Review: ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix

Nope, it seems this round Gigabyte is the winner, excellent clocking and cool VRMs.

 

Performance not bad. But you can decide not to buy it , just by looking at it.

 

My old Gigabyte GTX560 Ti was super noisy after two years, so i try Asus now. Not so stellar performance doesn't matter for me, because overclocking. And this time it's cheap like the rest, which is nice too.

 

Hilbert, nice review. I had ordered this card yesterday but then cancelled after reading this from the bit-tech review:

Not sure if they missed something here, but they set the fans "manually" at 50% (using Asus GPU Tweak). Cant this card use fan profiles in MSI-AB to follow temps or is their something hard coded in the bios that interferes with that due to the cards unique cooling design? If it can work with profiles like all other cards, I'll reorder it (and make sure never to visit bit-tech ever again). Thanks.

 

Thanks! Much appreciated!

 

Does the passive cooling has any negative impact on the longevity of the card? And what about the VRM temps and cooling?

If I can set fan profiles in Afterburner even in idle mode then all is good.

 

yes, you can set a custom fan profile that will apply to idle mode as well, of course, preventing the fans from stopping spinning. Takes a few clicks of the mouse in MSIA. That's what I did.

 

Thanks Hilbert, much appreciated. I will re-order this card. Will probably be using it in passive mode mostly (without fan profiles), but good to know that I have that option when I need it later on.

 

much respect Hilbert for giving the time testing the card with profiles. much appreciated.

I'm going to get this little black beauty.

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Thanks for everything.

I still can't make my mind, Gigabyte Vs. MSI Vs. EVGA Vs. Asus for a 970. I've heard some bad things about the EVGA ones already, some minor ones (coil whine and fan issues) for Gigabyte ones, MSI I always had problems with their support, so I tend to avoid 'em. Asus on the other hand has always been perfect, and Strix looks nice, I was worried about the cooling of VRM's and mem with the whole silly 0% RPM below 65c but since the custom fan profiles work so nicely -- it's good. However, that 80+ temp at VRM worries me, won't it severely affect it's longevity?

 

nevermind. answered my own question.

 

The VRMs are designed to operate at 100c and above, so no issue there.

 

Hi All,
My Strix 970 boost to 1305mhz AB say, and VRM is like 90- 94c (1h gaming,max read) HWINFo say. Someone knows why boost so "high" or is this missreading from AB. Sry my english an thx for reply..

edit: aha ok, asus say boost go up to 1304mhz if thermals ok, so sorry for bothering.

 

Just wondering when the idle temperature was measured.
Cold boot or after some hours after powering the system up?
Idle temperatures should always be measured when the system has been up for some hours.
Seems like almost every single review measures cold boot temperatures, which gives a completely wrong impression.

Is it the general perception that idle means that Windows has to shut down the monitor or that idle means that Windows just sits their and display it's desktop without any 3D rendering going on?
It says IDLE (desktop) on the review.....

The ASUS STRIX GTX970 is around 50-60 Degrees C when it idles at the desktop too, nothing to be worried about though.

In SLI the card connected to the monitor will hit 50-60C, the second card will be around those 30C since it doesn't need to do any desktop composition.

 

Mine idles at around 38c after a few hours, cold boot around 29-30.

 

I have the same at boot.
That 38C is with a custom fan profile, correct?