What is the best GTX 970?

[thehotsung8701A]

What is your favorite Nvidia brand and why? Also which GTX 970 is the best or best in price?

There are so many to choose.


Thanks

 

[Leyawiin]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127850

I'd vote for this one. I have this exact same HSF and blackplate on a GTX 960 and its great. Very solid construction, very coo/quiet plus the MSI warranty service is generally recognized to be one of the easier to deal with.

 

[jime1]

Yes. MSI runs cool & the quietest in its class.
second choice might be eVGA.

GTX970 is a smart choice, as it has the best price to performance ratio

 

[Prefix-NA]

GTX970 is a smart choice, as it has the best price to performance ratio

290X kinda takes that actually.

Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB Tri-X Video Card

$269.99
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-1003612sr


The Sapphire 290X is insane value for the dollar and super overclockable.

 

[jime1]

Yes of-course
But the OP looks like an nVIDIA fan boy so 970 must be the best choice.

 

[Leyawiin]

290X kinda takes that actually.

Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB Tri-X Video Card

$269.99
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-1003612sr


The Sapphire 290X is insane value for the dollar and super overclockable.

Its $320 with a $20 rebate "card" (which doesn't bring the price down to $300 any more than a free game does when you finally get it 8-12 weeks later).

 

[jji7skyline]

I liked Asus's strix card after working with it, very solid construction with a preinstalled backplate. I haven't really worked with any other brands yet.

 

[thehotsung8701A]

Yes of-course
But the OP looks like an nVIDIA fan boy so 970 must be the best choice.

Haha, I am not a Nvidia fan boy. However I am a fanboy of price to performance ratios!

Can someone tell me how much better is the r9 295x2 compare to the GTX 970. It so cheap and is better than Titan Z so I'm in shock at AMD pricing.

Remember my current Graphic card is the Ati Radeon (before AMD) 5850 HD and my laptop Nvidia 580m.

 

[thehotsung8701A]

290X kinda takes that actually.

Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB Tri-X Video Card

$269.99
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-1003612sr


The Sapphire 290X is insane value for the dollar and super overclockable.

What exactly is the 290x? Is it better than the GTX 970?

 

[jime1]

Look bro :

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-295X2-vs-GeForce-GTX-TITAN-Z

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-295X2-vs-GeForce-GTX-970

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/

 

[thehotsung8701A]

Look bro :

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-295X2-vs-GeForce-GTX-TITAN-Z

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-295X2-vs-GeForce-GTX-970

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/

Haha, that site is soooo fake. A r9 295x2 is compare to a Titan Z, so how on earth is a 295x2 worst than a gtx 970? I mean how does a mrsp 1500 dollars gpu worst than a 350 dollars GPU?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

290x is better. 295x2 is a dual card and faster than Titan x if cf works well.

 

[TemjinGold]

Haha, that site is soooo fake. A r9 295x2 is compare to a Titan Z, so how on earth is a 295x2 worst than a gtx 970? I mean how does a mrsp 1500 dollars gpu worst than a 350 dollars GPU?

That site tells you nothing useful. It boils down to this: R9 290 and R290X (several models of these come with GTAV and Dirt Rally if bought from Newegg) are much better price/performance than GTX 970 but GTX 970 comes with Witcher 3 and Arkham Knight. Price may come to a wash after factoring in both bundles depending on whether you would've bought any of those games at launch price. GTX 970 is lower power consumption if that is important to you.

 

[jime1]

970's power to performance ratio is way better than R9 290..
In fact nVidia's consume very less power thanks to there own very efficient maxwell architecture, and the AMD's have to consume the power to perform

 

[Headfoot]

970's power to performance ratio is way better than R9 290..
In fact nVidia's consume very less power thanks to there own very efficient maxwell architecture, and the AMD's have to consume the power to perform

irrelevant if you've got the PSU to power it, adds up to barely above nothing throughout the useful life of the card. if you want to save power buy LED lightbulbs.

 

[flexy]

If I had the choice again I would choose a Gigabyte G1. I think it has everything what an "enthusiast" needs.

For warranty and potential replacements when there's something wrong I recommend EVGA...but the (older) SC ACX2.0 cards are poor cards if your goal is overclocking. I think the ACX2.0 cooler is poor and the card components are also very "meh". (If you OC, get the newer EVGA SSC ACX2.0+ cards). But having a new, working replacement card no questions asked can be a criterion..so this is why I am still glad I got an EVGA.

As for the others and brands in general...you can get duds with issues such as coil whine with any brands, overclocking headroom is about the same also. Almost any card will likely go up to 1550ish, I mean it's all the same chips anyway. But as said, my 1st choice would be a Gigabyte G1.

That being said, even with my rather poor EVGA ACX2.0 cooler and the (yawn, yawn, yawn) 3.5GB "issue" I am VERY happy I got a GTX 970. No issues and superb performance in games like GTA V or whatever I throw at it.

>>
I liked Asus's strix card after working with it
>>

Asus Strix was my first favorite but it's a horrible under-dimensioned card and won't likely give you much fun if you want to overclock UNLESS you mod the BIOS. It has the lowest "out-of-box" TDP and the single 8pin connector doesn't look convincing to me either. But if you're not into OC and want a silent card it may be perfect. Always depends what someone wants.

 

[poofyhairguy]

970's power to performance ratio is way better than R9 290..

When did this start to matter in highend gaming?

I get it for my smartphone, that means more battery life. Why do I care for a desktop PC with a PSU that can take the load?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

>>
I liked Asus's strix card after working with it
>>

Asus Strix was my first favorite but it's a horrible under-dimensioned card and won't likely give you much fun if you want to overclock UNLESS you mod the BIOS. It has the lowest "out-of-box" TDP and the single 8pin connector doesn't look convincing to me either. But if you're not into OC and want a silent card it may be perfect. Always depends what someone wants.

Have a Strix factory OC myself. Very happy with it. Can reach 1400MHz core easily, but the stock 1114/1253 isn't half bad either...

Very reasonable power usage too.

 

[jime1]

sometimes I just get bothered and worried about the power usage
The load shadings...the power outages.... oh my !!!

 

[jime1]

PS: http://www.maximumpc.com/best-of-the-best-gpus/

 

[Headfoot]

sometimes I just get bothered and worried about the power usage
The load shadings...the power outages.... oh my !!!

~50 watts on your video card is going to make exactly 0 difference. It's only 40-60w different when its running at 100% load, gaming. Which is a percentage of the time you use the computer. Which is a small percentage of the time you own the card.

It's irrelevant if you have the PSU, period. Every other appliance you own uses more power. Replace an incandescent bulb with a CFL and you've saved as much or more power. Replace it with an LED bulb and you've saved a lot more power. This whole issue is a complete mountain out of a molehill.

 

[jime1]

~50 watts on your video card is going to make exactly 0 difference. It's only 40-60w different when its running at 100% load, gaming. Which is a percentage of the time you use the computer. Which is a small percentage of the time you own the card.

It's irrelevant if you have the PSU, period. Every other appliance you own uses more power. Replace an incandescent bulb with a CFL and you've saved as much or more power. Replace it with an LED bulb and you've saved a lot more power. This whole issue is a complete mountain out of a molehill.

+1

 

[Leyawiin]

When did this start to matter in highend gaming?

Everything else being more of less equal why wouldn't it matter?

 

[exar333]

What is your favorite Nvidia brand and why? Also which GTX 970 is the best or best in price?

There are so many to choose.


Thanks

Grabbed the blower-style EVGA model. Grabbed a GTX 670 full cover block for cheap and have it watercooled. Runs like a champ and has a short PCB.

 

[Joepublic2]

I just got a G1 Gaming 970. The main reason I got it was it had more display outputs than other brands (3 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 DVI-I, 1 DVI-D). Yeah, you can daisy chain DP but a lot of cheap monitors (the kind I end up using 2 or 3 of) only have 1 DP input. I looked at various cards disassembled and thought the gigabyte windforce cards had better designed coolers too. More total airflow/surface area, less turns/kinks in the heat pipes (the straighter/rounder a heat pipe is the better it performs), better cooling of the power circuitry, heat pipe walls directly touching the GPU, etc. I've had pretty good experiences with gigabyte RMA too in the US. The backplate is a pure gimmick though, not thick/stiff enough to add a meaningful amount of rigidity to the card and it might actually hurt cooling performance by blocking airflow around the memory chips on the bottom of the card. It's pretty I guess. Also make sure to measure your case it's over a foot long (newegg has exact dimensions).

290X kinda takes that actually.

I'd still be using my 7950 actually if AMD's drivers weren't so broken. The last issue/straw for me (of many) was newer games having serious issues with the 14.9s I was running due to a regression that broke oclHashcat in all later AMD GPU drivers (it has yet to be fixed over half a year later in typical AMD fashion), software I use to make $$$$.