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Which aftermarket Nvidia GTX 970 is the best?

Tags:
  • Overclocking
  • EVGA
  • GTX 980
  • 900 series
  • 970
  • GTX 970
  • Gigabyte
  • MSI
  • Gtx
Last response: in Components
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September 20, 2014 3:07:05 PM

GTX has been hype for lot of people this week. Because of lack of videos on youtube and my bad google searching skills i didnt find much about aftermarket 970.
So my question is following, What is the best aftermarket Gtx 970 for overclocking.
So far i have seen Gigabytes G1 970 get up to 1600mhz OC.

Second question. How do i overclock Gigabyte cards?
As far as i know gigabyte doesnt have anything like MSI Afterburner or EVGA precission. How do people overclock Gigabyte cards? Reason is i dont really like BIOS. They use fancy words there that i dont understand and i am afraid to mess something up.

Edit:
Also one more question. I heard my friend saying not so good things about Gigabyte products. He says that people he knows havent had good experience and that Gigabyte cards are often buggy and stuff like that. Is it true or not? Maybe its just here in Norway internet stores cant handle GPUs. IDK

So yeah, ty for help.

More about : aftermarket nvidia gtx 970

a c 178 K Overclocking
September 20, 2014 3:23:51 PM

Dawis67_AE said:
What is the best aftermarket Gtx 970 for overclocking.

Second question. How do i overclock Gigabyte cards?

Edit:
Also one more question. I heard my friend saying not so good things about Gigabyte products. He says that people he knows havent had good experience and that Gigabyte cards are often buggy and stuff like that. Is it true or not? Maybe its just here in Norway internet stores cant handle GPUs. IDK


Its all pretty much luck of the draw, particularly with newly released cards. All the aftermarket companies are doing is slapping their own coolers onto the reference boards their receiving from Nvidia. So assuming all the cooling solutions are fairly equal (which they kind of are insofar they will all maintain a decent clock) its comes down to how lucky you are with the silicone.

As for Gigabyte cards in particular, they overclock just like any other graphics card. Afterburner, Precision, RivaTuner or whatever will all work with it.
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a b K Overclocking
September 20, 2014 3:26:58 PM

The 9 series has only just entered the marketplace. Until ppl have really had a chance to OC, beat up, punish, and bug test the cards for a couple months at least, you're going to be very limited on what, if any, reliable information is to be found.
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September 20, 2014 3:29:37 PM

manofchalk said:
Dawis67_AE said:
What is the best aftermarket Gtx 970 for overclocking.

Second question. How do i overclock Gigabyte cards?

Edit:
Also one more question. I heard my friend saying not so good things about Gigabyte products. He says that people he knows havent had good experience and that Gigabyte cards are often buggy and stuff like that. Is it true or not? Maybe its just here in Norway internet stores cant handle GPUs. IDK


Its all pretty much luck of the draw, particularly with newly released cards. All the aftermarket companies are doing is slapping their own coolers onto the reference boards their receiving from Nvidia. So assuming all the cooling solutions are fairly equal (which they kind of are insofar they will all maintain a decent clock) its comes down to how lucky you are with the silicone.

As for Gigabyte cards in particular, they overclock just like any other graphics card. Afterburner, Precision, RivaTuner or whatever will all work with it.


Thanks for the reply, but what do you mean silicone?

Also i know its just the cooler that is different, but the cooler provides lower temps, and lower temps mean better OC. Also some of the cards has 2x6pin connectors and some have 1 4 pin and 1 3pin so with different power limitations. thats what i am talking about. Which one offers best OC posibilities?
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September 20, 2014 3:36:39 PM

Karadjgne said:
The 9 series has only just entered the marketplace. Until ppl have really had a chance to OC, beat up, punish, and bug test the cards for a couple months at least, you're going to be very limited on what, if any, reliable information is to be found.


Yeah but i have been planning and waiting for about 3 months now and i want a PC soon (i am building custom one).
Also i have around until 17th October to think and see. I just really want to get updated on everything since my custom PC build will NEED to last over 3 years and i want at least 60+ FPS on all future games on arround Max/Ultra on 1080p though.
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a c 178 K Overclocking
September 20, 2014 3:40:21 PM

Silicon is whats used to make CPU/GPU dies. Google " the silicon lottery" to see where I'm getting at with this.

Basically, I'm saying thats the only significant thing right now that will determine your GPU overclocking. Right now, there just isnt enough info on which coolers are best (and as I referred too, just because it runs cooler doesnt always mean faster).

EDIT: Well, I just learnt there is a pretty significant difference between Silicon and Silicone :lol: 
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September 20, 2014 6:42:46 PM

for me EVGA always wins....they have the best customer service and I think the new ACX 2.0 cooler looks super nice.

I'm going for two GTX 970 FTW ACX 2.0 in SLI...just waiting for the FTW to become available
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September 21, 2014 3:05:34 AM

Guinibee said:
for me EVGA always wins....they have the best customer service and I think the new ACX 2.0 cooler looks super nice.

I'm going for two GTX 970 FTW ACX 2.0 in SLI...just waiting for the FTW to become available


Yeah, EVGA 780 SC ACX was the best of 780 imo, but on 970 much of the hype has been going over the MSI and Gigabyte.
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September 21, 2014 8:05:21 PM

Yeah I can't trust MSI as a company...heard bad stories. Gigabyte maybe...but EVGA has done me well for almost 10 years...I'll roll with them :) .
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October 8, 2014 1:25:38 AM

MSI has quality mother boards, and now gtx 970's. Just bought one and it is a SOLID quality card. I always used to roll with EVGA too until I saw how bad their cooling system was on the first 970's. Third contact heatpipe was in limbo. I replaced my EVGA gtx670ftw with an msi 970 and couldn't be happier. No coil whine, super quiet, and have it oc'd stable at 1556mhz. It's a sexy card.

EVGA is usually good, but they just fell on their faces this gen imo..
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October 8, 2014 6:39:08 PM

Borge80 said:
MSI has quality mother boards, and now gtx 970's. Just bought one and it is a SOLID quality card. I always used to roll with EVGA too until I saw how bad their cooling system was on the first 970's. Third contact heatpipe was in limbo. I replaced my EVGA gtx670ftw with an msi 970 and couldn't be happier. No coil whine, super quiet, and have it oc'd stable at 1556mhz. It's a sexy card.

EVGA is usually good, but they just fell on their faces this gen imo..


Yeah a lot has changed for me in the past few weeks. I went with MSI in sli and loved it but had the buzzing noise coming out of the cards so I got another sli set of MSI cards and the second set doesn't buzz quite as bad, but it's still audible when i'm next to the case during a benchmark. The MSI cards OC to around 1500 no problem for me without changing voltage. I def like them.

I have a pair of Gigabyte cards on the way though...should get them tomorrow. I want to see if they make the buzz noise and if they fit in my case. I like how thin MSIs cards are so I might just stick to those, but we'll see tomorrow. I personally like the Gigabyte cards for the VRM cooling...MSI seems to get pretty high VRM temps according to Guru3D's review whereas Gigabyte has a fantastic VRM cooling to the card.

A side note with the buzz noise...I tested my old GTX 670 and I still get the noise although very faint and I have to be right next to the card during a benchmark to notice it. I think I never heard it because those cards were so loud and MSI's are so quiet. I think this might be a normal occurrence for a lot of people, but they don't notice until they basically touch their ear lobe to the card and test for the buzz directly.

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October 8, 2014 10:17:46 PM

I think it's just luck of the draw..my msi 970 is completely silent during benchmark, not even a slight whine I had my ear right up to it. As for temps i'm seeing 52c @ 40-60% fan usage max load in heaven 4.0. It's overclocked to 1561mhz.
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October 9, 2014 2:56:52 AM

Did you happen to get one of the cards from the new batch without stickers?
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October 9, 2014 2:54:48 PM

If you mean the thick sticker on the fan then nope it came with that. However I just went slow peeling it off, fan is fine.
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October 9, 2014 6:21:35 PM

well I just installed the Gigabyte cards I got...

they seem to run a little cooler and OC better than the MSI cards...I'm liking it a lot! They also seem lighter than the MSI card...when I hold one in each hand the larger giga card is actually lighter ironically

The drawback is I still get the buzzing noise during load...I guess I can't avoid this...seems like with every card i'm going to get this...I wonder if it's something else going on or if this is just a normal occurrence for the GTX 970s because so many people have this issue...
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October 11, 2014 2:57:16 PM

I got MSi GTX 970. They are great. I have ran AC4, AC3, Max Payne 3, CS GO, and GTA 4 (all on max) and results are good. Max Payne 3,AC3 and CS go vent over 60fps and AC4 and GTA 4 are at about 30-40-50 FPS and its all with Anti aliasing and max settings.
As for the fans they work fine and i was super careful when taking off the sticker and it was stuck there good. Anyways i have a bit of buzzing sound but i cant hear it unless i take the front panel off and stick my head closer to the case.
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October 11, 2014 10:27:32 PM

Yeah exactly how it is for me too dawis... Grats on the card! It really is an incredible bang for the buck
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October 13, 2014 6:40:11 PM

Have a Msi Motherboard, Guess I will be getting a MSI 970 x2
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October 13, 2014 6:46:56 PM

Originally, the best non-reference was the MSi GTX 970 4G Gaming.
The Good:
>Sexy Box
>Sexy shroud
>High OC potential (depends with luck of the draw)
>It includes a sexy mouse pad
>1 x 6+2 pin sleeved cable
>1 CD Driver
>1 Magazine finished coloured Brochure
>1 Magazine finished coloured Guide
>It has facepalte matte black finished metal
The Bad

>shroud made out of plastic
>No backplate


But the demand for it right now is so high that every re-stock, the stock runs out immediately. This then forced the priced to go up so much so that its equal or more expensive than Gigabyte's G1 Gaming.

In the other hand, I have bought Gigabyte's G1 Gaming 970's.

The good:
>It has a full metal backplate and shroud
>Sexy box

The Bad:
>No CD
>had a cheap black and white paper guide
>had 2 x 2Molex to 8 Pin connector cheap non sleeved one's

:D 

I saw multiple video reviews of both cards at 1500mhz+ running stable with temps not going over 69 for the G1 Gaming and at 69-72 for the MSi. Both are good cards imo.
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October 13, 2014 7:08:28 PM

Well lets hope dual 970s will be a upgrade of one 290x
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October 13, 2014 11:29:57 PM

Yesterday ran Valley benchmark. For the first run it freaked me out that only 1 fan was spinning. I quickly opened the case and used my hand to help the fan to spin. After that i opened MSI afterburner and turned on and off the fan just to check if they were working now and thank god they were. Anyhow as i opened the case while benchmarking i think the buzzing was so hard that it had become coil whine. It wasnt loud or anything and i can hear it only when i open my case sidepanel.
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October 13, 2014 11:31:48 PM

BTW today i tried Crysis 3 on absolute max and i got about 30min 40avg and 50+ max. Is that good?
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October 16, 2014 9:14:06 PM

Dawis67_AE said:
BTW today i tried Crysis 3 on absolute max and i got about 30min 40avg and 50+ max. Is that good?


With what resolution and cpu?
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October 16, 2014 11:02:45 PM

Guinibee said:
Yeah exactly how it is for me too dawis... Grats on the card! It really is an incredible bang for the buck

You have already tried MSI and Gigabyte so can you tell me please, what should I go with G1, MSI or Asus?

Thanks
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October 17, 2014 1:19:55 AM

It turns out reason i get low FPS is that my RAMs Pagefile usage is overloaded sometimes. But when i get it to work decent i get stable 60FPS (FPS stays at 60 and sometimes goes down to 58 or up to 61 but its rare)

GPU is amazing. My MSI overclocked to 1400mhz and i am not so good overclocker so i am sure i could push more.
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October 17, 2014 8:22:50 AM

Well I never had Asus, though the build quality looks great on the Asus. I would say gigabyte slightly wins out of the other 2. The card feels much more high end with the backplate and metal shroud. It cools better and oc better than the msi as well. As long as your case can fit it because it's very long... And you don't mind the blue led, I do prefer msi's white dragon led.
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