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MSI Silently Introduces GTX 970 Gaming 4G Lite Edition

By - Source: MSI | B 29 comments

MSI's new GTX 970 Gaming 4G LE brings a custom PCB and cooler design at a lower price point.

If the price premium on the GTX 970 Gaming 4G is a little too steep, but you really want a GTX 970 with MSI's PCB design and TwinFrozr cooler, you're in luck. MSI silently announced its GTX 970 Gaming 4G LE, which is based off the same PCB design and cooler but doesn't carry as hefty an overclock.

MSI's new card comes with three different clock speed settings: OC Mode, Gaming Mode and Silent mode. Silent mode provides reference frequencies of 1051 MHz with a boost clock of 1178 MHz. Gaming mode bumps it up to 1064 MHz base with a boost frequency of 1203 MHz, and OC Mode tops it off with 1076 MHz core and boosts up to 1216 MHz.

For comparison, the GTX 970 Gaming 4G was clocked at 1140 MHz base and boosted up to around 1279 MHz. Memory remains clocked at the reference 7.0 GHz.

We expect the MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G LE to cost either the reference $329.99 or $339.99, which gives you very good value for your money. If you're looking for an affordable GTX 970, and you're not interested in a factory overclock, the GTX 970 Gaming 4G LE from MSI is well worth considering.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

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  • 8 Hide
    junkeymonkey , October 7, 2014 4:49 PM
    329-339-349 $ seems if you can come up with 329 you should as easy come up with 349 and just get the better clocked card

    now if it was like a 50+$ savings well ok then just seems to me a silly price points on this and what a wast
  • 0 Hide
    Cons29 , October 7, 2014 7:43 PM
    if i were to buy, i'd probably get gigabyte (been hearing good things about it), or maybe inno3d ichill (my 670 ichill runs 49-50 almost all the time, full load)
  • -2 Hide
    dgrambo , October 7, 2014 9:05 PM
    theres way too much funny business going on with this NVIDIA part. i wish to god NVIDIA would release a reference so folks like me can get on board (no pun intended)
  • Add your comment Display all 29 comments.
  • 0 Hide
    Bean007 , October 7, 2014 9:54 PM
    Not sure if I think this is smart. Also there's the 960 that's hasn't made it's showcase yet. I think if you couldn't afford a regular 970 then a 960 would be a better choice. Of course it all depends on what the card is gonna be able to do and at what price range but I bet it's gonna be like the GTX 460 which was a awesome card for a great price.
  • 0 Hide
    Amdlova , October 7, 2014 10:00 PM
    960 will not able to do sli and not will be better than 770
  • 0 Hide
    Pikime , October 7, 2014 11:16 PM
    so are these basically lower binned parts? like say you were to buy one and overclock it yourself (maybe even have it underwater) would you get better results the more expensive the model?
  • 0 Hide
    Bean007 , October 7, 2014 11:33 PM
    Quote:
    so are these basically lower binned parts? like say you were to buy one and overclock it yourself (maybe even have it underwater) would you get better results the more expensive the model?


    It's possible. But the one thing with all GPU's and CPU's when overclocking is the batch they came from. Some batches can get awesome overclocks past the companies own overclocks while other batches not so much. Buying the higher overclocked cards just means they've done it for you and you won't get any less then that. While the slower clocked cards cost less you may or may not hit the marks as the higher clocked cards.
  • 0 Hide
    Cons29 , October 8, 2014 2:15 AM
    660Ti could do SLI yes? is this confirmed? not that i plan to do sli, i just buy single card
  • 1 Hide
    icemunk , October 8, 2014 5:19 AM
    I'm glad to see these cards forcing a price war. You can grab an R9 290 (Gigabyte windforce) for $299 right now even.
  • -2 Hide
    Ahmad Adel , October 8, 2014 11:52 AM
    THIS IS FOR THE F"""King COIL WHINING SH;;;;;T since they make it A silent release
  • -2 Hide
    Optimatical , October 8, 2014 12:11 PM
    Except MSI is the worst brand, next to Zotac. It's amazing people still buy their products, they have SO many issues, just go look at forums posts of the countless issues people have.
  • 0 Hide
    Optimatical , October 8, 2014 12:16 PM
    Quote:
    theres way too much funny business going on with this NVIDIA part. i wish to god NVIDIA would release a reference so folks like me can get on board (no pun intended)


    Nvidia will never "release a reference". The reference models of the 900 series are released by each manufacturer, their base, boost and memory clocks are always the defaults given by Nvidia, and they're cooled with the standard single fan on the end of the card. If you want a reference card, pick the manufacturer you think has the best quality and support and buy the crappy reference version.
  • 0 Hide
    stampedea , October 8, 2014 1:22 PM
    You know, just because reference cooler is standard and restrained in how it looks, people think it must be inferior to the whacky looking aftermarket versions. I think that's dead wrong and nvidia reference coolers are awesome, very nice to look at and they dump all the heat out of the back of the case where it should be.
  • 0 Hide
    semitope , October 8, 2014 2:11 PM
    the price difference matters when you already are stretching the budget. In my case I missed a $30 discount and shoulda bought one of the earlier cards but now I'm looking for a discount to $329. unfortunately these lower tier cards are a bit worrisome, unless they have exactly the same PCB components.
  • 0 Hide
    fwupow , October 8, 2014 5:44 PM
    I just got a very reference looking PNY Geforce GTX 970 for $329.00 and according to TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.7.9, it has 4GB of GDDR5 memory and a GPU clock of 1051 and a boost clock of 1178, so I guess I got an LE card.

    Many of these cards are priced up in the $500.00s and I don't get paying another $200.00 for a slight clock boost.

    I've made a few runs on 3Dmark11 and scored a P10536 with no over clocking which is more than double what I was getting on two Radeon HD 6770 's in CrossFire. My graphics score was 14475.

    Next year, I can drop another one in for double SLI and keep up with the times.

    If you're gonna lay out significantly more money, I'd take a look at upgrading to the GTX 980. I dunno. My HIS HD 6770 's were factory O.C'd and I didn't see all that big a difference. Having more shaders and CUDA cores etc. seems to do more.
  • 0 Hide
    fwupow , October 8, 2014 5:56 PM
    According to Extreme Tech, the 970s have very good over-clockability, Not sure whether you need double and triple fan super-coolers to get it or not. My card has the typical reference design blower fan which directs air through a shroud and out the external connector face end of the card. It doesn't seem particularly effective since when I run FurMark, the temperature quickly rises into the 70C area and it seems to start underclocking itself down into the 900 MHz zone.
  • 0 Hide
    junkeymonkey , October 8, 2014 8:20 PM
    well as with most all first release stuff I like to wait and see like I do read about these cards with coil whine and underclocking them selves and so forth .. so it looks like a good card at the price bbut I feel it may been released to early and got some bugs to work out or some kind of adjustments

    I kinda wondered like at newegg that there most all out of stock and think they released just so many to see and get that feed back to see what issues come in like the coil whine deal and now the next batch may have all that fixed with a better bios or part change .. like evga wow they did some crap like showen here

    Manufacturer Response

    We understand that some users were expecting the ACX 2.0 fan version to be available on the launch day, but unfortunately the ACX 2.0 development schedule did not allow us to have ACX 2.0 product available at launch. We plan to offer an ACX 2.0 fan upgrade program, stay tuned for news on this.

    EVGA 04G-P4-2974-KR G-SYNC Support GeForce GTX 970 Superclocked ACX 2.0 4GB Video Card

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

    so this guy [verified owner of that 2.0 card] bought the card with the acx 2.0 cooler and got the 1.0 ???
    this to me looks bad on evga
  • 0 Hide
    fwupow , October 8, 2014 11:28 PM
    Now I'm interested in popping some liquid cooling into my case just to get it onto my GTX 970. Gotta wonder how much it'll O.C. then. Freaking expensive to buy water-cooling pc by pc. Just a water block is 100 bucks. All in one kits are made for CPU and I don't really need that. I'm falling for this stuff that's gonna get my bank acct wiped out.
  • 0 Hide
    JackNaylorPE , October 9, 2014 9:31 AM
    I don't see this card as having an impact, not at $10-$20 less then the non light version. But the data presented here of course does not give one enough information to make an informed decision.

    What are the "nitty gritty" changes that result in the reduced performance / price ?

    Same 6 +2 Phase power design ?
    Same Hi-c CAP / Solid CAP design ?
    Same Super Ferrite Chokes ?
    Same Thermal Pads and Contact Plates on PCB Memory, Memory Moffset, Power Circuitry, VRM Controllers ?

    These design / construction features are what separates the MSI 970 from the other vendors and if these are dropped for the cheaper price, then much of the reason to invest in the MSI disappears.
  • 0 Hide
    photonboy , October 10, 2014 9:41 PM
    junkeymonkey,
    No, the ACX 2.0 version with different fans was just not available at launch. They are going to offer an "upgrade" path to the new cards. There seems little point though as I've read reviews that saw no obvious benefit though they said the ACX 2.0 fans were set too high (noisier than need be).

    Other:
    The "reference" cooler mentioned is probably referring to the reference GTX980 cooler not a GTX970 card. The one based on the Titan. Can't wait for good non-reference cards there though NVidia's is really nice.

    (At 15% average performance difference between 970 and 980 the price difference makes a GTX980 hard to justify)
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