What's the best GTX 970 out? [UK]

[El_Mayo]

Going to purchase a new card tonight, so far looking at the Zotac GTX 970, MSI Twin Frozr and the EVGA (not the superclocked version). The Zotac is the cheapest but their fans don't look as good as the MSI in terms of performance. Liking the MSI atm as the fans don't spin under 50 degrees, but that alone isn't worth a £20 premium

 

[erocker]

Heh no one really has one yet. That Asus card got a 9.9 from W1zzard.

 

[RejZoR]

Either ASUS Trix because of 0 RPM fan on idle or Gigabyte WindForce3X, because it's just a badass cooler. At least for me, still deciding which one to take...

 

[El_Mayo]

Heh no one really has one yet. That Asus card got a 9.9 from W1zzard.

haha yeah I meant basically which brand's has the best features/cooling/warranty sort of thing/reputation sort of thing. There are some between £255-270 but the coolers look a bit plain, and I want a good cooler cos i wanna overclock

Either ASUS Trix because of 0 RPM fan on idle or Gigabyte WindForce3X, because it's just a badass cooler. At least for me, still deciding which one to take...

MSI got the same 0RPM feature. The Trix is £300, the MSI is £280 and the cheapest 970 is £258 (Palit). I'm still undecided if the premium cards are worth it over the Palit, PNY and Zotac

 

[RejZoR]

From my experience, yes. So far i've always seen weird and stupid problems with cheapest cards, because they apparently skimp on every single possible thing they can save costs on. No such thing with "premium" brands. Ever. It's not like 30 EUR or so makes that much of a difference in costs for an assured quality.

 

[El_Mayo]

From my experience, yes. So far i've always seen weird and stupid problems with cheapest cards, because they apparently skimp on every single possible thing they can save costs on. No such thing with "premium" brands. Ever. It's not like 30 EUR or so makes that much of a difference in costs for an assured quality.

great shout, always see Palit and Zotac and PNY cards really cheap, and a couple Gainwards but never tried any. But presumably they're just reference boards with a difference housing so can they be so bad? also has XFX folded or something, haven't noticed them release anything in a while lol

 

[RejZoR]

I had Club3D card once and it had such shitty coils it was whining like mad. Cousin had some Totac card and he had constant problems with 3D and drivers. I've had ELSA, Gainward, Gigabyte, MSI, Sapphire, EVGA, Inno3D and i've probably missed some and never had asingle issue. Well, except the reference stock fan on HD5850 which were notorious for going dead on all cards.

Maybe i was just that "lucky", but i prefer not to leave it at chance.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Seems to me the EVGAs always have a slight performance, reliability and support edge.

Don't know why Wizz always leans toward the ASUS cards. He must prefer very quite ones. The EVGA is cheaper and outperforms it stock and OCed though, by his own results.

That said, the only game he tests OCs on is BF3.

 

[Bo$$]

Running a 780 gainward. cool as ice. my gigabyte was good up until the fans started seizing up

 

[WhiteNoise]

PNY has one of the best warranties in the business. I've a few of their cards over the years.

 

[El_Mayo]

Pre ordered the MSI Twin Frozr V GTX 970, seemed like a good compromise. Slightly more expensive than the Palit but still £275 on ebuyer with free delivery which is pretty good. I've read a couple of reviews putting the Twin Frozr marginally ahead in temps than the ASUS and a better overclocker, but that might just be anecdotal. The MSI is 2x 6 pin unlike the ASUS, so might be better for OC in theory

 

[commander calamitous]

Msi

 

[The N]

there is no point after MSI, but also check EVGA ACX. its looking good too.

 

[RCoon]

MSI is the best selling 970 so far, I personally would only ever look at two of them, because ASUS's warranty support is diabolical and crazyeyes can explain to people how bad it can be.

Go for the Gigabyte or the MSI, Gigabyte cooler is great, and has a backplate. MSI is equally good, doesn't have a backplate, but does have the zero spin fans at idle (but personally I don't care about that).
If you lived in the US, I'd say EVGA, but in my opinion they're pretty overpriced over here. As it stands, I would not pay more than £280 for a 970.

EDIT: The MSI is 8+6pin, not 6+6 by the way. I got mine on launch day, and it overclocks like a cat with pants on its head.

 

[El_Mayo]

MSI is the best selling 970 so far, I personally would only ever look at two of them, because ASUS's warranty support is diabolical and crazyeyes can explain to people how bad it can be.

Go for the Gigabyte or the MSI, Gigabyte cooler is great, and has a backplate. MSI is equally good, doesn't have a backplate, but does have the zero spin fans at idle (but personally I don't care about that).
If you lived in the US, I'd say EVGA, but in my opinion they're pretty overpriced over here. As it stands, I would not pay more than £280 for a 970.

EDIT: The MSI is 8+6pin, not 6+6 by the way. I got mine on launch day, and it overclocks like a cat with pants on its head.

Lad! I bought the MSI for £275 w/ free delivery. Does yours not have a backplate? I read you could email MSI to get one if you're in the EU i think

edit: might have been a different brand, can't find where I read it, thought it was in a review
edit: yeah that's the case with EVGA and not MSI

 

[RCoon]

Lad! I bought the MSI for £275 w/ free delivery. Does yours not have a backplate? I read you could email MSI to get one if you're in the EU i think

edit: might have been a different brand, can't find where I read it, thought it was in a review

Yeah Ebuyer are cheapest on the MSI, but are now totally out of stock Nah no backplate, did yours come with one? I'll have a gander and see what they'll muster for me.

 

[El_Mayo]

Yeah Ebuyer are cheapest on the MSI, but are now totally out of stock Nah no backplate, did yours come with one? I'll have a gander and see what they'll muster for me.

yeah they're cheaper than scan by about £15. Nah haven't gotten it yet. Called them up today, it's in stock today and should be with me by latest next Monday. I'm willing to wait to save a few quid and have the peace of mind of buying with Ebuyer. I know their RMA service is very good, at least last time I used it and I want that peace of mind if I'm gonna drop £275 on a part.

I'll let you know if I get a backplate (I doubt I will). What clocks are you running atm?

 

[RCoon]

yeah they're cheaper than scan by about £15. Nah haven't gotten it yet. Called them up today, it's in stock today and should be with me by latest next Monday. I'm willing to wait to save a few quid and have the peace of mind of buying with Ebuyer. I know their RMA service is very good, at least last time I used it and I want that peace of mind if I'm gonna drop £275 on a part.

I'll let you know if I get a backplate (I doubt I will). What clocks are you running atm?

I'm a power and silence lover, so I'm running my entire system on the bare minimum at stock, undervolted.
The day I got it however I got the core clock to 1513mhz stable on max volts though

 

[The N]

I'm a power and silence lover, so I'm running my entire system on the bare minimum at stock, undervolted.
The day I got it however I got the core clock to 1513mhz stable on max volts though

damn man, 1513 core is simply amazing potential for 970. i would like to see some ocing potential of this beast card. benching please .......

 

[RCoon]

damn man, 1513 core is simply amazing potential for 970. i would like to see some ocing potential of this beast card. benching please .......

I've got some time tonight, I'll run some more overclocking sessions and bench it on 3DMark

 

[Vario]

I'd avoid EVGA if this is true: http://www.eteknix.com/evga-gtx-970-feature-manufacturing-defect/

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I'd avoid EVGA if this is true: http://www.eteknix.com/evga-gtx-970-feature-manufacturing-defect/

Arrrgh!

I just checked into this, and instead of EVGA's usual good customer support, I get what feels like the run around. Mind you before I go further that I let them know it was just a heads up/question, and for presales, as I don't actually own one yet.

1. First call. Contacted tech support to inform/ask about this, mentioning the above article, which he looked at. He said he'd not heard of it but assured me he'd relay the info. When I pressed him on whether he felt that could effect thermally inefficiency, he admitted it could, but in a has-to-be-tested-to-be-sure way.

2. Second call, presales. A guy named James keeps reiterating he can't comment on it, making it hard for me to even finish what I wanted to say. I soon said thanks and hung up because I was getting nowhere with him.

3. Contacted customer service. Got a guy that said he'd just got an email response about it from what he claimed was the design team. Said he'd forward it to me via email. Instead my email has a link to the above article, from a guy in tech named Darrel. Since I only gave my email to the CS guy, and these guys answer phones in more than one dept, I'm thinking it was the 3rd guy I talked to.

I get the feeling their design team is already well aware of it, and that they used a cooler from another card (like the article says), that doesn't line up centered on the heat pipes, but they're OK with it temp wise. Just the fact that EVGA held out for so long before even considering offering aftermarket coolers only adds to the skepticism that they are not all that concerned about designing and/or fitting them as well as they can be.

The problem is, a LOT of big name PC part manufactures are getting more and more apathetic about QC and CS. Before I purchased my 7970 I had quite an ordeal with MSI, and I've also had pretty bad CS from ASUS' phone staff. I was considering Giga, who's CS still seems to be pretty good, but I've read a lot of inconsistent reviews for their products themselves lately.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Just found this posted by the EVGA Product Manager on the EVGA forums...

Official reply:

"The way the EVGA GTX 970 ACX heat sink was designed is based on the GTX 970 wattage plus an additional 40% cooling headroom on top of it. There are 3 heat pipes on the heatsink – 2 x 8mm major heat pipes to distribute the majority of the heat from the GPU to the heatsink, and a 3rd 6mm heatpipe is used as a supplement to the design to reduce another 2-3 degrees Celsius. Also we would like to mention that the cooler passed NVIDIA Greenlight specifications.

Due to the GPU small die size, we intended for the GPU to contact two major heat pipes with direct touch to make the best heat dissipation without any other material in between.

We all know the Maxwell GPU is an extremely power efficient GPU, our SC cooler was overbuilt for it and allowed us to provide cards with boost clocks at over 1300MHz. EVGA also has an “FTW” version for those users who want even higher clocks.

Regarding fan noise, we understand that some have expressed concerns over the fan noise on the EVGA GTX 970 cards, this is not a fan noise issue but it is more of an aggressive fan curve set by the default BIOS. The fan curve can be easily adjusted in EVGA PrecisionX or any other overclocking software. Regardless, we have heard the concerns and will provide a BIOS update to reduce the fan noise during idle.

Thanks,
EVGA"

My response...

In other words they're fine with just those two HPs fully contacting, and couldn't care less if the 3rd only barely touches the edge of the GPU, if that. So you basically have 22mm of total HP width, of which only around 17mm (77%) is being used.

No, this is not a defect, or even an oversight, it's EVGA's apathy. The fact that they held out so long before even considering an aftermarket cooler even when everyone else had them kinda makes that obvious.

And if it were really down to manufacturing costs, we'd see higher pricing on ALL the custom aftermarket coolers that others are having made FOR the 970. No, this is just EVGA seeking a higher profit margin.

I could have found what I was feeling to be their apathy before bothering to call them just by looking here, but I'm glad I did, because the run around and apathy I got there made it clear EVGA is not what they used to be, maybe they never even were.

1) First call, tech dept. Says he's unaware of the problem and will relay it. Admits it could effect thermal efficiency after looking at the pics of the placement of the GPU TIM imprint being well off center of the heat pipes.

2) Second call, presales dept. Keeps saying he cannot comment, so I merely ask him to relay the info, but his incessant NDA toe-the-line attitude causes me to say thank you and hang up.

3) Third call, customer service. Says he just got a response about this issue from what he claimed to be the design team and would forward it to me. Instead my email is from a tech named Darrel and only contains a link of the article I told THEM about.

Yeah, so, EVGA, if you're going to be so stuffy and apathetic, at least let us know up front instead of pretending to care, because you're just wasting our time with this crap. Going to be looking at Giga and ASUS offerings instead.

 

[El_Mayo]

I also noticed they were selling cards with the ACX 1.0 version and assumed they were doing it to cut costs, but what you've posted above seems even worse

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I've looked at this closer and now realize that what makes the article talking about the cooler placement misleading is EVGA's own liberal use of TIM. It's spread out well beyond the edge of the GPU chip, which if you look closely you can see by the defined square edge in the center of the TIM paste print.

So what they're saying, well, implying, about the two 8mm pipes covering the entire width of the actual chip, is true.

That said, I still don't like this part,..."our SC cooler was overbuilt for it", which is misleading.

1. That cooler was NOT in fact "built for" the 970. It's taken from another GPU.
2. This cooler doesn't BEGIN to compare to the Giga cooler, which yields temps of the 60c range, or even the MSI cooler, which yields a 68c result.
3. The fact is the EVGA cooler only results in 73c, higher than Giga, MSI, and ASUS. It's among the hottest running non ref coolers for this model of GPU.

Overbuilt my ass! EVGA were last to jump into the non ref cooler game, and it shows.

So to the thread topic, to me the best 970 out is the Giga, but unfortunately it's more out of stock than out. Then again, that applies as well to just about every model but the Zotac right now, here in the states anyway.