EVGA sent us its superclocked take on the GeForce GTX 970, outfitted with the company's ACX 2.0 cooler. It's slightly smaller in length than the GeForce GTX 980 reference card, but significantly lighter at 639 grams. While its 1165 MHz nominal clock rate is substantialy higher than the 1050 MHz reference spec, this card's 1317 MHz boost clock is impressive and one of the highest factory overclocks we've seen.
| The Speeds And Feeds | |
|---|---|
| Form Factor | Dual-slot design |
| Length (from Slot Panel to End) | 243 mm (9.5") |
| Height (from Slot to Top) | 111 mm (4 3/8") |
| Depth 1 (from PCB to Front Cover) | 35 mm (1 5/16") |
| Weight | 639 g |
| Connectors | 1x DL-DVI-I, 1x DL-DVI-D, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort |

EVGA's card is actively cooled by two 87mm axial fans. The company claims to have focused on details like fan power draw and blade quality to provide 26% lower temperatures and 250% less fan power consumption than a reference fan and cooler setup, with 36% less noise. Fan draw is part of any graphics card's power requirement, so it's interesting that the company has taken this approach to efficiency. EVGA even suggests that the power consumption of fans can directly affect overclocking ability.
On the top of the card you'll find two 6-pin power inputs as well as dual SLI connectors, which suggests that the card supports triple- and quad-SLI configurations.
The GTX 970 Superclock features three small (~5mm) and two large (~8mm) heat pipes that worm through nickel-plated fins and tie in to an aluminum cooling block.
For monitor connectivity there is a single DisplayPort 1.2 output, DVI-I and DVI-D outputs, and a single HDMI port. Like the GeForce GTX 980, the 970 is also equipped with the new HDMI 2.0 standard.

- Introducing GM204: There's A New Maxwell In Town
- New Features
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Reference Card
- Gigabyte GTX 980 WindForce OC
- Gigabyte GTX 970 WindForce OC
- EVGA GTX 970 Superclock ACX 2.0
- Test System And Benchmarks
- Results: Battlefield 4 And Thief
- Results: Arma 3 And Grid Autosport
- Results: Assassin's Creed IV, Watchdogs, Far Cry 3
- A New Power Consumption Test Setup
- Power Consumption In Detail
- Power Consumption Overview
- Efficiency
- Temperatures And Noise
- Verdict






Good stuff here - but you guys were a bit slow on this one. Tom's Hardware is the first site I visit every morning. But with the delay of this article, I've been all over the net this morning on other sites that got their stuff out sooner.
I was hoping for more performance but the efficiency is quite nice. They just put pressure on the top end and gave us a price reduction, instead of overall performance gains.
Likely, we're going to see a Maxwell Titan equivalent come in the next year or so as these are a x04 much like Kepler with the 670/80s were and we're still going to be waiting to see what the x10 will be with the Maxwell architecture.
Good stuff here - but you guys were a bit slow on this one. Tom's Hardware is the first site I visit every morning. But with the delay of this article, I've been all over the net this morning on other sites that got their stuff out sooner.
That's some flat out insane price / performance ratio right there!
Same answer to both... no time.
We literally got the 970 for testing yesterday. The 980, we got the day before. We barely got the article out by this morning.
For those of you who want more info, we'll be spending more time with the GeForce GTX 980 and 970 in the weeks to come, don't you worry.
I'm waiting for the real Maximum Maxwell myself. Unimpressed with these xxx04 launches from Nvidia.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/
Depending on resolution, dual 970's are roughly equal to the 295x2 at only 2/3's the price.
The features that Nvidia has been rolling out constantly has been quite impressive, while many of them do not appeal to me at all, the sheer amount and in most cases quality of them is insane.
Well done Nvidia. Let's see what AMD responds with, my next main gaming machine purchase as of now are 2 x Nvidia GTX970.
EDIT : Im sure that its a good upgrade to my 2 x HD7950s
Same answer to both... no time.
We literally got the 970 for testing yesterday. The 980, we got the day before. We barely got the article out by this morning.
For those of you who want more info, we'll be spending more time with the GeForce GTX 980 and 970 in the weeks to come, don't you worry.
Thank you! That answered a question I had in a previous GTX980/970 tease on the live news feed.
Do you guys have this problem often with Nvidia? You always seem to have fewer Nvidia board partner variaty and slower review releases on Nvidia GPUs.
More so than other websites.
Same answer to both... no time.
We literally got the 970 for testing yesterday. The 980, we got the day before. We barely got the article out by this morning.
For those of you who want more info, we'll be spending more time with the GeForce GTX 980 and 970 in the weeks to come, don't you worry.
Thank you! That answered a question I had in a previous GTX980/970 tease on the live news feed.
Do you guys have this problem often with Nvidia? You always seem to have fewer Nvidia board partner variaty and slower review releases on Nvidia GPUs.
More so than other websites.
My bets are that no NVidia GPUs on the best GPU's for the $$ for the past several months earned Tom's a slight delay in the delivery of these GPUs.
My bets are that no NVidia GPUs on the best GPU's for the $$ for the past several months earned Tom's a slight delay in the delivery of these GPUs.
Nah, doubt Nvidia is that petty.
More publicity is exactly that, more publicity.
Tom's has been around a long time and is trusted by A LOT of people.
Doubt Nvidia would compromise the user base.