Which 970 to get, ordering tonight still can't decide

And now Walking Dead has begun, LOL

I like all the Partners, I have always picked EVGA when available. Is there any cooler issue's as we heard back in September etc ? I like the Gigabyte Windforce cards, Zotac are ok with me have owned one. Has anyone gone for the Black AMP Extreme models ? I would like to try one myself, hehe

Or there is always the slick black and red MSI twin cooler model , Sigh decisions

I would love to do the 980 but it's just not worth the difference to me, I always end up with the 70 series for that reason and get another in a couple months.

What did you choose ? for any reason ?

When are you wanting to buy?

ATMINSIDE said:

When are you wanting to buy?

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Well I been working on it as usual for a couple weeks, I will probably order one up tonight or tomorrow, So far the highest clock 970 I have seen is the EVGA FTW, 04G-P4-2978-KR with a base clock 1216/ Boost 1376 memory 7010 which is even higher than the Zotac AMP Extreme at 1203 base 1355 boost. Just waiting on one that bites.

Just wanted to see what others were doing

Well, if you don't mind waiting for the 970 FTW to release then I would go for that.

ATMINSIDE said:

Well, if you don't mind waiting for the 970 FTW to release then I would go for that.

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Yeah they have it "auto notify" on EVGA site

rogbur22 said:

Yeah they have it "auto notify" on EVGA site

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I would sign up for that and wait, personally

I did Have had excellent results with my FTW cards of previous generations.

I would look at the Gigabyte G1, every review pretty much shows it edging out other 970's as far as performance and temperature. I'd keep a lookout on Monday morning and check for stock every 20-30 minutes on the Egg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125684&cm_re=gtx_970-_-14-125-684-_-Product

The clocks on the G1 are nowhere near the FTW

Max OC potential or outa the box?

EVGA FTW = nearly reference card with changed BIOS so it's not worth to wait.
Best seem Gigabyte G1 or even lower one ( Windforce OC or something ), MSI Gaming ( if you don't mind warranty stickers ) or Zotac AMP or Extreme ( but these cost some more ).

How high can you overclock depends from luck , not series. No matter if you get reference card or highest OC series, all will overclock almost the same. Some cards have higher declared clocks but max clock is still about 1500MHz boost +/- 50MHz. Simply if you get 1100MHz card, you can overclock it to ~1500MHz, if you get 1300MHz one then you also make ~1500MHz.

Current BIOSes are locked at about ~110-115% power limit and 1.21V ( even if soft is showing 1.25V then it's usually not working higher than 1.21V ). All cards have about the same BIOS with different fan profiles, max clocks and max power limit so you can buy lowest reference series and flash there higher series BIOS. All mentioned settings can be also adjusted in Windows.
Last weekend I flashed standard Gigabyte GTX970 with G1 Gaming BIOS and it's working fine.

So the main difference is power section, power connectors and cooler. Every EVGA is something like reference card with higher clocks set in BIOS. Every model has slightly higher clocks and that's all. PCB is about the same as in GTX760 and some users complain about coil whine. Actually the same as MSI even though MSI has better power section and 6+8 power connectors so will let you overclock higher. Difference is 225W vs 300W max and I think it's big difference. Standard cards can make up to 180W without overvoltage so there is not much headroom.

Awesome info Woomack and Thank you Question, in the video for the G1 cards on New Egg, Paul says the G1 cards are using binned chips, My question is, Is that true or is it false ? The video is included with the product photo's here. Later in the video he takes it even further and says that they Bin the chips and test each one and the cards will maintain stable overclocks and OC even further should you wish to do so. Thanks again.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125684

It's not true or maybe even if they're binning chips then they make really bad work No matter what people say I see ASIC between 58% and 85% in all GTX970. I have 2 Gigabyte G1 GTX970. One have ASIC 62% and the other 64% so both are pretty low. Friend bought Gigabyte Windforce ( not Gaming ) and has 85%. Overclocking difference between these cards is about 50MHz so even lower ASIC isn't really bad. The same other users have mixed low and high ASIC in their cards ( there is lot of info in the web like 400+ page thread on overclock.net ).

In theory high ASIC = better overclocking on air cooling or lower voltage to reach some clock. Low ASIC = better overclocking on sub zero cooling or higher voltage to reach the same clock as high ASIC cards.

Right now it looks more like Gigabyte, MSI and Zotac AMP/Extreme have higher power limit set as default. It's stock power limit which is higher than in other cards even when you see 100% in soft. These cards have also 6+8 or 8+8 power connector config so are able to set boost clock higher or keep higher clocks for longer.
These two things make them run in boost state at higher clocks than other cards that's why all are saying they're the best.

So once again in standard config 6+6 pin ( reference design ) = 225W max , 1x8 pin ( ASUS Strix ) = 225W max, 6+8 pin ( GB/MSI Gaming ) = 300W, 8+8 pin ( Zotac Extreme ) = 375W max.
These cards won't reach 300W+ without really high voltage on LN2 but probably will die before they reach that point anyway. On the other hand some cards without OC already make 180W ( even though TDP is 140-150W ) so after overvoltage there is a chance to pass 225W limit and cards will throttle or freeze before reaching this point. That's why 225W cards are usually overclocking about 50MHz worse than higher series from MSI/GB/Zotac.

Wow ! Bummer LOL Thanks again

I mean honestly, I care little if the card I get is an OC beast, 95% of the time it will be at stock settings. What everyone does like and this is where the card makers are smart is, we all want the best possible card for our money and the competitive nature of the enthusiast card buyers, we run these cards for bench marking etc and any perceived edge is always welcomed by the enthusiast crowd. Even if only for some bragging rights

Thanks again everyone, glad I posted this

PS , I am probably still going with a G1 card or similar for the back plate and the fact the Windforce logo lights up Blue in the case. LOL

If the card will be run stock the majority of the time I'd go for the card with the highest factory clock

The 970 is just a 980 with a defective block of cores disabled. Thus I'm not surprised the ASIC quality isn't that great. Things might change once there are 970s that are downgraded but otherwise perfectly good 980s, but given the current demand, that's not going to happen anytime soon. More likely when the demand for 980s drops enough to consider downgrading them, the prices for 980s would drop.

Gigabyte is the best all around with the most flexible output config, but also the most expensive.
Asus, MSI, and Zotac have great cooling but a less flexible output config.
EVGA had issues with poor cooling design but it looks like they fixed it.
PNY has a very flexible output config (though not as flexible as the Gigabyte) and a reference style cooler.

and what if GTX980 are just "locked 980Ti" ...
GTX980 also have various ASIC and most have similar % to GTX970. GTX980 is not the highest chip from GTX980, simply higher isn't released yet but it's the same story as with GTX600/700 when nvidia couldn't make good top chips on time and was selling lower series as high end.

I don't know why you assume that GTX970 has something defective. In this meaning most of these chips are defective and probably most GTX980 too. What more, higher chip will have even more shaders etc but there is still some space for new Titan so everything but $1k card would be defective ?

They can't be as 980 is the full chip. 980Ti or whatever would be something else altogether.