GTX 970 Owners Thread

Yep, there's voltage control. Erm, not sure about the pcb actually, but I doubt it's reference, I haven't actually found a pic of the reference pcb, but the MSI Gaming pcb is different from the Gigabyte G1 pcb. I'll keep digging until I find out more. Oh, the MSI Gaming comes with 6+8 pin so it's obviously been tinkered with by MSI.

 

@ PhazeDelta, MSI Gaming has a custom PCB.

 

Thanks for confirming, thought so

 

I think I f'ed up the hardmod. Actually, I'm pretty sure I did. The moment I turned on my bench rig, the card started smoking. I feel bad because it was a rookie mistake which cost me. Now I have a $680 paperweight.

alright, thanks.

Thanks. That's what I wanted to know.

 

What hardmod?

 

You can do a combination of soldering and pencil modding to 'unlock' the 980 and 970.
On decent cards you can typically get to around 2 GHz+ on the core hardmodding.

Pretty much just for fun if you have disposable income. Why you would do that to a card you actually want to use 24/7, and do not have an on-hand replacement for, is beyond me. lol

I'd bitchslap someone who told me to melt parts of my GPU board and lather pencil lead on it to get an extra 500mhz.
Or, IMO, someone telling me to take a hammer and a razor-blade to my CPU to remove the lid on it to get an extra 300mhz is insane in my book.

 

I didn't see this earlier, but the Strix is fine. People have had good success overclocking them. They also have a backplate and nice construction, you'll be fine.

Very nice. Hopefully I can get something similar. If I can crack 11K Firestrike I'll be happy.

 

It'll do 11k no problem. My Fire Strike is just under 11k but that's due to my cpu. Easily over 13k in graphics score though.

 

Well I've got it down to 2 cards. The EVGA 970 ftw+ or the Msi 970 Gaming. I think I'm gonna take a trip up to Microcenter Saturday and get one of them.

 

I have a pair of 970 STRIX - no issues with them whatsoever but I also don't overclock them. I also couldn't tell you how quiet they are as my computer room has 10 running machines in it so there is already plenty of ambient noise. I can say that I can't hear them over the rest of the noise in my computer room.

 

I have the EVGA 970 SCC which is essentially the same as FTW+ it is awesome I have my bios switch enabled which allows slightly better overclocking power 115% instead of 110% it also turns fan on bellow 60c normally off. Temps are really good max 75c that's with my overclock I have my fans set to ramp up to 70 % at 70c I have an everyday overclock of +120 it is stable at +150 but that's my winter overclock I leave mem at stock I score 11330 GPU at +120 in fire strike


Below 60c you can not hear the GPU even with bios selected to enable fans above it depends on what profile you set at 70% it's audible but acceptable

 

The FTW+ is nice but the most expensive of them all. EVGA is also not binning them because they're not 980's, so you could get a craptastic chip. Probably better just to grab the MSI one.

 

You're probably right. But I've always had good luck with the gpus in EVGA cards. That's why I prefer to buy them over other vendors.

 

That's fine, you can't go wrong with one. It's a well built card and the ACX 2.0 is much better.

 

Did they fix it?
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/evga-geforce-gtx-970-acx-has-misaligned-gpu-vs-heatpipes,3.html
One of the last replies states so, but no link to an official response from EVGA.

I had a GTX 770 with the ACX 2.0, still works flawless in a m8s PC.

 

They fixed it in the SSC and FTW I think.

I got my SC like a few days before the SSC showed up :bang:, but I don't think it's worth it for the shipping costs to upgrade to the SSC for the minimal bump in clock speeds - OC headroom should be better.

 

Phaze, the MSI Gaming would go nicely with your avatar, being red/black, just saying I run 1500/7800 on my 970 24/7 for gaming, I've benched it at 1525 or thereabouts. The highest temp I've seen on it was after a 10 hour session on TW3, when the card reached 65C. In a lot of games it sits well bellow 60C. It's inaudible. Hope this will help.

No backplate though, not sure if that matters.

 

I hope that the GTX980Ti ACX 2.0 is aligned, since I'm most probably going to order one the coming Monday.
I disassemble and check it before installing it into my PC anyway, just to be sure.

 

They fixed it in any product with a 3XXX serial number. Anything with 2XXX has the old cooler.

 

Nice to know, thanks.