Screw you EVGA! One pissed off ex-costumer. Refused shipping

Okay! First world problem I know, But seriously what in the hell. I was one of the few unlucky people to purchase a 970gtx card from EVGA. Have you guys seen the news around the net? Apparently, to save money they're reusing components when building this card and the fact that it's quality is total crap to boot. Every hour I read more news on what they did wrong with this card. It's okay to reuse parts if they actually work, but this is a joke. The squealing noises this thing produces on all the videos on youtube are crazy. I thought evga was way better than this. I had a chance to buy the black MSI offering and I missed it .

Was about to hit the buy button on a brand new computer (q9450 is not running well), but now I have to wait due to this stupid company since everyone is sold out. Sigh.... Damn it! I was really excited too! I hate you EVGA.

The only good news is my build *HAD* an EVGA classified motherboard in it. Now it has an Asrock!

Thank you Ocforums for dealing with my outburst of rage. Stupid, juvenile as it may sound/be I had to vent. Sorry if you didn't want to read it :/

I hate you EVGA... but I love you ocforums.....

Sorry for not including links :/

From another board source. Lots of complaints on evga's forum as well:

It's the same heatsink they used on the GTX 760 which had the same issue (and a smaller die with GK104) -
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/E..._Cooler/5.html
And since the PCB design is the same as well (well layout wise roughly) you get this problem carrying over.

The issue is compounded as well because heatpipes work via temperature differential however one of the contacting heatpipes is shared with the VRMs.

Also if you want to compare with other direct contact heatsinks like Asus 970 the heatpipes are much closer together on those as well - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...es/cooler2.jpg

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Exodia View Post
What am I looking for? Am I missing something. I'm not familiar with their ACX cooler.
If you look at the thermal paste on the heatsink after lifting it off it's clear that the GPU die is not making contact with all the heatpipes.

Read a few reviews and EVGA uses lower end components which is why they have that annoying electrical buzzing noise so many have complained about.

The heatsink doesn't make proper contact with the core by design, and the vrm/volt controller are of low quality (and only 4-phase rather than 6 on other custom designs) as discussed here by TPU's review: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/E..._Cooler/4.html Look at the picture and you can see it only contacts about two of the three heatpipes. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/E...es/cooler2.jpg

The fans aren't as quiet as other models, talked about here: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/E...Cooler/24.html

And finally there is a coil whine present by multiple user reports and a review here: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...-970-review/14


Last link to pass on: Some are calling it a defect.

http://www.eteknix.com/evga-gtx-970-feature-manufacturing-defect/

Its also being descused on overclock.net. Hopefully some one will go in there and do some damage control.
http://www.overclock.net/...n-flaw-in-evga-gtx-970

What do you mean re-using components? Not seeing any complaints.

Yeah, maybe link reviews or videos that say this, I am not finding anything either.

Bishoff said:

What do you mean re-using components? Not seeing any complaints.

Click to expand...

My understanding is that they re-used the heatsink/cooler setup from earlier models of nvidia cards.

This means the heatpipes do not line up properly with the GPU so the GPU doesn't actually touch all 3 of the heatpipes, causing it to have cooling issues, fans running higher because the card is hotter than it should be and, because the fans are operating more and at higher speed, unwanted noise associated with the increased fanspeeds

Notarat is correct. :/

Saw on GAF , that supposedly EVGA is re-using the heatsink from the GTX 670 or 680 OR very similar to it. Here is what the heatsink looks like taken off, you can see where the GPU was in contact with it.



EVGA posted on reddit about the design. I guess the 3rd heat pipe is there to look nice.

Eeew. Contacting only 3 of the pipes... Thats a lovely issue.

yeah , I mean compare it to the Gigabyte GTX 970 , you can tell it was made just for Maxwell.



Pic from this review.

Not to hammer on about this, but look at this image:


Now the third heatpipe (the one that doesn't have thermal paste) if you look at the end of it... It's cut off! It's not even capped! All it's doing is heating up a metal pipe. They went the cheap route and stuck on an old cooler and are only using two heatpipes since maxwell doesn't run as warm as keplar did. Absolute garbage.

Yikes. Another check in the Gigabyte column.

Not to mention that their every GTX970 card is on the same PCB regardless if it's standard, SC or FTW version ... they only had to fix one cooler so they could use it on every card.

nvidia winning a pricing war with amd!? evga bested in quality by the likes of Zotac?! The end is nigh!

EVGA has always had a kind of shady OCZishness to them. They lost all my business a few years ago when they triple authorized my debit card for a preorder and refused to correct the error. Ended up costing me $$ in overdraft fees, and they wouldn't do a thing for me. Eff 'em.

Atari said:

Not to hammer on about this, but look at this image:

https://imgur.com/O63MVHx

Now the third heatpipe (the one that doesn't have thermal paste) if you look at the end of it... It's cut off! It's not even capped! All it's doing is heating up a metal pipe. They went the cheap route and stuck on an old cooler and are only using two heatpipes since maxwell doesn't run as warm as keplar did. Absolute garbage.

Click to expand...

Oh nice catch on that one.

I just took a look at the Evga forums, and there are some posts about the issues with the 970. Hopefully, they will fix this, soon. Up until now, they have a great reputation with their video cards. I don't wanted to see a half baked fix, which will only make matters worse.

mimart7 said:

I just took a look at the Evga forums, and there are some posts about the issues with the 970. Hopefully, they will fix this, soon. Up until now, they have a great reputation with their video cards. I don't wanted to see a half baked fix, which will only make matters worse.

Click to expand...

Their fix was announced today. It boils down to the following 3 words, "There's nothing wrong"

notarat said:

Their fix was announced today. It boils down to the following 3 words, "There's nothing wrong"

Click to expand...

So long as it works, fine

Yea, who cares if we cheaped out when we could have made it better.. One more reason to never be an early adopter

notarat said:

Their fix was announced today. It boils down to the following 3 words, "There's nothing wrong"

Click to expand...

Are you referring to this thread?

IMHO, the off-centering is clearly intentional. The third heat pipe is smaller. Why would they make it smaller otherwise? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Also, if you look at the position of the GPU, it is actually centred in the aluminum base surface of the heatsink. The 2 major heat pipes are also in the centre, and the third one is off to one side.

I also cannot imagine any company, especially a company as big as EVGA, would make that kind of very basic mistake in PCB layout. It just doesn't happen. Even if it did, someone would have caught it on the first board spin (because during initial testing, the heatsink would be removed and reattached very often), and they would have just corrected it in the second spin. Most boards go through at least 3-4 spins to correct minor mistakes before going into production. The cost of doing a spin is negligible compared to how much they are making from these cards. If "correcting" the mistake would give them a few more degrees so that the card reviews better, that would have earned them a lot more money than what they would save by not doing another spin.

So in this instance, I actually believe what EVGA is saying.