GTX 970 Owners Club

[lol1290]

Im buying a 970, and choosing between gigabyte gtx 970 3x oc and evga gtx 970 superclocked, I know that evga's has a higher clock speed, but gigabyte's looks better and has a better cooler, so I want to know if there will be a lot of difference because of that higher clock speed at evga's 970. Can somebody help me?

(btw, im not going to OC)

[F L 4 T]

max out the power limit and show me what the vddc says in GPU-Z.

 

Here it is, with power limit on 133 and stock clocks wit 1.275 bios

[Midnitewarrior4]

I'm about to join the Owners Club, as I'll be purchasing a 970 in two-odd months from now (provided finances go as expected). I was looking to buy the ASUS STRIX, but since MSI, Gigabyte and EVGA all also offer 970s within a very small margin over the price of a STRIX, I thought I might as well ask you guys which one you'd advice me to buy. I like the 0dB feature on the STRIX, and I've had good experiences with ASUS cards in the past, but looking through this thread, the thing doesn't seem to be universally favoured. I'm not the kind of person to be instantly worried by a few negative reviews, but I do wonder whether any of the other brands' cards might not offer an altogether better experience...

*EDIT: More specifically, these are the cards that are, at my prefered online retailer, roughly equally priced, and up for consideration:

- ASUS STRIX GTX970-DC2OC-4GD5 (€381.90)

- MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G (€378.90)

- GigaByte GV-N970 G1 Gaming-4GD (€389.90)

- EVGA GTX 970 Superclocked ACX 2.0 (€389.90)

I own the strix. I'll start off with the positives of the card

-nice backplate

-has a vrm cooling plate (although not conecred to the main cooler)

-decent overclocking, got mine to 1545 on core and 7800 on memory with stock voltage and power limit

- 0db fan mode

now for the negatives

-single 8 pin less power for extreme oc

- no cooling for memory

- from my experience the cooling isn't the best I usually get anywhere from 70-75 degrees at 50-55% fan speed. But I also have an h440 and better airflow could help that.

- can get loud past 50% fan speed and is noticeable if on your desk even with headphones. Not super loud but it's noticeable

That's about all I have to say, I don't regret buying the card as my intentions weren't to go for world record oc. I love the looks of the card with its all black cooler aND nice brushed aluminum backplate. I would recommend the card just if you want more silence and better temps then I have just make sure to have some fresh cool air flowing near the card.

[rjfaber91]

I own the strix.

 

(...)

That's about all I have to say, I don't regret buying the card as my intentions weren't to go for world record oc. I love the looks of the card with its all black cooler aND nice brushed aluminum backplate. I would recommend the card just if you want more silence and better temps then I have just make sure to have some fresh cool air flowing near the card.

 

Well, that was quite useful. I think the cooling thing wouldn't be too much of a problem for me, as I'll have a Phanteks Enthoo Pro case with three added fans by the time I buy the 970, but the rest was very useful feedback. Thanks!

 

On another note: Does anybody here know anything useful about the Gainward GTX970 Phantom? I'm a bit hesitant to throw nearly €400.- at a company I've never heard of, but the card looks fantastic, and the specs seem to be up there with the big boys, so if it's any good, I might throw that in for consideration as well...

[Lollausen]

I'm about to join the Owners Club

I have the G1, beast of a card, and the temps are always in check. I'd say get the G1, or Strixx if you're more of a silence over temps kinda guy. I'd discard the MSI and the EVGA b/c a lot of people seem to experience coil whine. And from what I've heard Zotacs are quite good too but very variable in terms of silicon (a zotac omega edition might actually OC better than an Extreme edition, even though the extreme's got better cooling, higher stock clocks and i think more power pins as well, but not sure about this last one).

whatever you choose i doubt you'll regret it either way, cheers

[rjfaber91]

I have the G1, beast of a card, and the temps are always in check. I'd say get the G1, or Strixx if you're more of a silence over temps kinda guy. I'd discard the MSI and the EVGA b/c a lot of people seem to experience coil whine. And from what I've heard Zotacs are quite good too but very variable in terms of silicon (a zotac omega edition might actually OC better than an Extreme edition, even though the extreme's got better cooling, higher stock clocks and i think more power pins as well, but not sure about this last one).

whatever you choose i doubt you'll regret it either way, cheers

 

Thanks! I also very much doubt I'll regret it, but I can't say I've ever spent this much money on a single component, so I'm quite eager to nail it in one go. Coil whine would be terribly annoying indeed, and I had heard the EVGA 970s were particularly prone to it, but I can't say I'd heard the same about the MSI ones until you just posted it, so that was useful information.

[Midnitewarrior4]

Snip

also with msi and evga they don't have backplates if that matters. And also with msi you run the chance of getting the bad memory which I can't remember the name but it's a bad overclockers. But on the asus and I think gigabyte has the Samsung memory which is a beast overclockers as I said I got a +790 and I could probably get a +800 if I wanted to. Although I just checked my friends msi card and it has samsung yet it can't even oc 5mhz above stock so something Is screwed up there. Also the msi cards have some memory chips on the back of the card so it doesn't get cooling from the coolers fans

[arniks8]

also with msi and evga they don't have backplates if that matters. And also with msi you run the chance of getting the bad memory which I can't remember the name but it's a bad overclockers. But on the asus and I think gigabyte has the Samsung memory which is a beast overclockers as I said I got a +790 and I could probably get a +800 if I wanted to. Although I just checked my friends msi card and it has samsung yet it can't even oc 5mhz above stock so something Is screwed up there. Also the msi cards have some memory chips on the back of the card so it doesn't get cooling from the coolers fans

Gigabyte also has hynix memory.

[Lollausen]

Gigabyte also has hynix memory.

snip#2

True Dat, I made that mistake, make sure if you get a gigabyte G1 gaming that you get the one with samsung memory, at least if you plan on heavy OC, but in fact id consider getting the samsung memory just in case anyway

[Dabombinable]

Gigabyte also has hynix memory.

The Samsung memory though is awesome for overclocking.

[F L 4 T]

Well, currently with 1.275 bios with power limit on 130% , core clock + 195mhz and on memory + 500, and it keeps crashing.

On gpu z with more 195mhz on core clock shows 1598mhz. Dunno why lol

[Gofspar]

Well, currently with 1.275 bios with power limit on 130% , core clock + 195mhz and on memory + 500, and it keeps crashing.

On gpu z with more 195mhz on core clock shows 1598mhz. Dunno why lol

your card cant do it. My bios doesn't guarantee 1600mhz..

[F L 4 T]

your card cant do it. My bios doesn't guarantee 1600mhz..

 

Hey, I know it's not your bios fault and that you do not guarantee it , all cpu and gpu are different I know that.

It's only disappointing, you know. 

[MasteRisHoT]

So I have core now on +180 and memory on +450 stable. Will lowering the memory and increasing core clock give me more fps?

[Ariona]

I plan to overclock my EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 1.0 (I jumped the gun on launch so yeah oh well~ ) 

 

MIs Afterburner or EVGA overclocking tool or the Asus one? 

[Gofspar]

I plan to overclock my EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 1.0 (I jumped the gun on launch so yeah oh well~ ) 

 

MIs Afterburner or EVGA overclocking tool or the Asus one? 

MSI Afterburner

 

make your settings look like this.

 

 

Then max the voltage and power slider then see where you core takes you.

[Ariona]

MSI Afterburner

 

make your settings look like this.

 

 

Then max the voltage and power slider then see where you core takes you.

Uh wont maxing voltage and power..like.. Kill my GPU?.... 

[Gofspar]

Uh wont maxing voltage and power..like.. Kill my GPU?.... 

No? 

 

you are on a stock bios.

 

the max voltage is 1.212v for your bios.

 

I made bios's for 1.3v.

 

If anything your bios is a bit underkill for your card.

[Ariona]

No? 

 

you are on a stock bios.

 

the max voltage is 1.212v for your bios.

 

I made bios's for 1.3v.

 

If anything your bios is a bit underkill for your card.

Okay so to be clear, Maxed voltage and power limit, I set my own temp limit to what I feel is safe, And then just increese core clock by 10s ?  

What benchmark should I use to test the OC ? 

[Gofspar]

Okay so to be clear, Maxed voltage and power limit, I set my own temp limit to what I feel is safe, And then just increese core clock by 10s ?  

What benchmark should I use to test the OC ? 

Disable temp limit control.

 

Just monitor your gpu temps.

 

then see where your core takes you.

[Lollausen]

Okay so to be clear, Maxed voltage and power limit, I set my own temp limit to what I feel is safe, And then just increase core clock by 10s ?  

 

What benchmark should I use to test the OC ? 

 

yea pretty much.

 

to test there are many programs you can use such as 3dmark11, unigine valley benchmark or unigine heaven (the last two seem to be the more commonly used and are quite solid, personally i use 3dmark11 out of chance mostly, but i recently got the two unigine ones as well, its good to test on different programs)

 

When your OC becomes unstable, you may experience the benchmark program crashing, or your video driver crashing and restarting, but most importantly, if none of these occur, you want to watch out for artifacts.

artifacts are difficult to show on a post, but are essentially green, blue, red or white dots/flashes/rings showing up on the screen that shouldnt be there, or massive screen flickers going black or with red or green lines. generally, you'll notice it when you see it, its something that just obviously shouldnt be there.

yea disable temp control, although temperatures generally are not a problem with the 9xx series, depending also on the brand (msi, gigabyte, asus etc). take also into account that gpus have higher operating temp thresholds compared to cpus, meaning a gpu can easily work at 80-90 degrees celsius. Personally to be safe (it is a 400 euro card after all) I'd consider staying within 80 degrees celsius, but on my old card i used to let it run easily at 90+ degrees and it never had problems, altough it probably wasnt super safe. however you want to monitor your temps from the software and see how hot it actually gets with a given clock, and in case lower it, rather than giving it a limit via software.

Cheers, and welcome to the club!

[Ariona]

Okay a new day a new update. I ramped the core clock up to +100MHz and let a custom Firestrike Ultra loop overnight. No crashes at all, Today I'll hope to hit 200. and I imagine I'll get stuck at about 230 My guess but I could be wrong =) 

[Ariona]

Okay! Final update I think.

 

So The last few hours I went from jumping it to 200MHz, Down to 150. 150 worked but was unstable with random crashes and tons of artifacts.

 

I lowered by steps of 5 for Firestrike Ultra custom Combined Test loop at 1080p until I could not find any artifacting and the run went to 10 thousand frames. 

 

I was happily at about 125MHz but I went onto Unigine Valley and Heaven and saw more artifacting, I lowered down to 115MHz And with the boost I hit 1506MHz total and reliably!

 

 

thank you for the help @Gofspar Everytime I tried overclocking when I restart my PC I had to unplug my GPU and un install the Overclock tool. 

[Suika]

I have an EVGA GTX 970 SSC, pretty nice card, 0db mode by default is nice... but I can only get +125MHz on the core on stock bios, lol. I even tried upping it by 10MHz and that was unstable. Was really hoping for 1500MHz on stock but I'm at 1400MHz right now. Seems like a waste because I haven't gotten 80C on the FurMark torture test yet.

 

Memory is at +200MHz, could probably go higher.

[Gofspar]

Okay! Final update I think.

 

So The last few hours I went from jumping it to 200MHz, Down to 150. 150 worked but was unstable with random crashes and tons of artifacts.

 

I lowered by steps of 5 for Firestrike Ultra custom Combined Test loop at 1080p until I could not find any artifacting and the run went to 10 thousand frames. 

 

I was happily at about 125MHz but I went onto Unigine Valley and Heaven and saw more artifacting, I lowered down to 115MHz And with the boost I hit 1506MHz total and reliably!

 

 

thank you for the help @Gofspar Everytime I tried overclocking when I restart my PC I had to unplug my GPU and un install the Overclock tool. 

Once you find your stable on your core run that overclock with the usual games you play like BF4, Crysis, Project Cars, GRID or any other very demanding game.

 

And if it gets you through a week of gaming you can then start working on your memory overclock.