GeForce GTX 970 specifications

[Nozzer66]

There's one reason why I'm on Team Green.

 

The one time I used Team Red, it was an unmitigated disaster with driver crashes, coil whine out the wazoo and general instability.

 

Have never had any issues with Team Green through a 670, 670 FTW, 680 and now a 780Ti. Yes they screwed the pooch on the 970 memory, but I'll just file that one away for now for future reference. I don't consider that anywhere near as huge as issue as the massive problems I had with team red.

[TechAngel85]

There's one reason why I'm on Team Green.

 

The one time I used Team Red, it was an unmitigated disaster with driver crashes, coil whine out the wazoo and general instability.

 

Have never had any issues with Team Green through a 670, 670 FTW, 680 and now a 780Ti. Yes they screwed the pooch on the 970 memory, but I'll just file that one away for now for future reference. I don't consider that anywhere near as huge as issue as the massive problems I had with team red.

This is one of my main reasons as well. Some of my friends have had so many issues with AMD but some are die hard Team Red fans. The most recent funny that happened was a friend bought an AMD card (don't remember the model) and then turned around two months later to get a GTX 960 because the drivers were crap for the games he was playing. I haven't ran an AMD in 10+ years (they were still ATi back then). I've never had a single issue with Nvidia. They've always been solid in their stability.

[Neovalen]

Analysis/Experience so far based on the changeover from 970 sli to a single 980. The 980 simply can not maintain a solid vsynced 60fps 100% of the time at max settings at 2560x1600 in DA:I. In fact, with 4xMSAA it got down to the 30s in places. Removing MSAA was a constant 54+fps, mostly 60fps capped and I did not notice any stutter or frame oddities with naked eye when it went down. Battlefield 4, not a problem, always over 60 with Ultra including 4xMSAA. These are both in the "notorious" Frostbite 3 engine. I plan to test other games tonight.

 

I think DA:I is more exception rather than rule as its obviously more optimized for consoles. PC is still in the process of being patched massively for various things.

 

That being said, I am actually quite happy moving away from SLI. A lot of flickering and other bothersome graphics bugs are gone and I can actually use borderless full screen without disabling half my graphics power...

[Spock]

This is one of my main reasons as well. Some of my friends have had so many issues with AMD but some are die hard Team Red fans. The most recent funny that happened was a friend bought an AMD card (don't remember the model) and then turned around two months later to get a GTX 960 because the drivers were crap for the games he was playing. I haven't ran an AMD in 10+ years (they were still ATi back then). I've never had a single issue with Nvidia. They've always been solid in their stability.

Interesting! I did have serious problems with my r9 290 cards, but my 280x and my old radeon 9700 pro ran like a champ. My 8800 gts ran well too until 9 months ago, but I heard many of those cards failed very early (preferanly right after the 2 year warrenty). I guess it depends on the series. Afaik NVidia is less prone to driver bugs though but usually AMD sorts them out reasonably soon.

Coil while can actually happen with any spool and therefore isn't related to the chip manufacturer (but to the board manufacturer).

 

@CPU overclocking: Isn't NB overclocking a thing anymore? For me it improved memory bandwidth quite a bit as well. The only two things shortening life expectancy of CPUs are heat and voltage. With my cooler I was able to overclock mine to the limit of stock voltage (3,9 GHz I7 920), imho a reasonable choice for 24 usage. I did have to give the memory controller more voltage though, but way within the limits of what Intel officially deems safe.

 

@Neo: Sadly resolutions above 1200p are till bogging down even the highest end single GPUs. Luckily 30 fps is enough for the kind of games I like to play, but this really is subjective.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Spock

[phazer11]

An 8800 GTS and did you have it since launch in 2006 (and in use)? If so that's kind of impressive.

[Vexzarium]

Gave my 290x a good bashing in TESO, not that TESO is as demanding as say Crysis 3, and was very impressed to see that it never exceeded 61c. I thought these 290x's ran like 90c? And my CPU never exceeded 40 something. Loving this 212 Evo.

 

I'll let my system get a beating for a week or two, then I'll throw an OC at the GPU and CPU. For now, the old school in me wants to let it all burn in a bit.

 

Maybe I've just gotten lucky, or maybe because I chose one of the more expensive 290x's, but my jump to Team Red has actually been a very pleasant one. This 290x is quiet, quick, runs smooth, no heat issues to speak of. I'm really impressed.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Vexzarium

[Neovalen]

This looks to be max that I can do with stock bios, I MAY be able to tweak the memory some more but honestly its not going to buy me any more fps. I pretty much lost the silicon lottery on the memory.

 

 

Been playing Tomb Raider 2013 maxed out with 2xSSAA and its running great. Boost clock shows 1512 in game and with a manual set 60% fan speed I never go above 60c! Now that everything appears stable I will get back to business as usual. :)

 

Check out my sig for 3dMark link if curious.

[Vexzarium]

So I take it we do not have to wait for a burn in to commence the overclocking?

[Spock]

An 8800 GTS and did you have it since launch in 2006 (and in use)? If so that's kind of impressive.

I cannot recall the exact date, the card was launched april 2007. It held for about 5 1/2 years. The card didn't see any load for the last 2 years of it's lifetime, did play barely any games during that time. In the end, temps where horrible because the cooler was so dusty, something over 55°C if I remember right :)

The 9700 pro held for 5 years too under heavy use. It didn't reach the end of it's lifetime because my mainboard failed and it was an AGP card.

Sadly smaller, bigger chips inevitably come with a shorter lifetime.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Spock

[cult77]

I had ati amd nvidia even a voodoo card back in the old day and a matrix even ,i dont consider myself a fan of either of the two teams.Never had a problem with an ati/amd card,once a nvidia card got burned but i considered it was a faulty psu.The problem is that i bought a qosmio toshiba for a 2500 euros and it had a 560m nvidia card which got burned twice while being under warranty.I never did any overclocking,the card is hot as hell even at idle and throttles like crazy even playing simple games.

 Last year i built my pc and got a r9270x oc version which till now can play alot of games in 1920 resoolution and modded skyrim with vividian enb

 As a conclusion i am trying to get value for money from my cards but i am abit dissapointed from nvidia.

[Jverv]

So I take it we do not have to wait for a burn in to commence the overclocking?

The rule of thumb these days is to put some time in on your hardware to make sure it's not faulty out of box so then you can tell if you got a bad device or if it's a result of messing around with it. It's up to you though. The old school in me likes to break things in a bit too.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Jverv

[Vexzarium]

I went for it anyway. Couldn't help myself. 

 

I'm so confused, I've compared my GPU-Z after a stable OC and a few burns and it should slaughter a GTX 980 based on the comparison to Neovalen's GPU-Z image as seen above... but we all know the GTX 980 is superior, by quite a bit actually. I'm so confused!

 

Edit: Is it the Clock Speeds? Even though the bandwidth and the like are higher on the 290x? Looks like I'll have to download that massive Fire Strike and see what this thing can and can't actually do :(

 

 

Edit 2: Yeah, I got smoked by Neovalen...

Direct Comparison: https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/4114345/fs/4118680

Edited February 19, 2015 by Vexzarium

[Spock]

That's quite an impressive overclock. Be aware though that stability in benchmarks and actual games is sometimes different.

[FCqt]

Fire Strike is actually a good benchmark to test for stability/artifact. I have no problem at +119mv @ 1150 core/1600 memory in both Fire Strike and actual games like Skyrim and DA:I.

 

Vex, make sure to keep an eye on your VRM 1 Temperature when overclocking your r9 290x as this is where the real heat comes from. With that said you should be fine with a single r9 290x.

Edited February 20, 2015 by FCqt

[perkymcgiggles]

Analysis/Experience so far based on the changeover from 970 sli to a single 980. The 980 simply can not maintain a solid vsynced 60fps 100% of the time at max settings at 2560x1600 in DA:I. In fact, with 4xMSAA it got down to the 30s in places. Removing MSAA was a constant 54+fps, mostly 60fps capped and I did not notice any stutter or frame oddities with naked eye when it went down. Battlefield 4, not a problem, always over 60 with Ultra including 4xMSAA. These are both in the "notorious" Frostbite 3 engine. I plan to test other games tonight.

 

Yeah, it isn't easy powering 2560x1600 with my 780...  I had to disable the graphics portion of ENB for Skyrim Revisited in the end because I hated the drops in framerate.  Even games like Far Cry 4 and Dying Light I need to drop my resolution if I want stable 60FPS... I think it might be time for an upgrade, but I kind of doubt the 980 is going to be enough by itself judging by your experience with it.