NVIDIA GTX 970 OWNERS THREAD

JediFragger · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:22

rob77 said:
Those running MSI 970 SLI, what temps are you seeing? On my single MSI 970 I have seen 75c in heaven after 30 mins continuous and might want to add an extra card if the temps do not go too high.

Cheers

Wow, I must have some crazy well-placed fans! My cards max'd out at 68c (top card) and 62c after 30 mins of Heaven :cool:

P0tenc · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:30

Freddy1765 said:
Are you sure there's no way to lower the rpm further? 1500 is twice as much as my Windforce 670 idles at, and obviously way too high.

I tried Afterburner and it would not drop lower than 35% fan speed which is about 1500RPM. Don't get me wrong, for most people it will be silent because their CPU/PSU/Case fans/HDD will make more noise. For me however it was a deal breaker. I would say they were a bit louder than my previous MSI gtx 670's (PE/OC) in SLI which idled at about ~1000RPM.

I guess it could be possible with a bios mod to drop the fan speed to 30%, it really depends on the hardware used to regulate it. My guess from past experience is that it wont go lower than 30% even with a bios mod.

Frenzy · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:31

Josu said:
Yes, i know what people using afterburner, but i scarry to burn my cards) once i try it was a bad experience for me)))

Just don't add extra voltage, you can up the power limit to max (110% on MSI cards) and it won't hurt the card one bit, unlocking the voltage and adding 87mV won't hurt it either.

If you are really worried (you shouldn't be) just increase the core and memory sliders until you find a stable stock voltage overclock.

ramdrive · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:31

Just had a little delivery from DPD, great service from OCUK

Ayahuasca · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:32

Josu said:
Yes, i know what people using afterburner, but i scarry to burn my cards) once i try it was a bad experience for me)))

Maybe you should just leave them stock, it's pretty simple:

With afterburner installed and no settings messed with it won't allow you to increase voltage anyway, so less likely to burn your card, not that +87mv would do that anyway as it seems it only really adds +32mv.

For a starting point try 110% power, +100 on the core and memory at +500mhz, most Samsung ram on these cards seems to be able to handle it fine.

Put the fan to 100% and run a benchmark such as firestrike or heaven. You can leave the fan at auto if you want, I just always max it for benchmarking.

If it works increase the core in 20mhz stages until it crashes or artifacts. Then lower it to the previous value that worked.

Do all this and then if you want extra from overvolting ask how to do that.

Freddy1765 · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:39

P0tenc said:
I tried Afterburner and it would not drop lower than 35% fan speed which is about 1500RPM. Don't get me wrong, for most people it will be silent because their CPU/PSU/Case fans/HDD will make more noise. For me however it was a deal breaker. I would say they were a bit louder than my previous MSI gtx 670's (PE/OC) in SLI which idled at about ~1000RPM.

Thank you for clarifying. I'm sure 1500 rpm will be quiet enough for most people, but like you I'm very picky about noise. It's not for nothing I spent a bucketload on Noctua fans and got rid of my HDDs in favor of SSDs.

I've now changed my order to the MSI as well; I'll sacrifice the sexy looks of the Gigabyte in favor of silence.
This also means I'll get the card tomorrow rather than wait two weeks for Gigabyte to get in stock at my local retailer, which is certainly a nice bonus.

Pelinox · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:42

Just received my MSI 970, tucked it in and opened up Afterburner. I'm not able to add voltage, although its ticket in settings. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Ayahuasca · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:43

Pelinox said:
Just received my MSI 970, tucked it in and opened up Afterburner. I'm not able to add voltage, although its ticket in settings. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Settings > tick Unlock voltage control

Restart afterburner

ubersonic · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:45

Ayahuasca said:
Maybe you should just leave them stock, it's pretty simple:

With afterburner installed and no settings messed with it won't allow you to increase voltage anyway, so less likely to burn your card, not that +87mv would do that anyway as it seems it only really adds +32mv.

For a starting point try 110% power, +100 on the core and memory at +500mhz, most Samsung ram on these cards seems to be able to handle it fine.

Put the fan to 100% and run a benchmark such as firestrike or heaven. You can leave the fan at auto if you want, I just always max it for benchmarking.

If it works increase the core in 20mhz stages until it crashes or artifacts. Then lower it to the previous value that worked.

Do all this and then if you want extra from overvolting ask how to do that.

I'm worried now, I just whacked 200MHz onto the core (did 100/125/150/175 first) but didn't touch power %, should I?

Pelinox · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:46

Ayahuasca said:
Settings > tick Unlock voltage control

Restart afterburner

That's what i did. Still not able to do anything :mad:

Will reinstall it i guess

Andy321 · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:48

What's other peoples MSI 970 Gaming voltage hit when at +87mv?

I tried +37mv on mine and gpuz read 1.25v up from 1.20v, then I tried +87mv and was still 1.25v?

Ayahuasca · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:49

ubersonic said:
I'm worried now, I just whacked 200MHz onto the core (did 100/125/150/175 first) but didn't touch power %, should I?

If it works then it doesn't matter, I just do it so the card is less likely to hit the power limit.

Pelinox said:
That's what i did. Still not able to do anything

Will reinstall it i guess

Did you install/reinstall drivers after installing the card?

Andy321 said:
What's other peoples MSI 970 Gaming voltage hit when at +87mv?

I tried +37mv on mine and gpuz read 1.25v up from 1.20v, then I tried +87mv and was still 1.25v?

That's the issue, +87mv doesn't actually add that, it seems the card is BIOS limited to 1.25v. That's why between stock voltage and +87mv I can only add around an extra 80-90mhz, with +87mv properly applied I'd be able to break past 1600 I think.

Pelinox · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:50

Ayahuasca said:
Did you install/reinstall drivers after installing the card?

Nope, but just installing the new driver now, reinstalling Afterburner worked though

P0tenc · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:51

Freddy1765 said:
Thank you for clarifying. I'm sure 1500 rpm will be quiet enough for most people, but like you I'm very picky about noise. It's not for nothing I spent a bucketload on Noctua fans and got rid of my HDDs in favor of SSDs.

I've now changed my order to the MSI as well; I'll sacrifice the sexy looks of the Gigabyte in favor of silence.
This also means I'll get the card tomorrow rather than wait two weeks for Gigabyte to get in stock at my local retailer, which is certainly a nice bonus.

No problem, my MSI GTX 970 should be here tomorrow too

It's too bad that there is no backplate or metal shroud on the MSI version. But I don't really care how pretty a component is, if it is not silent at idle it has to go!

Pelinox · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:53

P0tenc said:
No problem, my MSI GTX 970 should be here tomorrow too It's too bad that there is no backplate or metal shroud on the MSI version. But I don't really care how pretty a component is, if it is not silent at idle it has to go!

Cant be more quiet though, no fans spinning till 50c

It's lovely

Frenzy · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:54

It will be silent at idle, fan only kicks in at 60c.

edit: oh it's 50?

Andy321 · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:56

Ayahuasca said:
That's the issue, +87mv doesn't actually add that, it seems the card is BIOS limited to 1.25v. That's why between stock voltage and +87mv I can only add around and extra 80-90mhz, with +87mv properly applied I'd be able to break past 1600 I think.

Ah not just mine then. What's your hitting with stock volts? Mine is doing 1540/8000 stock voltage. What's the safe max voltage on these when we possibly do get full control?

Also can the 970 be flashed/unlocked to 980?

Ayahuasca · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:57

Andy321 said:
Also can the 970 be flashed/unlocked to 980?

Doubt it can be unlocked to a 980. Different PCB I think.

Custom bios or Afterburner hacks should become available to unlock extra voltage and power target though.

Mine is 1.218v at stock, someone had a look in the voltage table in the bios and I think 1.32 is the max we'll see when unlocked bios appear.

Pelinox · 24 Sep 2014 at 16:06

Frenzy said:
It will be silent at idle, fan only kicks in at 60c.

edit: oh it's 50?

Not even sure.. :confused:

Already tweaked it

ubersonic · 24 Sep 2014 at 16:13

Ayahuasca said:
That's the issue, +87mv doesn't actually add that, it seems the card is BIOS limited to 1.25v. That's why between stock voltage and +87mv I can only add around an extra 80-90mhz, with +87mv properly applied I'd be able to break past 1600 I think.

The voltage slider in AB only goes up to 37mv for me if that means anything.