I recently joined the forums, and wanted to introduce myself. I've been a hardware enthusiast, PC Gamer, and System builder since my early teen years and now I'm in my mid 20s, but I joined this forum because I love the Linus' reviews and videos he makes. I figured, I'll start by giving back to the community by writing my own review on a product I have recently purchased off of Newegg.com, the ZOTAC ZT-90106-10P GTX 970 AMP! Omega Core Edition Video card.
Please keep in mind that this is the first time I'm writing a review, so don't be too harsh if it does not answer some of your questions, however, I'd love to expand more on the review if you guys are interested:
So far my experience with the ZOTAC GTX 970 AMP! Omega Core edition has been nothing but very pleasant. I have been through many manufacturers that claim their product is the best, but there is always something that makes you wonder whether another company could do better. This is the first time I have tried ZOTAC, and so far everything has been solid.
ZOTAC has standard packaging just like any other vendor would have, including the driver cd, some documentation, and accessories.
While the provided Molex to 6-pin PCI-E power adapters are a nice addition to the video card, I don't think many users will actually need it, considering most of today's even low end power supplies already come with a 6-pin PCI-E power connector. It might come handy if your PSU only supports one 6-pin PCI-E power connector. On the other hand the new 900 series cards have been quite good at maintaining a very low TDP (145W - GTX 970) compared to the AMD close equivalent 290X GPU (290W TDP). This would generally mean that the card requires a lower thermal design, and could get away with quieter cooling solutions, as well as lower power consumption during load. From my research though, it looks like the GTX 970 and 290X are not too much off in actual power consumption (50-100W difference), but will have a drastic difference in heat output. We'll take a closer look at temperatures later in the review.
The actual card is roughly 11" in length and should fit most of today's desktop PC cases, along with small form factor cases designed for gamers. The part that was the most appealing to me though was the IceStorm Triple Fan cooler design and its ability to keep the card cool at a silent operation during gameplay. Sometimes stock cards with a single or dual fan design can't keep a card silent due to their CFM rating and cooling potential. With a wider and bigger cooler design, and more fans, lower RPM can achieve just as much airflow as a smaller cooler with fewer fans would at a higher RPM.
The actual design of the cooler is very solid. I've come across some cards that have a super thin and flimsy cooler design, especially the GIGABYTE Windforce cooler series cards on the older generation cards. This cooler is very sturdy, looks nice, and the PCB backplate keeps the card from bending in the PCI-E slot on the motherboard. Not only that but it helps dissipate heat from the card to cool the components that allow the card to perform at its top potential. This should become a standard on all video cards in my opinion.
The card has two 6-pin power connectors, that will draw roughly 150W tops, including additional 75W from the PCI-E Slot if I remember correctly. Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.
One thing that kind of frustrates me is the movement towards DisplayPort. I have nothing but annoyance with that cable, but perhaps I've only used cheap cables that broke easily. One time I had a displayport break into the output of a video card on a GTX 580. Not fun. Since then, it is possible that this has changed and there are no more problems like this. Besides the 3 DisplayPorts, the is one HDMI port and one DVI port. I would have like to see three DVI ports, but looks like most GTX 970 come with these display outputs. Possible reason could be the new trend towards 4K monitors, but I don't think that would be a good choice for a single GTX 970, and even if you would have an SLI configuration, I believe the problem with the 3.5GB memory that Nvidia admitted to would prevent you from enjoying your games the way they should be played. In that case I would move up to two GTX 980s, or go with a Titan.
Benchmarks:
I've only had a 1080p monitor to test the video card on, but I don't think a single card would be ideal for anything much bigger than that. 2560x1440 might be a possible option, but that might be pushing the performance of a single card, and a GTX 980 might be necessary if you're considering to max out your games. 4K, I wouldn't even think about, unless going with SLI.
System Specs: * Intel Core i7-4790K @ 4.4Ghz
* ASUS Z97-Pro Motherboard
* 256GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD
* 1TB WD Hard Drive * 16GB DDR3 1866Mhz
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Metro Last Light (1080p 4xAA, PhysX Enabled, Highest Setting for Tessellation) AVG: 51.18FPS
Battlefield 4 (Ultra Settings) Avg: 84FPS
Crysis 3 (1080p 4xAA)
AVG: 44FPS
Far Cry 3 (1080p 4xAA)
AVG: 65.2FPS
Bioshock Infinite (1080p Maxed)
AVG: 141.1FPS
Temperature Gaming for 1 hour
Max: 63C
Avg: 61C
Idle: 29C
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I hope you guys found this review helpful. As I said, so far I had no issues with the card whatsoever. The cooling is solid, the card runs extremely quiet even after an hour of gameplay, and as someone who has tried other vendors such as EVGA, GIGABYTE, ASUS, I cannot personally tell the difference in quality or lack in service ZOTAC would provide as of yet. The card does run for $359.99 which is a bit higher from the standard card that ZOTAC offers, but this card has been nothing but pleasure to use, and I couldn't be happier. The overclocking of the card is excellent too, and manged to squeeze out over 100MHz in Core and 200MHz in memory without touching voltages, without any issues, however, I do not have any benchmark results for that as of yet. If anybody is interested, please let me know.
Arguments are not a reason to break up, if you put 2 people in a room long enough they'll either fight or make babies, and if you keep them in there super long, they'll do both.
2 different people will always fight sooner or later. don't wuss out. (unless it's hella bad)
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