GTX 970 - Benchmark comparing most mentioned brands

[Tech Enthusiast]

We do seem to be getting the question daily: "What 970 should i buy?!" and we also get the same answers over and over... G1 or MSI... some swear by Asus still (rare).

 

Something that is rare to be seen is the name Zotac tho. And since i researched my own 970 order for a while now i was looking for benchmarks comparing all those brands. Noise, heat, power and most importantly: FACTS and not pure speculation or brand preferances.

 

So without further ado, for those that prefer numbers:

(Please note these are just examples, feel free to browse the 20+ pages of differend benchmarks yourself, use the dropdown at the bottom of the page)

 

 

Watchdogs Benchmark, 1440p and 4k at medium and very high.

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/zotac_gtx_970_amp_extreme_amp_core_review,17.html

 

MSI 4G, Gigabyte 1G and Asus Strix are VERY close to eachother. Zotac AMP! Extreme and the newer Core Edition both beat the competition by a longshot, hell, even beat a stock 980. Edit: Feel free to ignore those few graphs where the jump in performance looks crazy, drivers can do crazy things. Better of comparing those benchmarks with even terms. Again: There are about 20 pages, pick your prefered game.

 

 

Futuremark: 3DMark - Fire Strike

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/zotac_gtx_970_amp_extreme_amp_core_review,13.html

 

Naturally the syntetic benchmarks are a little closer and the 980 will be ahead here (it should anyways!), but again: The Zotac cards both lead the 970s.

 

 

Overclocking: Tested via Unigine: Heaven 4.0 on 1440p

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/zotac_gtx_970_amp_extreme_amp_core_review,12.html

 

There is no doubt that some of these can be clocked higher with some luck. So i am unsure how valuable this chart actually is. Take it with a grain of salt obviously, but the Zotacs lead the charts again.

 

 

Power Consumtion and Temperature

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/zotac_gtx_970_amp_extreme_amp_core_review,11.html

 

For power the AMD cards suck, we all kow that. I did not expect the G1 to draw that much more power then a stock 980 tho. Also the 4G is pretty high up there. Asus actually takes a slight lead here, closely followed by Zotacs two cards. For Temperature Zotac again wins the race easily, while the G1 again surprizes with it's much higher temps in comparison.

 

Edit:

I did not include noise benchmarks since they seem to be all over the place. Like really. I have no idea if they are rigged or not. Some show the Zotacs as the quietest ever, some put them slighly behind MSI and some show them as much as 10 db louder. Did not want to blow this topic up with benchmarks that all show a differend picture without knowing who to trust. From my PERSONAL experience: I can not hear the Zotac AMP Extrem Core. Not a little bit, even under load. I can not really hear the G1 (much) as well tho, so don't make your pick because of that. Both cards are dead silent to me in a Define R5.

 

Coil whine is a differend topic tho. I can hear the G1 do that. Not so for the zotac. Can not compare the other cards for myself since i don't own them.

 

Overall Performance

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/zotac_gtx_970_amp_extreme_amp_core_review,22.html

 

Depending on the game the difference is staggeringly in favor of Zotac again. not much else to say really.

 

 

Pricing:

As of this writing prices for the 4 cards (Non core edition is being replaced by core edition from Zotac) are:

 

Asus Strix: 386,87€

MSI Gaming 4G: 369,99€

Gigabyte G1 Gaming: 403,51€

Zotac AMP! Extreme Core: 423,27€

 

 

Conclusion

The Zotac cards do pack a premium price. Not like a Kingpin, but still a little extra.

Id love to see people ask what the topic starter actually values most before giving a reccomendation. The best GTX 970 in terms of sheer power, temps and noise definitly comes from Zotac and NOT Gigabyte like people keep repeating here on the forums. It is however 20 bucks extra. Since G1 and 4G from MSI are pretty damn close in all aspects tho, id much rather suggest the MSI one over G1 if money is an issue. Asus is kind of odd since it packs a higher price but delivers less power most of the time. Not a good pick.

 

Also as a bonus: Zotac does give a 5 year warranty INCLUDING overclocking. Unless you go all out balls to the wall with overclocks obviously. Not gonna do 1900! ;-)

 

So there you have it. This question comes up almost daily and this is my try on answering it with numbers and pretty graphs, not with brand preferences. Been using EVGA for the past years,...sadly their SSC version falls behind for 970s (it rocks for 960s tho!).

[CostcoSamples]

The Zotac Amp! 970 is a full 24 fps faster than a Strix card in Watch dogs, and is on par with a 980!?  how can that be??

[Ceatra]

Where's EVGA?

[Tech Enthusiast]

The Zotac Amp! 970 is a full 24 fps faster than a Strix card in Watch dogs, and is on par with a 980!?  how can that be??

 

To be honest id ignore extreme (no pun here) differences like that for games. Drivers can make a huge difference there and i have seen similar BIG jumps between my G1 and Extreme Core in personal tests. Some games just seem to have brand preferances haha. Stick to the synthetic benchmarks or games without huge differences for serious comparisions.

 

As far as the 980s go... that is actually true from my personal experience. A friend is using a barly OCed 980 (could almost say stock) and refuses to OC it itself and i am getting VERY similar benchmarks then he does. Rest of our systems is pretty close or identical.

[VerticalDiscussions]

That Extreme is delivering extreme.....

[Tech Enthusiast]

That Extreme is delivering extreme.....

 

That is what i thought as well when looking for Benchmarks.

Actually i am sure this card is on the overlocked side of things, simply because it was released later, much later. It is one of the newest versions.

everyone was chanting MSI and Gigabyte already when it shipped, so people stopped looking for comparisons.

[Sauron]

The truth is you should just get the cheapest of the bunch unless you want a precise color scheme. The (small) performance disparity can easily be bridged with mild overclocking, and it's not like the 970 has heat problems.

[Sauron]

To be honest id ignore extreme (no pun here) differences like that for games. Drivers can make a huge difference there and i have seen similar BIG jumps between my G1 and Extreme Core in personal tests. Some games just seem to have brand preferances haha. Stick to the synthetic benchmarks or games without huge differences for serious comparisions.

 

As far as the 980s go... that is actually true from my personal experience. A friend is using a barly OCed 980 (could almost say stock) and refuses to OC it itself and i am getting VERY similar benchmarks then he does. Rest of our systems is pretty close or identical.

 

Which is why I always say 980s are not worth the money ^^

[sgloux3470]

Clock for clock they are all the same.

 

Clock speeds are marginally different.  They all have similar overclocking limits.  

 

It's just not worth arguing over.  Yeah one card may be 3% faster than another... who cares?  Always buy the cheapest one from a brand you trust.