NVIDIA GTX 970 OWNERS THREAD

ubersonic · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:09

Got my Galax blowers today and slung them in (after removing my WC'd GTX780 and switching the loop to CPU only) and my first though was "Oh gawd something sounds broken!" luckily it was just the idle noise of these GTX970 cards lol. Seriously if you are not intending to water cool and you don't like fan noise then avoid the 970 blowers (at least until the titan cooled OCUK ones arrive).

Bimmy and Jimmy seem to be doing me proud so far, going to test them extensively before fitting water blocks of course.

Legojon · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:14

Gibbo said:
Just send them back under DSR as this will be fine as it's due to noise and I'd advice you buy one of the custom cooled cards marketed towards low noise and as such recommend MSI 970 Gaming.

We will b-grade your old cards and someone can grab a bargain. Any issues just show the RMA adviser this post.

Hi, please could you help me too. I originally ordered 2xMSI cards, but saw the EVGA was faster out of the box and swapped my order. But they are so noisy (even at idle) and one or both has a high pitched whine! I really wish I'd stuck with the MSI. If I order 2xMSI first (don't want to be without my computer) can I DSR the EVGAs please?

Edited: Just been into the next room and asked the wife... and it's not tinnitus, the high pitched whine from the computer is through the house!

Bigbud · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:19

Got my gigabyte running at 1500 boost and it seems solid on stock volts, upped my mem by 375 (1752 std) and started getting a bit of flashing in heaven. Should I just rain back the mem until I dont get flashing ? Or should I leave it standard ?

Sorry for noob question :?

Gibbo · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:20

Legojon said:
Hi, please could you help me too. I originally ordered 2xMSI cards, but saw the EVGA was faster out of the box and swapped my order. But they are so noisy (even at idle) and one or both has a high pitched whine! I really wish I'd stuck with the MSI. If I order 2xMSI first (don't want to be without my computer) can I DSR the EVGAs please?

Yes.
Surprised the EVGA is noisy though, has it got ACX cooler? Could just be faulty fans.

It's the reference style cheap blower fans as found on Palit, Galax, Gainward radial style blowers which are not silent. I'll change the product descriptions on those cards tomorrow to warn people they are not quiet.

The 980 reference cooler is very quiet but it does cost a fortune in comparison.

thefogo · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:23

ubersonic said:
Got my Galax blowers today and slung them in (after removing my WC'd GTX780 and switching the loop to CPU only) and my first though was "Oh gawd something sounds broken!" luckily it was just the idle noise of these GTX970 cards lol. Seriously if you are not intending to water cool and you don't like fan noise then avoid the 970 blowers (at least until the titan cooled OCUK ones arrive).

Bimmy and Jimmy seem to be doing me proud so far, going to test them extensively before fitting water blocks of course.

Yep the idle noise was what bothered me. Loudest cards at idle I've ever had.
Glad to hear it's not just me being picky

Rroff · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:24

Bigbud said:
Got my gigabyte running at 1500 boost and it seems solid on stock volts, upped my mem by 375 (1752 std) and started getting a bit of flashing in heaven. Should I just rain back the mem until I dont get flashing ? Or should I leave it standard ?

Sorry for noob question :?

Heaven does sometimes have little flickers and artefacts itself so its not a 100% accurate guide, however if your sure its caused by increasing clocks then drop it down a bit til they go away as even if heaven is stable with artefacts it will cause crashing in other games.

Keep in mind that the core and memory clocks will likely got in increments - I'm not sure off the top of my head what they are for maxwell cards but I think memory goes in steps of 6MHz (check what speed that GPU-z actually shows in the sensors tab for a given change).

Legojon · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:33

Gibbo said:
Yes.
Surprised the EVGA is noisy though, has it got ACX cooler? Could just be faulty fans.

It's the reference style cheap blower fans as found on Palit, Galax, Gainward radial style blowers which are not silent. I'll change the product descriptions on those cards tomorrow to warn people they are not quiet.

The 980 reference cooler is very quiet but it does cost a fortune in comparison.

I'm not sure if its how they are supposed to sound, not sure if people are joking saying set the MSI card fans to 100% and they are still quiet. But when the temp nears 80 degrees the fan noise is quite distracting (I'll have to check % speed as I'm not sure). Oh and yeah, it is the ACX1.0 cooler.

Rroff · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:38

Most GPU fans are fairly quiet until they hit 60% - at which point most are audible above other case noise/from outside the case and will quickly ramp upto make a fair racket.

Generally under normal conditions most GPU fans stay under or close to 60% but in multi GPU setups or with insufficient airflow they can quickly get above that.

thefogo · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:40

These reference cards are audible for me at 29% which is a shame as they run fairly cool and the fan rpm is quite low.

Legojon have you tried the cards separately?

Gibbo · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:46

Legojon said:
I'm not sure if its how they are supposed to sound, not sure if people are joking saying set the MSI card fans to 100% and they are still quiet. But when the temp nears 80 degrees the fan noise is quite distracting (I'll have to check % speed as I'm not sure). Oh and yeah, it is the ACX1.0 cooler.

Not a joke I found the MSI at 100% was no issue at all! could hear it but not annoying in the slightest.

mikeo · 23 Sep 2014 at 21:55

Got my MSI GTX 970 gaming this lunchtime.

Appears a top card. Dead quiet and even in Heaven only hits 65C. Boosts to 1354 MHz out of the box. Must admit that I was surprised that it was so much quicker than my MSI 670 Twin Frozr PE.... across all test thrown at it, was around 40% faster! and that's before OCing it.

Very pleased at the moment.

ubersonic · 23 Sep 2014 at 22:04

thefogo said:
These reference cards are audible for me at 29% which is a shame as they run fairly cool and the fan rpm is quite low.

It's not the fan spinning noise or air moving noise we're hearing, it's the noise of the motor repeatedly kicking the fan under such a low PWM setting, try manually setting a curve so it bottoms out at 40%, no joke but I find the noise less annoying at 40% because the fan whirr drowns out the motor noise lol, may not work for you but worth a try.

Goodie · 23 Sep 2014 at 22:20

Just noticed the eta on the gigabyte 970's has slipped back to next Monday from today, was hoping to get my new build done over the weekend

thefogo · 23 Sep 2014 at 22:33

ubersonic said:
It's not the fan spinning noise or air moving noise we're hearing, it's the noise of the motor repeatedly kicking the fan under such a low PWM setting, try manually setting a curve so it bottoms out at 40%, no joke but I find the noise less annoying at 40% because the fan whirr drowns out the motor noise lol, may not work for you but worth a try.

Yeah I don't even begin to hear airflow until 45%, the motor noise drowns it out.

Legojon · 23 Sep 2014 at 22:51

Gibbo said:
Not a joke I found the MSI at 100% was no issue at all! could hear it but not annoying in the slightest.

At about 60% its difficult to focus on gaming... at 70% its unbearable... is that enough to return them for the MSIs? Keeping in mind the fans are always above 60% when gaming.

thefogo · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:05

Legojon said:
At about 60% its difficult to focus on gaming... at 70% its unbearable... is that enough to return them for the MSIs? Keeping in mind the fans are always above 60% when gaming.

If you have bad airflow the MSI cards could be the same. What case do you have?

Legojon · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:13

thefogo said:
If you have bad airflow the MSI cards could be the same. What case do you have?

Coolermaster HAF XB. Has 2x 140mm fans at the front and 1x 120mm + 2 x 80mm at the back. 1x25cm fan exhaust in the roof.

Edited: I've just installed evga precision. Selected the "quiet" profile. This limits the GPU to 50% fan speed... at the expense of from the looks of it limiting the boost clock when it hits 80 degrees. And I'm not sure the profile is working because although the OSD says 49% fan speed, it sounds more like when I manually set it to about 70%. Depressing. I think its made my mind up to return them.

If thats ok Gibbo?

Chuk_Chuk · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:46

Well it took the best part of most of my evening. But I finally put it together. Going to spend the night downloading all my games again.

I was testing out 3d mark and i got a horrible buzzing sound when ever it's running a scene, any ideas why?

colinmcr · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:48

EVGA are saying their default fan setting is "aggressive" and they are changing it for a quieter idle speed.
But they say you can change it using Precision anyway should you wish.

swillsy · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:49

Just had a go at installing my new msi 970 to replace the 7850 however my games are now just crashing (minus kerbal space program) as soon as I try opening them. I've tried reseating the card, reinstalling drivers, removing asus oc tool and swapping pci e cables. Anyone else get this issue?

Games tried bf4, dayz and Total war.