my honest opinion about gtx 970's.

[huracan]

hello, so as the title says its a review about gtx 970's not just one 970 but of various 970's. so earlier this month i went and purchased most of the required components to build a computer from NCIX which includes processor, motherboard, GPU, case and cooler(CPU). And the rest of the components from newegg.ca and directcanada.com(if u are interested in my components here's a linkhttp://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/2JpM23). so about a week later i assembled all the components and everything was perfectly fine and i began running some initial tests regarding the stability after i installed the OS. as soon as i launched fur mark i began to notice a very high pitched buzzing noise also known as coil whine (i was running a zotac card, stock zotac  no amp omega or alpha). so the next day i went to the store and exchanged it for a gigabyte gtx 970 windforce oc card which by the was looks beautiful. so i stared to do some stability tests and began to notice that it was running fine with a bit of coil whine in it and so i started running battlefield 4, it played fine for about 30 to 40 minutes  and the game crashed. as always i blamed dice and moved on played trine 2 it was running fine for about another 15 to 30 minutes and the game crashed, so i blamed the drivers and downgraded them to 344.xx drivers and started playing trine 2 again and the game crashed at this point i am convinced that it was the gpu's fault, kudos to your patience if you made it this far. so as i was saying i exchanged the card with another gtx 970 this time it being a beautiful looking msi twin frozr card. so far the card is stable and dead silent when idle. but under load it has a bit of coil whine, with especially this card some times u notice it because its dead silent, anyways it wasn't as bad as zotac's. so ​ to the conclusion be careful when buying a gtx 970, its an absolute monster for the price it sells for, but not at the cost of coil whine it produces. if your card has no coil whine you are very lucky as the 3 cards i owned had and has coil whine. i would recommend buying from a vendor like ncix or newegg,etc... which have at least a 15 to 30 days return policy, so if anything goes wrong you can return it with no problem like i did, kudos to ncix for their 30 days return policy on defective products. 

[huracan]

i will update the topic if this msi card shows any kind of troubles.

[Enderman]

If you got 3 cards with coil whine then its not the cards, its your PSU.

[Aniallation]

to the conclusion be careful when buying a gtx 970, its an absolute monster for the price it sells for, but not at the cost of coil whine it produces. if your card has no coil whine you are very lucky as the 3 cards i owned had and has coil whine. i would recommend buying from a vendor like ncix or newegg,etc... which have at least a 15 to 30 days return policy, so if anything goes wrong you can return it with no problem like i did, kudos to ncix for their 30 days return policy on defective products.     

 

Or unless you have a 400W PSU or something, get a 290/290X.

[huracan]

If you got 3 cards with coil whine then its not the cards, its your PSU.

well u have an excellent point but when i went to the store they checked if the card(s) has any kind of coil whine and the cards seems to have coil whine. so as far as the psu goes i think its fine its just the card.

[huracan]

Or unless you have a 400W PSU or something, get a 290/290X.

yeah with all the problems i had, i was considering to jump to r9 series but i was concerned about the power usage so i sticked to the 970 series.

[huracan]

tldr

yeah i understand so for ppl who have no time for this i made the conclusion bold and chanced the size 

[Enderman]

well u have an excellent point but when i went to the store they checked if the card(s) has any kind of coil whine and the cards seems to have coil whine. so as far as the psu goes i think its fine its just the card.

Just because it also had coil whine at the store too doesnt mean its the card. Many PSUs cause coil whine, but as many people have found, sometimes there is a PSU that will not cause coil whine. Afaik there is no specific brand or type of PSU that doesnt cause coil whine since every one is a little different, but there have been several cases where someone tries a spare PSU and it completely removes their coil whine.

[huracan]

Just because it also had coil whine at the store too doesnt mean its the card. Many PSUs cause coil whine, but as many people have found, sometimes there is a PSU that will not cause coil whine. Afaik there is no specific brand or type of PSU that doesnt cause coil whine since every one is a little different, but there have been several cases where someone tries a spare PSU and it completely removes their coil whine.

how would u me to test the psu? cause i have no spare psu or neither do i have friends who have like a 500w psu they are all console gamers. 

[Enderman]

how would u me to test the psu? cause i have no spare psu or neither do i have friends who have like a 500w psu they are all console gamers. 

idk...it would be useful to be like linus, with ten different PSU to test...

[TheMcSame]

My 980 (which is basically a 970 with more cuda cores AFIA) doesn't whine much, for some reason it whines when I close Heaven but I don't hear it whine often...  It's just luck really.

 

Also, a little tip. Don't use FurMark to test stability, just because it's stable in FurMark it doesn't mean that it will be stable doing other things. I found that out when I was overclocking my card, got the memory to something stupid like (I don't remember the exact figure) 8.7GHz (effective obviously), ran fine in FurMark, went to test it in Heaven and it crashed almost instantly.

[huracan]

My 980 (which is basically a 970 with more cuda cores AFIA) doesn't whine much, for some reason it whines when I close Heaven but I don't hear it whine often...  It's just luck really.

 

Also, a little tip. Don't use FurMark to test stability, just because it's stable in FurMark it doesn't mean that it will be stable doing other things. I found that out when I was overclocking my card, got the memory to something stupid like (I don't remember the exact figure) 8.7GHz (effective obviously), ran fine in FurMark, went to test it in Heaven and it crashed almost instantly.

yeah it happens to me as well when i close valley benchmark it coil whines weird for some reason. yeah i learned it today while overclocking, but as far as the gigabyte card goes it was perfectly fine in heaven as well.

 

idk...it would be useful to be like linus, with ten different PSU to test...

yeah well i wish had ten psu's to test it, for now i will have to rely on what i have. 

[Aniallation]

yeah with all the problems i had, i was considering to jump to r9 series but i was concerned about the power usage so i sticked to the 970 series.

If you have a decent 500W or higher then you'll have no problem running a 290.

[Norman_the_Owl]

If you got 3 cards with coil whine then its not the cards, its your PSU.

970s have had lots of reported coil whine, OP's experience isn't that strange

[Faceman]

Coil whine goes away after 2 months.  problem solved.

[huracan]

Coil whine goes away after 2 months.  problem solved.

how does that work? 

[Faceman]

how does that work? 

Its like a new pair of shoes, it takes awhile to break them in.

 

My EVGA GTX 780SC had some wicked coil whine.  It went away after 2 months.

[EpicAdom]

Or unless you have a 400W PSU or something, get a 290/290X.

Dude. He posted a pcpartpicker link. With a 600 watt psu in it...

[Nickolas47]

I have my strix 970 for about two weeks now and I haver experienced zero problems

[Aniallation]

Dude. He posted a pcpartpicker link. With a 600 watt psu in it...

Dude. It was sarcasm. I never asked him what PSU he had.

[EpicAdom]

Dude. It was sarcasm. I never asked him what PSU he had.

my bad...

[Briggsy]

yeah with all the problems i had, i was considering to jump to r9 series but i was concerned about the power usage so i sticked to the 970 series.

 

I'm not sure you should be concerned. Most reviews of the 290/290x are using the AMD reference cooler, which makes a 290 use quite a bit more power than aftermarket cooling, and a lot more power than water cooling. the reference AMD cooler is a POS and can't pull heat away from the hawaii gpu fast enough, which means more heat, more resistance, more voltage required to overcome the resistance, and ultimately more power draw. The graph below is using the reference AMD cooler.

 

[Enderman]

970s have had lots of reported coil whine, OP's experience isn't that strange

It has been found that you can switch PSUs to remove coil whine. Not to any specific PSU though, its more like trial and error. The problem is not the GPU, but the GPU+PSU combination that causes coil whine.

 

Coil whine goes away after 2 months.  problem solved.

Not always.

[HippY]

I'm not sure you should be concerned. Most reviews of the 290/290x are using the AMD reference cooler, which makes a 290 use quite a bit more power than aftermarket cooling, and a lot more power than water cooling. the reference AMD cooler is a POS and can't pull heat away from the hawaii gpu fast enough, which means more heat, more resistance, more voltage required to overcome the resistance, and ultimately more power draw. The graph below is using the reference AMD cooler.

 

=pic=

Also bear in mind, this chart is using TOTAL power usage, not the card only ( it is not aimed at you, but I saw people claiming that it is a 300W card....)

For the price( below GTX 970) and performance, they are surprisingly comparable cards, even 1 year old

[Rovert19]

I have my strix 970 for about two weeks now and I haver experienced zero problems

I have the same card, have coil whine