75 while playing DS3 seems slightly high, but it could just be that this Zotac iteration of the 970 simply doesnt have a very good cooler.
Here's a review I found with a quick google search:
http://www.techporn.ph/zotac-geforce-gtx-970-review/
Scroll down to the "Temperature & Power Consumption" section, and look at the idle temps for this card. They are at 37. Of course they have an ambient temp of 27, and they have a different setup than yours.
What is your ambient room temp when you usually play DS3?
I would recommend that you test things yourself, just to make sure that you dont have a faulty card. Summer is coming up, and without an ACU and depending on where you live, your card might suffer during the high temps of summer.
Most cards tend to break because of this: Users dont realize their cards get too hot, and when summer comes they reach 95+ degrees and eventually die.
A client of mine brought me his dead GTX 275, which died early September. When I opened it up, I discovered bits and pieces of burned thermal paste on the GPU, and even around it, which means the card was reaching an excess of 100 degrees Celsius to say the least.
I recommend you try either Furmark or MSI Kombustor, to stress test your card. The people in the review I linked above used Furmark for 30 minutes straight. There is no need to stress the card for that long. Even if the GPU is at a safe temperature, there are other individual components that heat up quite a bit (such as VRM, RAM etc) during the intense load and power draw of Furmark.
Run it for 10-15 minutes, and monitor the GPU temps at all times. Dont go to the bathroom, dont leave your computer for any reason.
Also, I'd recommend that you open both side panels of your case for this test. You said you have 7 case fans, but that doesnt impress me. It could be that the fans re-direct airflow away from the card, or direct hot air through the card's cooler. I dont know your setup so I cant tell. So open both side panels so the case is open, and maybe even disable a few fans since they are not very useful in an open case.
Dont worry about the "lack of airflow", in an open case the card should operate optimally, all graphics cards are designed to operate as they should without the need for extra cooling. Also, an open case means that the card definitely has all the air it needs to draw for sufficient cooling.
If you see a temperature of 90 degrees, stop the Furmark test immediately. 90 is not dangerous, but like I said, there are other components that heat up as well, not just the GPU, and besides, you dont want to heat-up your GPU to the limit. Better play it safe.
The test that you want to select is Furmark Burn-in test, use your monitor's native resolution, and go fullscreen.
Again, if you dont know what you're really doing, and what this all means, then dont do anything. You can always ask help from a tech savvy friend if need be, or just forget it and keep digging the internet for answers.
Last but not least:
This might not be very helpful, but I play DS3 every day as well, I have an MSI GTX 970 Gaming. The maximum temperature I've recorded after over 6 hours of continuous Souls gaming is 66 degrees, with an ambient temperature of 27 degrees. I have NO fans helping the card cool, and my case is wide open. Also, I've lowered the card's fan speed in order to make it even more quiet than it already is.
I am not saying your Zotac is bad, its probably way better than reference models. But it could just be that it simply isnt that great when it comes to its cooling capabilities.
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