NVIDIA GTX 970 OWNERS THREAD

Legojon · 24 Sep 2014 at 16:14

Does the MSI card have a 6-8 pin PCI-E power adapter in the box? Or was that a different brand I'm thinking of?

Ayahuasca · 24 Sep 2014 at 16:16

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

You bought reference style cards didn't you? That's all those will allow, the MSI, Giga and other overclocked models allow +87 but obviously it doesn't do anything extra due to voltage being limited to 1.25v.

Pelinox · 24 Sep 2014 at 16:16

Legojon said:
Does the MSI card have a 6-8 pin PCI-E power adapter in the box? Or was that a different brand I'm thinking of?

It does.

Anyone know why i can't undervolt the card in Afterburner? Would be fun to check if the card could run without the fans ever spinning

Captain · 24 Sep 2014 at 16:16

The MSI one does

Andy321 · 24 Sep 2014 at 16:23

Legojon said:
Does the MSI card have a 6-8 pin PCI-E power adapter in the box? Or was that a different brand I'm thinking of?

Yes, mine did.

razorpakk · 24 Sep 2014 at 16:23

JediFragger said:
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

I also have the R4, what kind of airflow do you have? I have the 2 140mm in front and one in the back, nothing else. The single 970 went up to 67 during Heaven (and this might depend on graphical settings as well).

Phinor · 24 Sep 2014 at 16:59

P0tenc said:
I went for the Gigabyte because I wanted the cherry picked GPU and the extra cooling. The problem for me is that the card is relatively speaking loud at idle. I know sound is subjective but my system has 0 moving parts when idling, and this makes 3x fans spinning at ~1500RPM sound intrusive. I am instead going to go for the cheaper plastic shroud MSI GTX 970 with 0db idle fans and no backplate. I will have lower overclocks but this is a compromise I will make.

I was afraid of this. I currently have MSI Gaming GTX 770 and at the lowest fan speed setting in Afterburner, it's still audible. Well, it was audible, then one of the fans broke and I swapped in an aftermarket cooler (MK-26) with couple of TY-141 coolers, but even those fans at the lowest setting Afterburner allows are still a bit noisy.

Long story short, I already ordered a GTX 970, specifically the Gigabyte G1 because the cooler had the most potential/headroom. Paid quite a bit premium too, but GPU cooling isn't the place I want to save money at. Still, I'd like the card to be very quiet when idle. Maybe I should have gone with MSI but so many people had fan issues with Twin Frozr IV models so I really didn't consider MSI this time around.

I wonder if Afterburner can be hacked to allow lower RPM settings. Currently it seems to not allow settings below 34% or so (seems to vary a bit between cards).

jwilliamson47 · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:02

so you would go for the msi instead?

drs101 · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:23

Phinor said:
I wonder if Afterburner can be hacked to allow lower RPM settings. Currently it seems to not allow settings below 34% or so (seems to vary a bit between cards).

have you tried the gigabyte OC Guru II ?

http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/utility.aspx?cg=3

think you can do custom fan profiles, have this card and its great low noise for me but then my cpu is air cooled.

JediFragger · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:41

razorpakk said:
I also have the R4, what kind of airflow do you have? I have the 2 140mm in front and one in the back, nothing else. The single 970 went up to 67 during Heaven (and this might depend on graphical settings as well).

Same here but I have a 140mm at the bottom too blowing up at the bottom card (but I'm guessing it helps me all over). Def try it

My H75 is in a push/pull config at the rear

Altogether I'm very happy, cpu doesn't go over 60c when gaming either at 4.7Ghz! (delidded 4770k) :cool:

Just before next Summer I plan on adding a 240mm AiO at the top of the case (whichever is best performing at the time)

Stunned at the great temps and utter silence (at idle, not much higher when gaming/encoding)

edit - Have also removed top HDD cage as not needed)

JonnyG1982 · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:44

RavenXXX2 said:
Check this G1 out, over 1800mhz core, not stable but still impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cxCn_7MZZE

Does that read 1802mhz? Can't really see on phone. Doesn't valley misread core speed? On mine it gives a higher figure than it really is.

P0tenc · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:45

Phinor said:
I wonder if Afterburner can be hacked to allow lower RPM settings. Currently it seems to not allow settings below 34% or so (seems to vary a bit between cards).

From experience your best bet is changing the setting in bios, even then most of the time it is hard capped at 30%. I managed to get my MSI GTX 560ti from 40% to 30% using a bios mod and no lower. My MSI GTX 670's both would not go lower than 30% fan speed. Same thing with my MSI R9 270. I just realised I actually buy a lot of MSI graphics cards :eek:

No I am not a fan boy, I buy whatever seems best at the time of purchase

I think it could be something to do with the hardware fan controller used by the manufacturer.

P0tenc · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:47

JonnyG1982 said:
Does that read 1802mhz? Can't really see on phone. Doesn't valley misread core speed? On mine it gives a higher figure than it really is.

Valley always gave me the wrong core speed readings with my GTX 670's, it seemed to have read the max boost values in the bios instead of actual clock speed.

$ilent · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:49

My SLI GTX 970 result at 1582Mhz core clock and stock memory.

Locky · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:58

This is the temps I get after a few rounds of valley

At the top you have FPS and Frame times

GPU: TEMPS, GPU usage, Volts, Fan speed, Core speed.

Mem: Speed, usage in MB

I have made my own fan profle and anything up to 75% I can't hear over my very quiet case fans.

stooeh · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:58

So Tri-SLI a waste of time on an i5 2500K Socket 1155 ? (EVGA Z68 FTW) PCIE 2.0
How about if a BIOS update would allow me to use ivybridge CPU + PCIE 3

rob77 · 24 Sep 2014 at 18:05

Ayahuasca said:
That's warm for single card, were fans on auto?

Yes that is on auto. In normal gaming it goes up to around 60c - 65c

Cavallino · 24 Sep 2014 at 18:19

Folks is there a great deal of difference in performance between the 970/980 and a 780 TI?

vintage-x · 24 Sep 2014 at 18:25

My 970s finally arrived and are setup.
I'm using after burner OSD but it's only showing a clock speed of 540mhz on both GPUs
My drivers are the latest nvidia ones

The rest of my system specs are :
4770k @ 4ghz
8gb ram
650watt psu

obraxis · 24 Sep 2014 at 18:47

Cavallino said:
Folks is there a great deal of difference in performance between the 970/980 and a 780 TI?

The only reason you would swap a 780Ti for a 970/980 is for the energy efficiency and new tech. If you have money to burn great, but you wont see much of a performance boost.

Then again, it might lop off a decent amount off your energy bills if you game a lot.