 40C no matter how hard i try... even running furmark, which makes me very happy.

 

[guskline]

aigomorla: Outstanding scores! Remember folks, he's using an I7 990. The GTX 980s are BEASTS!

Just for comparison, here is my score for heaven (same presets) on my rig below running my R9 290s at 1075 core/1400 mem. I'm using EK copper/acetal rev 2 blocks. My temps on the gpus are core min 30C max 40C; VRM min 25 max 47. ambient temp 23C. Custom water cooling DOES help gpus!

 

[guskline]

Just for fun upped my gpu core to 1100 and memory to 1500.
Scores were:
fps 117.9
Score 2844
min: 32.6
Max 248.5

Vcore temp min 30 max 41
VRM temp min 24 max 49

Just shows the raw power of your GTX 980s since you have them at stock. How much more score do they produce than GTX970s in SLI?

 

[RussianSensation]

(gpu-shark seems to like to flip my cards in SLI mode.. Card2 = Card1)

Stock Air.
Idle.... Terrible ~ 45-50C
Load... Scary ~ 80C

WaterCooling - Koolance VID-NX980 Waterblock.
Ambients recorded at 25C
Idle Temps: 27C
Load 98% : 37C (running benchmark on unigen)

Amazing performance for those waterblocks. However, 45-50*C idle and 80*C load for GPUs are not dangerous. Asus Strix and MSI Gaming allow GPUs to operate fanless up to 65*C at idle while for a decade now GPUs run perfectly fine at 80*C. AMD and NV rated many GPUs to handle 90-95C at load. I bet the GM204 GPU ASIC itself can handle 95C before any issues. The main advantages of watercooling are the ability to overclock much higher with overvoltage at lower noise levels. But since GM204 has very limited voltage control, it's one of the few GPUs that is unlikely to overclock much better on water than say a Gigabyte G1 Gaming 980.

 

[RussianSensation]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_980_Gaming/

Kinda crazy when considering this is the same node, factory OC'd GTX 980s such as this one are so much faster than Tahiti and GK104. GM204 is only 13% larger than Tahiti but outperforming it (280x & 7970ghz) by 70% on 4k resolutions (64% faster at 1600p) while consuming ~25% less power. Compared to GK104, it's 34% larger, but is neary 80% faster at 4k.

1. TPU's peak gaming power number of 7970Ghz of 273W is incorrect. I pointed this out before. They incorrectly transferred their 273W Furmark number from one of their reviews and this error continues. Another way to think about it is their 7990 uses barely more power than a single 7970Ghz - which is obviously an error in their data entry table. Also, do not forget that TPU uses a reference 7970Ghz in their review which is a pointless card as no such product ever sold in the retail market; so even their original number of 238W is also irrelevant/incorrect. It takes nearly a 1.2Ghz 7970 to use 240W of power.

In the real world the power usage of an after-market 7970Ghz and after-market 980 is very close actually, with 980 actually using more power.

http://www.techspot.com/review/885-nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-gtx-980/page7.html

or

2. I have tallied up the average performance for G1 980 gaming and it's 63% faster on average at 2560x1600 than a 7970Ghz. With overclocking in games like Crysis 3 or Thief, it's about 80-85% faster, but still not 2X.

http://www.techspot.com/review/885-nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-gtx-980/page9.html#allcomments

There are some extreme oddities in TPU's reviews sometimes like the awful performance of AMD cards in Wolfenstein while everywhere else online AMD is very fast in this game. Things like these make me look at 5-6 sites to look at reviews rather than relying exclusively on TPU which has flat out wrong results from time to time. The biggest gripe I have is the author never owns up to his mistakes, never outlines his testing methodology (quality settings used) and tends to make glaring omissions (such as no R9 280 card ever tested, never included 7950 V2 925mhz in any of his reviews or even simulated its performance but sneaked in an 800mhz 7950 for 3 years). I am not saying he is purposely biased per say but definitely not up to Computerbase's standards or consistency for example.

3. Not to downplay your 980 upgrade, but it's been nearly 3 years since cards like 7970 came out and the 980 is not 2X faster out of the box and OC vs. OC it's still not 2X faster. However, since September 2009 when 5870 came out, GPUs were easily 2X faster than 5870/6970 in 3 years or less since 5870/6970 launched. Therefore, objectively speaking 980's performance is actually the most underwhelming in comparison to last 3-4 years of GPU generations. It's also the smallest generational jump from one generation to the next in NV's history. Looking at 4K performance, you are hardly better off with 980s then you were with 290Xs or 780Tis as 980s barely make a dent over those 1 year old cards. What you are getting is lower power usage and better features but in terms of absolute performance, a non-event for 4K gaming.

4. After-market 980s such as MSI Gaming ($580) and Gigabyte G1 980 ($630) are priced nearly as high as you would expect a Maxwell flagship GM to be ($699-799). If GM200 6GB launches in the next 8-9 months at $699-799 and brings even 40% performance increase, $630 for G1 980 will seem like a major rip-off actually. At $630 you'd surely expect an 8GB version of 980....

 

[jfp555]

Hey everyone,

Long time lurker but finally joined up because its time for a new desktop.

For the last couple of days I've spent hours pouring over benchmarks, reviews and forums. And RussianSensations post above really resonates with what I've been seeing.

I would really like to know what are the real under load power consumption figures for:

GTX 780 Ti ($390 to 410)
r9 290x (~$340 to 370)
GTX 970 (~$340 to 360) - Overclocked

I am going to choose between one of these three cards and I need to make my decision on a balance of best performance and power consumption (not price per se)


Much thanks in advance.

 

[toyota]

its going to vary quite a bit depending on the exact cards and exact benchmarks being used. for example the MSI 970 gaming and Gigabyte 970 G1 cards can actually use more power than a reference 980 or even reference 780.

 

[Cerb]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/11
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/palit-geforce-gtx-970-jetstream-review,7.html

There you go. Total value favors the 970, but the 980s are a bit more efficient. A 780 Ti would be fine if you want a little extra performance, but a Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 will likely get up to the same performance levels, while being better in terms of noise and power when not gaming (it will also use more load power in such cases, but still less than a 780 Ti).

Asus' has the quiet thing down. MSI is right on their heels (but, plenty of coil whine reports :|), but with a higher power use limit. Gigabyte can give great returns on OCing. Palit's seems to be between MSI's and Gigabyte's, but louder (or just harsher?). I don't recall where EVGA's fits in.

Much like the TDP options on some Intel and AMD CPUs, Maxwell is a game-changer in that the cards actively keep track of their power use based on load, and each card can have its own set based on its power supply and cooling abilities.

 

[jfp555]

its going to vary quite a bit depending on the exact cards and exact benchmarks being used. for example the MSI 970 gaming and Gigabyte 970 G1 cards can actually use more power than a reference 980 or even reference 780.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/11
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/palit-geforce-gtx-970-jetstream-review,7.html

There you go. Total value favors the 970, but the 980s are a bit more efficient. A 780 Ti would be fine if you want a little extra performance, but a Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 will likely get up to the same performance levels, while being better in terms of noise and power when not gaming (it will also use more load power in such cases, but still less than a 780 Ti).

Thanks for the super quick and helpful replies guys.

I went through the links Cerb posted and would I be correct if I were to assume that the 970, on average, under load, consumes about 70 watts less than the 780 Ti?

Reason why I'm being so specific about power consumption is because I may have to use a UPS during power outages in the summer. I need to nail down exactly how much difference I can expect between the consumption of the cards.

The easiest available 970's I can find are these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814500362
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487071

How close do you guys think I can get to 780 Ti performance with a card like this?

 

[toyota]

you would have to get a 970 that overclocks really well just to barely exceed a 780 ti.

you should really list ALL of your other specs since total power consumption will matter when its comes to using a UPS.

 

[jfp555]

you would have to get a 970 that overclocks really well just to barely exceed a 780 ti.

Thats exactly what I've been fixated upon. The power draw of an overclocked 970 vs a stock 780 Ti.

The system I'm looking to build will most likely be:

- i7 4690k (going to OC only at certain times, will not keep it always OC'd, going to buy from microcenter for the cheapest bundle they have)

- 8gb of RAM initially (was going to go for 16 but prices are too high these days)

- 3 x 3.5 7200RPM hdd's or 1 SSD and 2 x 7200RPM conventional disks

- 1 x 21' 1080p monitor

- 970 or 780 Ti or R9 290x (I've seen from websites that the 290x can consume less power than the 780 Ti and seems to be very competitive with the 970)

 

[xthetenth]

I got a GTX 970, I've installed the newest drivers and Geforce Experience, and I don't see any option for DSR. When I look in NVIDIA Control Panel, it crashes when I try to change per-game settings. I've tried a clean install of the drivers and it didn't solve the crashing problem. First, would getting access to that screen give me the ability to turn on DSR on any arbitrary game, and second, does anybody have any idea how to fix the bug?

 

[toyota]

with the 314.66 drivers my control panel will freeze for about 30 seconds and say not responding when I first go to settings. just wait and it will respond then you can go in settings and set DSR.

 

[xthetenth]

Mine's crashing and not coming back.

 

[toyota]

Mine's crashing and not coming back.

so are you trying to move the mouse or anything after it freezes? cause if I do that I will get the actual pop up saying the nvidia cp has stopped responding. if I just let it sit there without touching anything when it first freezes then it will eventually respond and I will not get that pop up.

 

[xthetenth]

It takes two seconds or so, the drop down box where the games go shows up, and less than a second after that it looks like it closes itself.

 

[Cerb]

Thats exactly what I've been fixated upon. The power draw of an overclocked 970 vs a stock 780 Ti.

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.

 

[RussianSensation]

Asus' has the quiet thing down. MSI is right on their heels (but, plenty of coil whine reports :|), but with a higher power use limit. Gigabyte can give great returns on OCing. Palit's seems to be between MSI's and Gigabyte's, but louder (or just harsher?). I don't recall where EVGA's fits in.

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 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.

Here is what separates the top 3 quietest cards: Zotac Extreme uses about 40W less power than G1 or MSI Gaming.
http://www.computerbase.de/2014-10/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-test-roundup-vergleich/5/

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.

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

 

[amenx]

Thats exactly what I've been fixated upon. The power draw of an overclocked 970 vs a stock 780 Ti.

The system I'm looking to build will most likely be:

- i7 4690k (going to OC only at certain times, will not keep it always OC'd, going to buy from microcenter for the cheapest bundle they have)

- 8gb of RAM initially (was going to go for 16 but prices are too high these days)

- 3 x 3.5 7200RPM hdd's or 1 SSD and 2 x 7200RPM conventional disks

- 1 x 21' 1080p monitor

- 970 or 780 Ti or R9 290x (I've seen from websites that the 290x can consume less power than the 780 Ti and seems to be very competitive with the 970)

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.