Which 970 Card?

[kopite]

Hey All,

After many false starts I'm finally ready to upgrade my graphics.

I've decided on the 970 because all the reviews seem to say its the mutts and it runs cooler than the amd card,

The problem is all the different manufacturers options I am now sure which to go for.

So question is which is the best 970 card out there?

Budget is 300 quid which seems to cover all the options out there.

[shaithis]

If I had £300 to sepnd on a 970, I would go with http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-g...-3x-dp-1x-dvi-

[kalniel]

Main thing is picking a retailer that has a good return policy - there are a few too many reports about failures for my liking. It wouldn't put me off getting the card in the slightest, but it's enough to pick my shop a little more carefully than normal. I'd also try and avoid ones with too fancy fan setups (MSI reports of fan failures for eg.) or uber overclocks etc.

[imdabossou]

I would definitely suggest the Gigabyte G1 Gaming edition card. I have read over many reviews and it is just the best. The cooling of it is great, it overclocks very well, and is very quiet. I will be getting one myself off scan soon hopefully

[jigger]

My friend has had a lot of problems with coil whine and sent a few cards back for refunds from various manufactures. I would say it's worth doing a little research into that problem, and checking the returns policy of the retailer like kalniel says. I think his current card is a Zotac and only has a little coil noise IIRC.

[Mauley]

I've built a couple of computers recently and used bot a Gigabyte G1 and an MSI Twin Frozr V card. Both are great cards and are around the same price. I didn't notice any coil whine while testing on either card but I may have been lucky as there are reports of coil whine with those cards also.

[kopite]

Thanks for all the advice!

The gigabyte cards do look really good I'm just wondering though are there any differences between the
Gigabyte GTX970 WindForce 3 OC 4GB Nvidia (Maxwell) PCI Express Graphics Card * Scan Exclusive *
Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 GAMING (Maxwell) Nvidia PCI Express Graphics Card

other than the lower clock speeds? Physically are they the same cards? Cooler etc?

[cloudlaws]

Thanks for all the advice!

The gigabyte cards do look really good I'm just wondering though are there any differences between the
Gigabyte GTX970 WindForce 3 OC 4GB Nvidia (Maxwell) PCI Express Graphics Card * Scan Exclusive *
Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 GAMING (Maxwell) Nvidia PCI Express Graphics Card

other than the lower clock speeds? Physically are they the same cards? Cooler etc?

I am currently selecting between the two, and let me tell you, get the G1 gaming. The features higher out the box speeds and also a metal backplate which is a great value add. This will support your card more and also looks a lot nicer, along these lines I believe the shroud on the from of the windforce is plastic and on the G1 its metal. The G1 windforce logo also lights up, a blue LED I believe (can be left off too). Finally the G1 components are selected from the best, and the ones which are not eligable for use in G1 edition 970's are used in the windforce version.

TLDR: G1 is worth the extra £40 or so

[Agrippa]

Gigabyte Windforce and G1 Gaming, MSI's G4 Gaming and ASUS Strix are pretty much on a par quality-wise. All are great cards, but if noise is important, the Strix and G4 will both turn fans off and be completely silent when idle or just doing light work. Possibly the Gigabytes too, but there I'm not sure. Safe bets all of them imo, it just depends which one you prefer the look of, or if you want the one that's fastest out of the box. OC-wise it is, as always, the luck of the draw.

[JohnMcL7]

I'm curious what people think of the blower coolers on the 970s such as the EVGA card on Amazon? I currently have a pair of 6950's one of which has died, I was originally looking at a 780 then 980 however the 970 seems to make a lot more sense, I prefer the blower type cooler which gives the card the option of going in an AW X51 or if I add another 970 the blower cooler seems to make more sense for the cards sitting right beside each other (there's no slot gap in my case)

I see overclockers UK have a 970 that looks to have a similar cooler to the 980 which is appealing however I've not had a good experience with them in the for returns and there's few companies that will now ship to the north of Scotland for a reasonable price. Hence looking at amazon as I can get the card next day and they've always been very good with returns.

John

[Agrippa]

Depends mainly on whether or not you consider noise an important issue. The reference cooler performs just fine and doesn't put out an insane howl, but it is certainly louder than the custom coolers. At stock frequencies the card will perform pretty much the same regardless of which cooler it has, but of course a reference design will overclock less well than a custom job. If that and the additional noise are both non-issues for you, then there's no reason not to choose a reference card.

[MrRockliffe]

Depends mainly on whether or not you consider noise an important issue. The reference cooler performs just fine and doesn't put out an insane howl, but it is certainly louder than the custom coolers. At stock frequencies the card will perform pretty much the same regardless of which cooler it has, but of course a reference design will overclock less well than a custom job. If that and the additional noise are both non-issues for you, then there's no reason not to choose a reference card.

It's less likely to overclock as well, but more often it depends on the chip itself rather than the board and cooler.

The cooler and power delivery design depicts how well it can dissipate the heat it produces when overclocked, and how good the power delivery is. In reality, power delivery shouldn't affect the common user much, but the cooler performance might.

[lukart]

The Zotac Amp! looks pretty impressive, not sure the price premium you would be willing to pay...

[Mullet]

Some good deals on Palit's GTX 980 now... seen it for £389.... I have the Super Jetstream edition and am very happy. The offer at £389 are for the Jetstream model. The cooler is a monster, is very quiet and runs my games at 1440p with all the candy on. Just make sure your rig can take it (it is 2.5 slots wide).

[JohnMcL7]

Depends mainly on whether or not you consider noise an important issue. The reference cooler performs just fine and doesn't put out an insane howl, but it is certainly louder than the custom coolers. At stock frequencies the card will perform pretty much the same regardless of which cooler it has, but of course a reference design will overclock less well than a custom job. If that and the additional noise are both non-issues for you, then there's no reason not to choose a reference card.

I'm not bothered about overclocking but I would prefer quieter however I can't see how these open air coolers are going to be quiet if they're packed tightly into a case?

John

[Agrippa]

Read the reviews and you'll see that's exactly what they are. Larger, better designed fans, pushing more air at slower speeds = less noise. Where and how they're installed makes no relative difference vs the reference cooling design.