Decent model of GTX 970 these days?

[Citadelen]

There are a lot of 970s out there that perform just as well as mine do.  The 390s are just inferior at this level of overclocking because they don't have the headroom.  The architecture is just at the end of it's serviceable limits.  It's done.  He said he wanted to overclock....I gave him the skinny on the outcomes of the overclocking.  

If it were me, I'd just go buy the 8GB 290X and be done with it, but....someone brought up the 390, as always happens in this forum.  /rolls eyes  Vs the 970 for overclocking?  I wouldn't even consider the 390, when the 8GB 290X and the 970 are sitting right there at about the same price points.  

Enjoy your day.  = )

 

Having a higher number on the 970 doesn't make it better, but I agree that the 8GB 290X could arguably be the better choice, but the 390 does have better driver support and reworked VRM power delivery improving efficiency and allowing higher clock speeds.

[Vellinious]

Having a higher number on the 970 doesn't make it better, but I agree that the 8GB 290X could arguably be the better choice, but the 390 does have better driver support and reworked VRM power delivery improving efficiency and allowing higher clock speeds.

No, having more fps makes it better.  Increased clocks give higher fps.  So, in effect, the higher number means:  it's better.  

We can go on and on like this all day.  But, I'm going to tell you.  There isn't a 390 that I've seen yet that will perform with a 970 overclocked to 1600+ on the core, and 2000+ on the memory, and if you know the 970 very well at all, you'd know that those aren't difficult to reach.  Now, you can either accept that as fact, OR, start a thread and we'll start measuring epeen on the 390 vs the 970.  Go ahead...been a part of those threads before on other forums, and can tell you....it just doesn't end well for the 390 owners.

I'm done here.  Make sure to tag me in the benchmark show down.  lol

[Citadelen]

No, having more fps makes it better.  Increased clocks give higher fps.  So, in effect, the higher number means:  it's better.  

We can go on and on like this all day.  But, I'm going to tell you.  There isn't a 390 that I've seen yet that will perform with a 970 overclocked to 1600+ on the core, and 2000+ on the memory, and if you know the 970 very well at all, you'd know that those aren't difficult to reach.  Now, you can either accept that as fact, OR, start a thread and we'll start measuring epeen on the 390 vs the 970.  Go ahead...been a part of those threads before on other forums, and can tell you....it just doesn't end well for the 390 owners.

I'm done here.  Make sure to tag me in the benchmark show down.  lol

I was under the impression that over 1600 on the core was a very slim margin of 970 owners 1550 seems to be the norm. At numbers that high then it would make sense for the 970 to pull ahead. Though overclocks like that require custom water loops that only a slim margin of people can afford or feel comfortable installing. That's not to say a slim margin of 390 owners may have been able to reach 2500 or even 3000 on the core. I would imagine that at such high overclocks they would be neck and neck because GCN scales better with overclocks than Maxwell.

 

At that level it depends on which one you prefer or which is cheaper. Also please try to be less patronizing in the future.

[SkilledRebuilds]

GTX970 with 1600Mhz is RARE, not common. Go to the 970 owners club thread on this forum and see the averages of what people are getting.

 

As for AMD's 390 series.......they dont have a lot of headroom anymore for the OC's, its been taken by AMD+Factory OC's to provide the 390 over the 290 and have an actual improvement besides Vram.

With the increased core clock, all it did was take the OC potential down. (Own enough 290's and you'll know the common MAX potentials)

Not many AMD 290/390's will go past 1200Mhz without water. Most can only do 1175-1195mhz with voltage.

There are SOME exceptions, but 1200Mhz or more isn't a common thing to achieve at all. You'll likely get UP TO that value though.

 

And the 1600Mhz for GTX970's, thats also not a common frequency for ALL cards, let alone most...

1500-1600Mhz is the range most cards are gunna sit between, although some don't get to 1500Mhz either...

 

And when my GTX 970 @ 1565/3600 + my 290 @ 1185/1350 are doing similar tasks, its so neck n neck you'd hardly be able to tell at all which was better.

 

If one card = another card but used less power... I know what one I'd pick.

If one card = another, but gets more performance in one game over another, does it really make the faster card better for you... not really imo, you have to consider all features/aspects of the cards too.

 

One thing I have easily noticed, eg: 970 & 290 -  add 50mhz to both cores, the AMD card scales up performance better with more MHZ in comparison.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

No, having more fps makes it better.  Increased clocks give higher fps.  So, in effect, the higher number means:  it's better.  

We can go on and on like this all day.  But, I'm going to tell you.  There isn't a 390 that I've seen yet that will perform with a 970 overclocked to 1600+ on the core, and 2000+ on the memory, and if you know the 970 very well at all, you'd know that those aren't difficult to reach.  Now, you can either accept that as fact, OR, start a thread and we'll start measuring epeen on the 390 vs the 970.  Go ahead...been a part of those threads before on other forums, and can tell you....it just doesn't end well for the 390 owners.

I'm done here.  Make sure to tag me in the benchmark show down.  lol

 

Woooo, links to those threads please? I'd like to read them 

[Vellinious]

It's not that rare.  My goodness...  Get a custom bios, and as long as you have a decent ASIC card, you can get 1600 on the core.  I know quite a few guys doing it on air.  None of them with super sexy ASIC quality cards.  Hell, I do 1616 on my 73% ASIC card and 1640+ on the 80%.  I just helped a guy on facebook that broke 1600 with stock voltage on the G1.  You're acting like it takes an act of god to get them to run there...if the guys in the 970 group are having that much trouble, they must have got really unlucky.  lol

 

[SkilledRebuilds]

It's not that rare.  My goodness...  Get a custom bios, and as long as you have a decent ASIC card, you can get 1600 on the core.  I know quite a few guys doing it on air.  None of them with super sexy ASIC quality cards.  Hell, I do 1616 on my 73% ASIC card and 1640+ on the 80%.  I just helped a guy on facebook that broke 1600 with stock voltage on the G1.  You're acting like it takes an act of god to get them to run there...if the guys in the 970 group are having that much trouble, they must have got really unlucky.  lol

 

I'm on a modded bios, tried 1.275 and 1.3,... so have many others in the 970 thread. It's still not a given that you'll hit it.

[Vellinious]

GTX970 with 1600Mhz is RARE, not common. Go to the 970 owners club thread on this forum and see the averages of what people are getting.

 

As for AMD's 390 series.......they dont have a lot of headroom anymore for the OC's, its been taken by AMD+Factory OC's to provide the 390 over the 290 and have an actual improvement besides Vram.

With the increased core clock, all it did was take the OC potential down. (Own enough 290's and you'll know the common MAX potentials)

Not many AMD 290/390's will go past 1200Mhz without water. Most can only do 1175-1195mhz with voltage.

There are SOME exceptions, but 1200Mhz or more isn't a common thing to achieve at all. You'll likely get UP TO that value though.

 

And the 1600Mhz for GTX970's, thats also not a common frequency for ALL cards, let alone most...

1500-1600Mhz is the range most cards are gunna sit between, although some don't get to 1500Mhz either...

 

And when my GTX 970 @ 1565/3600 + my 290 @ 1185/1350 are doing similar tasks, its so neck n neck you'd hardly be able to tell at all which was better.

 

If one card = another card but used less power... I know what one I'd pick.

If one card = another, but gets more performance in one game over another, does it really make the faster card better for you... not really imo, you have to consider all features/aspects of the cards too.

 

One thing I have easily noticed, eg: 970 & 290 -  add 50mhz to both cores, the AMD card scales up performance better with more MHZ in comparison.

I would agree that the AMD cards scale better.  The gains you get from 1550 to 1630 or so on the 970 are really minimal, but with the headroom that the majority of them have, there just isn't a lot of room to get those extra clocks out of them.  Memory speed seems to be the key for the 970.  If you get lucky and get some good Elpida then 2100 is pretty doable.  If you get REALLY lucky and get Samsung you can get higher than that.  Ya just have to keep Elpida really cool, so watercooling helps a ton.  If you're stuck with Hynix....punt.  Haven't seen Hynix hit decent clocks yet.

[SkilledRebuilds]

I would agree that the AMD cards scale better.  The gains you get from 1550 to 1630 or so on the 970 are really minimal, but with the headroom that the majority of them have, there just isn't a lot of room to get those extra clocks out of them.  Memory speed seems to be the key for the 970.  If you get lucky and get some good Elpida then 2100 is pretty doable.  If you get REALLY lucky and get Samsung you can get higher than that.  Ya just have to keep Elpida really cool, so watercooling helps a ton.  If you're stuck with Hynix....punt.  Haven't seen Hynix hit decent clocks yet.

I'm on Hynix

It's really that bad, I mean NOTHING can be added and kept...

+50-100 near instantly artifacts in Valley/Heaven

Tried in games though, not an issue for ages even up to +300 (for an hour of testing), but eventually..in games,... it has a artifacting bitchfit

It does take a while, but thats still unstable so I wont be keeping it.

 

So I have to leave mine at stock and just OC my core. (Shame really.. but oh well 1550mhz daily isn't bad)

My core does a max of 1590Mhz and after that I'll have issues (even with 1.3v)

[Vellinious]

I'm on a modded bios, tried 1.275 and 1.3,... so have many others in the 970 thread. It's still not a given that you'll hit it.

That really kinda depends on the ASIC of the card.  The 73% ASIC card doesn't do much of anything above 1.262v.  The 80% ASIC card is still moving up to 1.275v, but won't do anything past that.  Not sure if my cards are just locked at the 1.275v or not, but a good lot of the G1s and the MSI cards are still getting gains up to 1.312v.

[Vellinious]

I'm on Hynix

It's really that bad, I mean NOTHING can be added and kept...

+50-100 near instantly artifacts in Valley/Heaven

Tried in games though, not an issue for ages even up to +300 (for an hour of testing), but eventually..in games,... it has a artifacting bitchfit

 

So I have to leave mine at stock and just OC my core. (Shame really.. but oh well)

Cause it gets really hot, yeah.  Hynix has trouble with it.  Elpida does too, but not to the same extent.  Samsung seems to be the really good stuff, but....not many cards end up with it, it seems.  I ended up positioning fans above my cards (my motherboard is mounted horizontally), and blowing cool air down on them, and it helped quite a bit.  I can run 2050 game stable and hit 2176 on cool days in Firestrike and Heaven.  2160 in Valley though.  Haven't figured that out yet.  Longer test probably, and they heat up sooner.  Something.

[Vellinious]

I've personally only ever seen one 970 that couldn't hit at least 1500, but it was a terrible card.  ASUS STRIX with 62% ASIC quality.  Was just horrid.  He could get 1480 on the core.  Shame too, his card had decent memory.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

It's not that rare.  My goodness...  Get a custom bios, and as long as you have a decent ASIC card, you can get 1600 on the core.  I know quite a few guys doing it on air.  None of them with super sexy ASIC quality cards.  Hell, I do 1616 on my 73% ASIC card and 1640+ on the 80%.  I just helped a guy on facebook that broke 1600 with stock voltage on the G1.  You're acting like it takes an act of god to get them to run there...if the guys in the 970 group are having that much trouble, they must have got really unlucky.  lol

 

I know but I wanna see them though. The only ones I ever saw that had 1600mhz++ was you and some other members on LTT. Also one of the review site had a 1600mhz 970. Though, you mentioned about a whole thread directly comparing 970 vs 390 overclocks. I want to see that thread. There's probably gonna be more game benchmarks rather than benchmarks that aren't really indicative of real world performance. 

 

Oh and googling ain't helping me at all. 

[Vellinious]

I know but I wanna see them though. The only ones I ever saw that had 1600mhz++ was you and some other members on LTT. Also one of the review site had a 1600mhz 970. Though, you mentioned about a whole thread directly comparing 970 vs 390 overclocks. I want to see that thread. There's probably gonna be more game benchmarks rather than benchmarks that aren't really indicative of real world performance. 

 

Oh and googling ain't helping me at all. 

Facebook groups and a couple of google+ groups.  I haven't been able to find any 390s in the overclocking sites that want to play.  I've been poking at them here and OCN for months.  The OCN 970 owners group has a lot of guys hitting over 1600 on the core, and pushing a lot of the same scores I am in the synthetics.  MXPC, High Performance PC Gaming and Furious PC Gaming in facebook had threads on it.  Most of the guys in the google+ group weren't even running custom bios files, but even then, they were hanging right with the 390s there.  Hard to do any gaming benchmarks since not everyone always owns the same game.  Always end up being Heaven, Valley or Firestrike.  

For some reason the 390 just isn't getting the same kind of performance the 290 is.  Which seems odd to me, because.....aren't they the exact same core?  I've seen a couple of 290s that just blew my 970 away (well, up to 4fps, which is a mile by scoring), but have yet to run into a 390 that could.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Facebook groups and a couple of google+ groups.  I haven't been able to find any 390s in the overclocking sites that want to play.  I've been poking at them here and OCN for months.  The OCN 970 owners group has a lot of guys hitting over 1600 on the core, and pushing a lot of the same scores I am in the synthetics.  MXPC, High Performance PC Gaming and Furious PC Gaming in facebook had threads on it.  Most of the guys in the google+ group weren't even running custom bios files, but even then, they were hanging right with the 390s there.  Hard to do any gaming benchmarks since not everyone always owns the same game.  Always end up being Heaven, Valley or Firestrike.  

For some reason the 390 just isn't getting the same kind of performance the 290 is.  Which seems odd to me, because.....aren't they the exact same core?  I've seen a couple of 290s that just blew my 970 away, but have yet to run into a 390 that could.

 

Link to those groups? Most clubs just post FS or unigine benches. Game benchmarks will be nice, but I understand most peeps don't have the time, have you done some for your 1633mhz 970?

 

There were some 1200mhz++ 390s but only test benchmarks were used. No actual game benchmarks were done. 

[Vellinious]

Most people just wanna do the quick and dirty synthetics.  I've never done any game benchmarks on mine, no.  I don't really have any of the newest popular titles.  I'm not into shooters, and since most of the new games are shooters......I just don't buy them.  Waiting patiently for Deus Ex, though.....and, well...HL3.  I'll probably be dead by the time that one comes out though.  = /  I'm more into strategy games...and there just aren't many of those around any more.

I'll get you links to the facebook groups tonight when I get home from work.  They're all closed groups, so you'll have to join.  G'luck digging through and finding the threads though, like anything in facebook, once it's a week old, it's buried.  

The google+ group was a bunch of scrubs that don't really know anything.  Good guys, just don't know much about overclocking.  The scores I run there are WAY above what they're running, but...all of them are running pretty mild overclocks, except for the one guy with the 390, and he's getting decent clocks out of his 390.  He hit 1200 in Firestrike, but it's still not up there with my 970 yet.  I'll find the link to the results thread tonight as well.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Neh that's okay, Ill only be reading through those threads during transport

[Vellinious]

If there are 390 owners in LTT...they either aren't taking part in the benchmarking threads, or they aren't running very well....  Same on OCN.

[Dr_Pleeper]

GALAX HOF 970 or Asus Strix 970, those are my two favorite variants of the GTX 970. Both have good cooling and are clocked a bit higher than the standard EVGA models. 

[Vellinious]

The HOF is good, but the STRIX is horrid for overclocking.  Limited to 1.212v at the VRM and only 1 x 8 pin power connections.  Limits their capabilities.  For plug and play though, they're just fine.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

If there are 390 owners in LTT...they either aren't taking part in the benchmarking threads, or they aren't running very well.... Same on OCN.

Not sure... Very few in ltt posts benchmarks. Though, there are many on the ocn club with 1200mhz, some also break 1200mhz. But still, no game banchmarks.

[Vellinious]

Even at 1200 they aren't scoring very well, seems like the 290 out scores them with about the same clocks.  That's always confused me a bit.  There just aren't that many of them out there?  Dunno....  It's pretty hard to find 390 owners that want to actually push them.....

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Even at 1200 they aren't scoring very well, seems like the 290 out scores them with about the same clocks. That's always confused me a bit. There just aren't that many of them out there? Dunno.... It's pretty hard to find 390 owners that want to actually push them.....

Really? Many of them don't really have such good cpus. So the total score is affected by alot. They're scoring pretty fine I should say.

You have a 5870k, so your score should be above them.

[Vellinious]

Really? Many of them don't really have such good cpus. So the total score is affected by alot. They're scoring pretty fine I should say.

You have a 5870k, so your score should be above them.

5820k...I never pay attention to the overall score in Firestrike....makes very little difference to me.  I want to see the graphics score.  Valley and Heaven are affected by the CPU a tiny bit, but not a whole lot.  They like IPC and core clock, but even with a really strong clock you're not looking at a huge difference.  The only time I really notice a difference in the Unigine benchmark scores is when they're running an AMD CPU.  They just don't have the single core performance that Intel does, so the score suffers a little bit.  Even then, it's not by a lot though.  My best runs in Valley and Heaven have been at either stock clocks on the CPU, or with very mild daily driver type overclocks.  Firestrike is a different story because of the physics and combined score, but..just running testing in graphics test 1 and 2, you can get the same scores with stock clocks as you can with you "benchmark overclock".  /shrug  

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

5820k...I never pay attention to the overall score in Firestrike....makes very little difference to me. I want to see the graphics score. Valley and Heaven are affected by the CPU a tiny bit, but not a whole lot. They like IPC and core clock, but even with a really strong clock you're not looking at a huge difference. The only time I really notice a difference in the Unigine benchmark scores is when they're running an AMD CPU. They just don't have the single core performance that Intel does, so the score suffers a little bit. Even then, it's not by a lot though. My best runs in Valley and Heaven have been at either stock clocks on the CPU, or with very mild daily driver type overclocks. Firestrike is a different story because of the physics and combined score, but..just running testing in graphics test 1 and 2, you can get the same scores with stock clocks as you can with you "benchmark overclock". /shrug

Stock clocks from a strong CPU still does give you alot of points. FS for example, even the graphic score itself is affected by how fast your CPU is. There is no true way of comparing gpus if you're looking at benchmarks like them. Having a strong CPU already gives one the edge and over the other. Even more so for 390 since dx11 overhead is quite alot. I'd imagine that when the first dx12 benchmarks comes, the playing field will be more even.

Games are the best benchmarks. Since at the end of the day, that's what you'll be playing. Not fs or valley.