MSI Silently Introduces GTX 970 Gaming 4G Lite Edition
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 $339.99, which gives you very good value for your money. If you're looking for an affordable GTX 970, and you're not interested in a factory overclock, the GTX 970 Gaming 4G LE from MSI is well worth considering.
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now if it was like a 50+$ savings well ok then just seems to me a silly price points on this and what a wast
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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)