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Looking for Zotac GTX 970 Testimonials/Overclocking Results

Tags:
  • Gtx
  • Overclocking
  • Zotac
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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September 25, 2014 12:20:43 PM

Hi All -

I am on the verge of purchasing my first Nvidia GPU, GTX 970. I had originally planned to purchase an EVGA model due to their reputation. I have seen many concerns from buyers about the quality of the EVGA GTX 970 board components as well as noise associated with the ACX 1.0 and 2.0 coolers. Needless to say, I have become very apprehensive.

So, with that being said, does anyone have any feedback on the Zotac GTX 970 (non-OC version)? I really like the look of the card and have read good things about Zotac customer service, despite their being a smaller company. Hoping to get input on overclockability, temps and noise.

Thanks!

More about : zotac gtx 970 testimonials overclocking results

September 25, 2014 12:23:33 PM

I am going for the MSI gtx 970, great looks, great cooling, and can OC to near 1500 mhz with no voltage tampering!
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September 25, 2014 1:34:14 PM

Get MSI or ASUS. MSI seems to perform slightly better but ASUS has a better build quality with metal instead of plastic fan shroud and a backplate. It's thinner too.
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September 25, 2014 2:08:40 PM

mcknigk. I also jumped from eVGA to Zotac coz of very same reasons and I also felt a bit cheated as eVGA promised 5 years warranty and a free backplate. They decided to remove that promotion.

For Zotac I follow some threads that might be useful to you too:
1. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2311031/evga-z...
2. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2309468/zotac-...
3. some decent OC with it: http://www.overclock.net/t/1514089/zotac-970

Btw I also found out that Zotac is a sister firm of the Sapphire (AMD). It is owned by the same group PC Partner Ltd. Zotac offers also 5 years warranty which is a plus and they have a very responsive customer support as I read.
I think it is a no brainer.
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Best solution

September 26, 2014 12:31:00 AM

I just gave it a quick try. I could up the base clock (1076MHz) with afterburner by 200MHz and memory clock by 100MHz without issues. Seems afterburner ups the boostfrequency coupled with the base clock as there's no separate setting for it.

The unigine valley result was 2400 in extreme HD:
http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/TherconJair/UnigineV...

CPU clock was stock i7-2600k, no overclocking save the card.

Clock speed hovered mostly at around 1380MHz, temperature with automatic fan control never exceeded 84 degrees celsius.

I tried to go a bit further, but the card didn't like it. Whenever core clock spiked past "1400 and something"MHz the card locked up and the drivers reset.

It seems their bundled firestorm program has built in safeties, boost clock never exceeded 1215MHz while trying to overclock with that.

EDIT: I'm a fool, firestorm just needs to run as admin, it doesn't give these rights itself like afterburner does. According to it, upping clock by 200MHz pushes boost to 1415. With these settings, card went up to 1427. If it stayed for longer there it became a bit unstable. Seems for mine 1400MHz is the limit.
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September 26, 2014 4:01:47 AM

Hiya, I think it is very decent OC. Are you able to describe how loud were the fans at these settings? Second thing, are you able to tweek also voltage on this card? On overclock.net I saw a report that somebody went above 1500 on core and 8000 on mem what is almost un-believeble. best, d.
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September 26, 2014 4:25:14 AM

Surprisingly quiet. Fans went never above 70%, I don't have an expensive insulated case, and the fans of the cards were not much louder than the case fans. Granted, I'm coming from an ASUS Radeon HD6950, the old revision 1 card with the double bios that you could run as HD6970, and required a bit higher fan revs.

No, only power draw, voltage seems to be auto-adjusted.
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September 26, 2014 4:49:50 AM

Sorry, you can actually tweak voltage, you have to unlock it first with afterburner, though. Didn't use afterburner before, so didn't see that setting ^^
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September 26, 2014 5:10:10 AM

So you will be able achieve new heights? :) 
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September 26, 2014 5:49:18 AM

Got it to +220MHz, locks up and resets driver after that.

You can actually do all of this in Firestorm, too. I just really didn't overclock all that much yet, so am learning new things while doing it. ;) 

What is, probably an interesting find:

106% is the max power you can get with these tools. BUT: Firestorm has 3 presets. You can go advanced, which opens a window with sliders. You can then click on the quick presets with the slider window staying opnen.

Load the 3D+ preset as it has 110% power draw. You can then unlink powerdraw and temp limit, and proceed to set all the other items. For as long as you don't touch power draw it won't reset sub 106%.

Haven't tried with that, but I think my card won't go past 250, if I manage to get it past 220MHz at all. Might try on Sunday again.
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September 26, 2014 10:12:46 AM

delfinus said:
mcknigk. I also jumped from eVGA to Zotac coz of very same reasons and I also felt a bit cheated as eVGA promised 5 years warranty and a free backplate. They decided to remove that promotion.

For Zotac I follow some threads that might be useful to you too:
1. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2311031/evga-z...
2. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2309468/zotac-...
3. some decent OC with it: http://www.overclock.net/t/1514089/zotac-970

Btw I also found out that Zotac is a sister firm of the Sapphire (AMD). It is owned by the same group PC Partner Ltd. Zotac offers also 5 years warranty which is a plus and they have a very responsive customer support as I read.
I think it is a no brainer.


Thank you for all of the links, definus, they are very helpful.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Zotac 970, I'll report back with my own results as soon as I have them!
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October 1, 2014 10:52:17 PM

mcknigk said:
delfinus said:
mcknigk. I also jumped from eVGA to Zotac coz of very same reasons and I also felt a bit cheated as eVGA promised 5 years warranty and a free backplate. They decided to remove that promotion.

For Zotac I follow some threads that might be useful to you too:
1. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2311031/evga-z...
2. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2309468/zotac-...
3. some decent OC with it: http://www.overclock.net/t/1514089/zotac-970

Btw I also found out that Zotac is a sister firm of the Sapphire (AMD). It is owned by the same group PC Partner Ltd. Zotac offers also 5 years warranty which is a plus and they have a very responsive customer support as I read.
I think it is a no brainer.


Thank you for all of the links, definus, they are very helpful.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Zotac 970, I'll report back with my own results as soon as I have them!


so how was the testing the Zotac GTX 970 went so far?e
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October 2, 2014 6:22:32 AM

Posted this on an overclock.net thread today:

So, received my Zotac 970 yesterday.

Love the look of the card, and the performance is outstanding (900 series in general). Have not had the time to overclock it yet, but will do so this weekend and report back.

Only issue is what I believe is quite bad coil whine - first experience with it, based on what I've read and heard, seems like a bad case. More a clicking/buzzing than than a whine. Not going to blame Zotac for this, seems to be a systemic issue with the 970's across the board (no pun intended)

Turned on Vsync and capped frames at 60, may have improved it a bit. I then did some light gaming and ran Unigine Heaven on the Extreme preset for a couple hours in hopes that it would "break-in" the card.

Seemed to work! To some extent - this morning the clicking/buzzing was quieter - really hoping that after a week or a few weeks it will go away completely or at least be unnoticeable. Suppose I could RMA if it doesn't improve.

Would like to run two of these in SLI eventually, but in an mATX case, so cards would be side-by-side, wondering if one will choke out the other...suppose I could blast my fans and drown out the coil whine then :p 
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October 6, 2014 8:10:45 AM

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/5643/9/zotac-geforce-gt...!-extreme-edition-review-gtx-970-voor-overklokkers-overklokken
this is a review but in Dutch it seems they have been able to over clock the core to 1455mhz and the memory clock to 1800-1900MHz.max temp of 60cc...i think that is pretty good.even better than the EVGA gtx 970 FTW....
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