Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 Review
Overview
It’s been a while since we have seen an Nvidia Graphics Card on test here at pcG, this is because we have been implementing a new Test Rig and GPU testing process for 2015. We have actually had the cards for some time (I know, I’m sorry!). But here’s the first Graphics Card out of the blocks for 2015, enter the Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970. The Maxwell based GTX 970 is obviously the little brother of the bigger and faster (and more expensive) GTX 980.
This particular Overclocked example supports PCIE 3.0 and has a Core Clock of 1076MHz and a Boost Clock of 1216MHz, while its 4GB of DDR5 memory runs at 7010MHz; all of this equates to a TDP of 150W.
The front of the box gives very little away other than the obvious names and logos, there’s also the fact that this card comes with Zotac’s 5 year extended warranty (meaning you can send it back to Zotac after the first 2 years have expired).
The back of the box goes on to highlight Zotac’s overclocking utility (FIRESTORM) and lists the basic minimum requirement for the card (note the 500W, which is overkill for a card like this to be honest!). There’s also a host of promotional blurb, that to be honest isn’t really all that interesting… 😉
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Sliding the smart, glossy inner box from inside the outer box we can see that the Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 is well packaged, sealed within an anti-static bag and protected with soft-cell foam.
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In the inner box, other than the Graphics Card itself we find a small Zotac Wallet, a DVI-to-VGA adapter and 2 x Dual MOLEX-to-6-pin PCIe adapters. Within the wallet there’s a Graphics Card Driver CD, User’s Manual, Warranty guide and a Zotac Boost Premium leaflet (advertising software).
At the time of review the Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 Graphics Card is retailing at Ebuyer for approximately £266 and on Amazon
Specifications/Features
courtesy of Zotac
| Model | ZT-90101-10P |
| Interface | PCI Express 3.0 x16 (Compatible with 1.1) |
| Chipset Manufacturer | NVIDIA |
| GPU | GeForce GTX 970 |
| Core clock |
1076 MHz (base) 1216 MHz (boost) |
| Cores | 1,664 |
| Shader Clock | N/A |
| Memory Clock | 7010 MHz |
| Memory Size | 4GB |
| Memory Interface | 256-bit |
| Memory Type | GDDR5 |
| DirectX | DirectX 12 |
| OpenGL | OpenGL 4.4 |
| DVI | 2 (2560×1600) |
| HDMI | 1 (4K @ 60 Hz) |
| DisplayPort | 1 (4K @ 60 Hz) |
| VGA | (with included adapter) |
| Tuner | N/A |
| RAMDAC | 400 MHz |
| Max Resolution | 4K |
| RoHS Compliant | Yes |
| SLI Supported | 3-way |
| Cooler | Dual-fan |
| Dual-Link DVI Supported | Yes |
| Supported OS | Certified for Windows 8 / 7 / Vista |
| Package Contents |
ZT-90101-10P DVI-to-VGA adapter 2 x Dual MOLEX-to-6-pin PCIe adapter Driver Disk User Manual |
| Game Bundle | N/A |
* Additional details available here
First Impressions
First impressions are wow isnt it little, we’re so used to these giant, all powerful Graphics Cards it’s nice to see one that’s more likely to fit in any case. At only 205mm long this Nvidia, Maxwell based dual slot card promises to pack a fair amount of power for its size…
Taking a look at the top of the card we can see that it is dominated by its twin 75mm cooling fans. This is surrounded by a gun-metal grey shroud with a smart silver strip running diagonally through the centre.
Looking at the back of the card, predictably there is not much to see, apart from the fact that thanks to its dual SLI connectors, we can see that Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 supports triple SLI! We also get a bit of an eyeful of those copper heat pipes…
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Looking at the top of the card (the bit that you normally see) we can see a smart silver Zotac logo (covered for protection in the image below left).
The other side of the Zotac 970 shows very little, other than showing of the size of that heat-sink and providing us with some basic part information.
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Looking at the left of the card we can see that the Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 features the following outputs (x2 DVI-D, DiplayPort and HDMI). Note that if you want to run a 4K resolution (3840×2160) at 60Hz then you’re going to need to use either the DisplayPort output or HDMI. Other than that we also find a handful of cooling vents, although Zotac’s custom cooler blows air all over the card (and into the case) not just out of the back.
Looking at the other end of the card we can see those three main copper heat-pipes again.
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Hardware Installation
Installation into our Test Rig‘s motherboard was a breeze, as the Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 is so short at just 205mm in length. Cabling was easy enough just x2 6-pin power connections needed.
| Case | Cooler Master HAF XB | Power Supply |
Corsair Professional Series AX 760i
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| Motherboard |
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer
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CPU |
Intel Core i5-4690K
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| CPU Cooler |
Raijintek Themis
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RAM |
HyperX Savage 2400MHz 8GB Kit
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| Graphics Card | Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 | SSD |
HyperX FURY 120GB
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Testing Methodology/Setup
Our Test Rig was treated to a fresh install of Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit (Service Pack 1) with all associated drivers also installed. Nvidia Driver 347.09 was installed and used throughout testing.
For testing purposes we used MSI Afterburner (here), to help us with our testing and overclocking.
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Nvidia’s Boost clock is a bit of a difficult thing to explain, but the bottom line is that it runs at whatever the best speed it can while trying to remain within its TDP of 145W (READ: whilst staying cool!). With the card at stock this saw it Boosting up and beyond its Stock Boost Clock (1216MHz) to 1278MHz. But obviously we wanted more…
Via MSI Afterburner I raised the Power Limit to 106% (the maximum supported) overclocked the Core (Boost) Clock by a further 225MHz and overclocked the Memory Clock by a further 250MHz. The end result is a card with a theoretical Core Boost Clock of 1441MHz and a Memory Clock of 7510MHz. Of course (due to Nvidia GPU Boost 2.0) what shows on screen at any time is anyone’s guess, as the card it constantly balancing within its TDP. BUT of course the final net result is that the card does run quicker, woohoo! 😉 |
Hardware Performance
| Benchmark | Ambient Temperature | Max GPU Temp | Delta Temp | Result |
| Batman Arkham Origins | 22.00 | 78.00 | 56.00 | 180.00 FPS (average) |
| Tomb Raider | 21.00 | 74.00 | 53.00 | 87.5 FPS (average) |
| Metro Last Light | 22.00 | 79.00 | 57.00 | 76.00 (average) |
| UNiGiNE Heaven | 22.00 | 79.00 | 57.00 | 1311 |
| 3DMark (Fire Strike) | 22.00 | 70.00 | 48.00 | 8931 |
| Benchmark | Ambient Temperature | Max GPU Temp | Delta Temp | Result |
| Batman Arkham Origins | 22.00 | 62.00 | 50.00 | 205.00 FPS (average) |
| Tomb Raider | 22.00 | 61.00 | 49.00 | 98.70 FPS (average) |
| Metro Last Light | 22.00 | 66.00 | 44.00 | 85.00 (average) |
| UNiGiNE Heaven | 22.00 | 64.00 | 42.00 | 1498 |
| 3DMark (Fire Strike) | 22.00 | 59.00 | 37.00 | 9944 |
Comparative Test Results:
NOTE: Please note that all of these benchmarks are valid and correct at the time of review and we do not use historical data. Each benchmark is re-run every time (against our Test Cards) for each new GPU review using the latest Drivers at that time. Therefore the scores may fluctuate between reviews as Driver optimizations come into play…
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| Results measured in FPS (average) |
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| Results measured in FPS (average) |
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| Results measured in FPS (average) |
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| Benchmark Results |
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| Benchmark Results |
There’s no doubt about it the Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 performs well in game and in our benchmarks, beating AMD’s flagship (AMD 290X) in both Batman and Tomb Raider. It comes a close second in the other benches too! This sound about right, with both cards (AMD 290X and Nvidia 970) costing around £275, what this means is that it is really down to you which team you prefer to go for the Red or the Green…
From a stock performance point of view the card not only performed well but was also quiet, remaining at approximately 35db during Gaming and Testing. Turning the fans to full though increases noise significantly, but also cools the card by an addition 15+ degrees! This helped keep artifacting to a minimum while overclocking. The Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 was found to be capable of running with an additional 225MHz added to the Core Clock and an additional 250MHz added to the Memory Clock, the end result was a 14% increase in overall performance in the Unigine Heaven test. Of course in the overclocked test the fans were set to 100%, meaning the Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 was kicking out 60db of noise! You may want to balance your overclock/noise levels accordingly… 😉
Final Thoughts
The Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 proves that all the best things come in small packages, the diminutive card not only performs well, but overclocks well too, whilst remaining relatively cool and quiet…
The Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 arrived at pcG in a smart box and the card within was well packaged and protected within soft foam. Out of the box the first thing I noticed was how small the card was, far smaller than any Graphics Card that has passed through the pcG offices in the last year or so! The card looks quite smart too with its gunmetal shroud and silver strip it should fit right in with most Rig builds. So it’s small and looks good, but does it perform?
The answer to that is yes, the Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 performed well in our tests, coming in second (twice) to its bigger brother, the mighty GTX 980, but more importantly above AMD’s 290X. There was good overclocking headroom too, with a 225MHz increase on the Core Clock and a 250MHz increase on the Memory Clock we were able to boost overall performance by almost 15%. Of course for this test the fans were at 100% and emitting around 60db, so you may want to balance the performance/noise to your own tastes…
While running at stock settings though the Zotac remained cool(ish) (less than 80 degrees Celsius) and quiet at approximately 35db. This combined with the card’s size (205mm long) means that the card is well suited to those smaller MATX and MITX cases.
Overall the Zotac GEFORCE GTX 970 is a great little card, but at approximately £275 at the time of review, there’s a lot of competition at this price point…
Verdict
Please Share, Like & Comment below, we really value your thoughts and opinions…
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Many thanks to Zotac for providing this sample for review
nice review. i use this card too. by the way your firestrike score only get 8931, but mine is arround 10361 (default)
Thanks David, I guess that’s down to using a different CPU as Fire Strike performs CPU tests also…
hey thank you for the review !
i recently bought this gem and last night when i tried to load farcry with max setting it bumped to 99% and temp raised to 79-80 is it ok for this unit to be that hot ? and how did you manage to get lower temperature after OCing your card ?
Sure it’s not a problem as the card itself will balance its temperatures and it should hover around the 80 degree mark. If you want to cool the card more just set the fan speed using MSI Afterburner (at the bottom turn off Auto), check out the screen shot in the review. Suggest you try fan speed at around 60% first off…
Hope that helps!
ATB pcG James
Thanks for the review
How quite is the card when you’re not gaming. I want a small card (max 210 mm) for PC that resides in our living room.
Under full load when left at its stock setting it was almost silent at 35db, but that’s measured from 1m away if you were say 2m+ away it would effectively be silent…
Hope that helps
@karano
They increased fan speed when they overclocked the card, thus higher fans speed lowered the temps. One could also increase fan speed just a bit without overclocking to get those low temperatures while not raising the sound too much.
@david
Mine got 9522 points with i7-4790k (both stock).
I recently purchased this card for my mATX build, and I’m wondering where the ~7500Mhz values for the Memory Clock are coming from.
Using the same settings in MSI Afterburner, I see memory clock as ‘3758’ MHz in the Afterburner hardware monitor, and as ‘1879.2 MHz’ in TechPowerUp’s GPU-Z: http://i.imgur.com/uJl8qz9.png Where would I be seeing the 7510Mhz value that is listed in the OC section of the article?
It’s a dual channel memory setup, so you just need to double your number! 3758MHz is effectively 7156MHz… 😉
Hi i bought this graphic card 1 month ago . It was working amazingly but now it has started giving problems . I was playing dying light and suddenly the game start lagging for 10-15 seconds and this is happening in every game and lagging continues . GPU fans are making loud noise then before . I dont know whats going on . Please help me . Thanks
Hi There
That doesn’t sound good, have you overclocked the card beyond stock? If not I suggest you send it back perhaps.
Maybe loading up MSI afterburner will shed some light on what’s going on…
Keep us posted we will try and help if we can! 😉
hey there can this graphics card work in my dell opitiplex 7010 pc with the following 500 GB HHD 4 GB ram Cori i5
As long as you have a spare PCIE x16 slot on your motherboard and the physical space it should be fine, yes…
Hi, I purchased this card last christmas and have only just started to overclock. But as I’m fairly new to overclocking I need some help. Would you know what would be the best settings to increase FPS but isn’t to dangerous for the card. Example what the best Core clock to set it to or the best memory overclock?. Thanks 🙂
Best to just follow the settings in the Testing Methodology/Setup section in the review and if you run into trouble dial back the Core Clock (MHz) by 25Hz each time. Make sure you leave the other settings as per the image in the review, as they should be fine.
Hope that helps, let us know…
What are the best overclock settings on this card running with an intel i3 4150? Should I just go with your settings? Also, does Grand Theft Auto 5 or 4K run at 60fps or more?
Yes just go with my settings and follow the instructions that I’ve put in the comments below. With this card you would never be able to run GTA V at 4K at 60FPS at a decent quality setting…
Having said that (and after a little testing) you may be alight in GTA V @ 4K with this card as long as you have all of the AA settings off, but beware that it might seem to stutter as the minimal framerate is likely to be v.low at times…
😉
Thank you for the advice :). I have one more question (for now), would a dual gtx 970 SLI make a big difference? Say for example going from high settings to Very high settings in GTA V? at the same fps as before
NP: SLI normally makes a big difference in nearly all Games that support it and although GTA V has SLI support at this time the scaling is poor, meaning that you’ll likely only see a small improvement. This of course is likely to be sorted in future Driver updates.
BUT: For now at Very high settings, with MSAA set to off, you should be fine with a 970. You can then always add another at a later date if needs must.
Of course for us to help fully, it would be good to know what CPU and Resolution you are using too… 😉
Thanks for the reply 🙂
I achieved 50-60fps at 2560×1440 using your overclock settings. I added +255mHZ for the memory clock speed which was well worth it.
Thanks as no one except you has posted anything related to overclocking this GPU.
No problem and thanks you for checking out pcGameware.co.uk! 😉
Thank you for replying. In case I ask questions in the future, my rig is: Intel core I5 4440, GTX 970 ZOTAC 4GB, custom acer motherboard (1x pci-e slot ;_; ) and I’m running at 1080p. Of course, if I do ask future questions about my rig I will always put my specs in :). I’m just having some trouble with overclocking. I keep bumping into blank screens even at just a +184 clock and a +200 mem clock as well. Would this be a faulty card or just everyone else getting a bit more lucky with there overclocks? Here’s what my settings are >http://gyazo.com/3b0dadff33810b315e07970f3c657a92
Thanks again for the help 😉
Dial the MSI afterburner settings back to 100 Core and 100 Mem, make sure the power limit is set to 106% and maybe also manually set the fan (at least 50%) or as high as you can bear. Then if that all works ok, update each one (Core/Mem) by 25 until your blank screen comes back, when it does dial it back by 25 and you should be good to go…
Hope that helps
😉
I recently buyed it and the temp rised upto 80c under load ..is it okay??
Sure, it will just rise to around 80 and then adjust the GPU Core Clock and raise the fan speeds accordingly. If it goes much above 80 I would be both surprised and maybe a little concerned.
Just install MSI afterburner if you’re concerned and set the fan speeds manually…
😉
Then again if I think about it, could it be down to the psu when I’m overclocking? Because my psu is on the minimum requirements for wattage. My psu is a fsp 500w psu. 🙂
Hey, nice review.
Question, how do I unlock the Power Limit? i can’t do it, and I can’t find the solution.
Are you using this card, if so the power limit should be unlocked…
@TehFizzo
Hey buddy, I have a 550W TT Pure Power, 6 years old now, and when I play BF 4 on ultra settings, my pc shut’s down, it doesn’t happen when I play it in High settings, so, I think you have to get a 600 or 650 PSU.
@Fergato
Hi. Thanks for the answer. I will soon try a 600w psu and see if this is the reason 🙂
@Fergato
Hi. Thanks for the answer. I will soon try a 600w psu and see if this is the reason 🙂
Thanks for this review. I am from the Philippines and I was looking for a review for this particular brand and model!
You’re welcome! 😉
I’ve never been to this site before and I thought this was a quality review.
So, at stock and under full load, the loudest the fans got were 35dB? Did you experience any coil whine? Noise and coil whine were the biggest complaints I saw with this card.
Yes fans at stock seem to be around 35dB (that’s quiet BTW) which is good, if you manually ramp the fans up to their full speed noise increases to around 60dB. No I did not notice any coil whine, but we have noticed here at pcG some people’s ears are more in tune with the noise than others…
I have this card and a i-3770 3.40ghz And im running a double monitor setup, Both are 1080p, one is 144hz other is 60hz. I normally try to play a game on the 144hz and have a video up on the other.Can this card handle it? Because as im writing this its idle at 53c is that normal? my old gtx 660 idled around 45c i just find it odd that its this high. Under load it goes to 70-80s. Should i just not run the 2nd monitor?
Those temps all sound fine to me, to be honest! 😉
This is the first time I’ve stumbled upon this website and I very much enjoyed your review. I keep hovering my mouse cursor over the “proceed to checkout” button on amazon as clicking the button would put the card in my possession in a matter of days. The question I’m trying to ask is if the card is worth it. I really wish to purchase this GPU as my Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GB VRAM can no longer keep up with today’s games. So, should I purchase this GPU?
CPU: AMD FX 6100 @ 3.6Ghtz
GPU: AMD Sapphire Radeon 7770 Ghtz eddition
PSU: Thermaltake 600w 😛
Motherboard: I originally purchased my Motherboard from a yard sale for $10 not knowing if it was gonna work or not. Using it as part of a rig it appears as if it was ripped out of an HP pavilion computer but preforms great! 4 years later the thing still kicks! Oh and its form factor is MicoATX
Other: I’ve got a few fans slapped on for airflow. My room is pretty cool and airflow is good in my case so I’m not concerned too much about heat. The one thing I’m concerned about is if the GPU will actually work. I’ve been hearing about driver problems and heating issues. Also, I don’t care about the Vram limits everybody has been talking about.
@Efecan Sirin
I forgot to mention the resolution I will be gaming at. Welp, here it is! 1920×1080
Hi and glad you liked the review, the Zotac GTX 970 is a truly great card due mainly to its performance for its size. So it’s definitely a good buy, go on treat yourself… 😉
@James
I purchased it. This little Zotac GTX 970 should find itself on my porch in 2 days. 😀
AWESOME! Hopefully our review will give you a little overclocking guidance also, keep us posted if you like… 😉
ATB pcG James
I own this card and thx for writing a very thorough review! It runs games awesomely and I got it new for $310 USD which is 200 quid. came with witcher 3 and arkham knight for free. I will say temps are around mid 70s with a aggressive fan profile in my midtower and witcher 3 is having nvidia driver problems currently and will not be stable under OC settings.
Glad you like the card Dan, make sure that Witcher III is running Full Screen and Nvidia Hair Works off, as this helps overall performance I have found…
😉
ATB pcG James
On heaven benchmark 4.0
Cpu- i5 4440
First my zotac gtx 970 was giving 53fps,
at 1080p
tessellation extreme
Anti aliasing 8x
Now its giving around 38?
Help me!!
What’s your Quality setting, Ultra? The end result should be around 1311. What do you get, and what’s this 53fps? Average, Min, Max!?
😉
Yes ultra …
Score was around 950….
😞
Tell me something…plz
Is this due to some virus ,malware or something?
I noted that in heaven benchmark my mem speed is showing around 3300mhz bt in yours its 7000mhz? Is something wrong der?
The memory speed should either show as around 3500MHz or 7000MHz as its dual channel. But 950 overall score does indeed seem a little low, is this down to MB or CPU perhaps!? Can you confirm your MB, CPU and GPU model number, pls
And no I don’t think it’s malware or virus related…
😉
@James
Hey! So I got the card. Turns out my old “HP” motherboard from that one yard sale didn’t like this card (the card works and runs just fine.) So I decided I’d build a new rig using the Zotac GTX 970. Here’s how it will turn out so far.
CPU: AMD FX 8370 (Maybe an AMD FX 6300 or AMD FX 6350 instead. These CPU’s shouldn’t be a bottleneck I believe.)
GPU: Zotac GTX 970
PSU: Thermaltake 600w
Motherboard: MSI ATX DDR3 2133 Motherboard 970 GAMING
RAM: Kingston HyperX FURY 16GB (2x8GB) 1866MHz
HDD: 1TB 7200RPM
Secondary HDD: Also 1TB 7200RPM (I’ll throw my junk here like I did in the past.)
SDD: (I’m considering getting one of these and throwing my OS at it. My friends and fellow internet strangers tell me the performance gain is extreme.)
Looks good! Just note that you don’t need more than 8GB of RAM for Gaming! S0 you could save some money there, with no impact on performance…
😉
@James
Cpu – intel i5 4440
Motherboard – asus z97k
Ram- corsair vengeance 1 x 8
Gpu – zotac gtx 970
Spms-500w
Hdd- seagate barracuda 7200 500gb
Windows 7 ultimate server pack 1
Do you have V-Sync on perhaps in the Nvidia Control panel, as you should be getting around 1300!
One module of RAM at 8GB, or x2 modules 4GB each!?
You should always use two modules as the motherboard is a Dual Channel MB.
But can 1 channel give such terrible score?
I’ve never ran any system with 1 module so I’m not 100% sure. if you like I’ll try and do a little testing and report back…
Oki thank you so much….
Having now tested with 1 stick and two sticks I can confirm that it makes very little difference!
I’m confident you have V-Sync switched on, as when we run with v-sync OFF we get 1414 this drops to 950 with V-Sync ON! 😉
In benchmark it ws on…and now off…nw its giving 1340..thanks alot..😊😊
You are welcome! We’re here to help if we can… 😉
ATB pcG James
Nice review! I have the same card is goof if I overclock my card with your overclock settings?
GOOD*
Sure of course, it should be fine… 😉
One questions after all did you recommend to turn on V-sync from Nvidia Control Panel or is better let off?
By all means turn on VSYC, if you like the effect!? I can’t stand tearing so for me it’s must. It also has the added advantage of keeping the Graphics Card cooler… 😉
I nearly forgot about this website! So I built my rig using the Zotac GTX 970 and I’ve gotta say it kicks serious butt! I overclocked my Zotac GTX 970 and I’ve been able to play GTA V at 50+FPS at very high settings! I played very few games but I’m getting way more out of this card than I originally expected. I’m not sure what else to say.
Hi there, do you have the results of power consumption in this card?
Thx for your review, right now is 189.99 in new egg and I think I’m going for it.
Hi there, the card itself has a TDP of 145 Watts.
Hay there, what programme do you use to test this card on an could i get it?? I have this card an would like to do a test as I’m sure I’m not getting the FPS i should be. Great review by the way.
You can get Unigine Heaven for FREE here: – https://unigine.com/products/benchmarks/heaven/
😉
Ok so I’ve run the programme and it seems to just keep going through the level/scenery over an over again without finishing and giving me and end product of how well the card has performed, is this normal or did i not leave it long enough?
Just press F9 to start the benchmark! 😉
hello, i recently bought one of these cards for my setup, and while running the witcher 3 my card seems to sit at 82 degrees, sometimes raising to 84 but adverage is 82, is this a problem for the card? i have not set a custom fan speed yet, but i am very new to all of this and to be honest, dont want to break anything!, any help would be appricated.
That does sound a little warm, but it’s fine as the card has a built in mechanism to keep it from getting too hot, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. Maybe a better case to keep the card cooler or some extra fans in your existing case may help…
😉
thanks for the advice, i just installed 2 extra fans to keep it from the mid to high 80’s, im wondering if the only option (other than a new case) is downloading zotac firestorm an fiddling with the fan speeds? although i don’t really want to be doing this unless its necessary. The card came with a 5 year warranty, so i wonder if im worrying for nothing ? Mayby a bit paranoid about my new toy.
It’s definitely nothing to worry about, as far as the case goes it’s all about air flow – Cool air in Hot air out, three decent fans normally does the trick…
😉
Hello I’m back again, it only lets me do the benchmark at high settings instead if ultra but I’m getting this,
GeForce GTX 970
Graphics: 1418MHz
Memory: 3004MHz
78*C
FPS: 88.7
Score: 2235
Min. FPS: 23.0
Max FPS: 183.3
Platform: windows NT 6.2 build 9200 64bit
CPU Model: AMD FX 8320 Eight-core processor (3515MHz) x4
GPU Model: NVIDIA GeForce GTx 970 10.18.13.5850 (4095) x1
Is that normal, Is my memory at 3004MHz normal?
No, the memory should read 3504 but as it’s dual channel that equates to 7010MHz. Use MSI afterburner, is the best way to get these numbers. You should also be able to choose Ultra, check you have the same settings (all of them) as we do in our Unigine benchmark screenshot in the review.
I am also back again, getting new temp readings off my card, under heavy load, sometimes hitting 87 degrees….i have already installed additional fans to try to sort this problem, seems to have done little to nothing. Is a new case the only option i have left, as i feel like this card is probably not supposed to run this hot.
The temp is still not too scary (and you will NOT damage the card), but yes you might want a bigger case (more air around the GPU) and or better airflow. Just let us know if you need more help.
😉
I cant find you’re screen shit :/ also it deffinatly won’t let me choose ultra for the benchmarking, only a general the cycle through, do i need to download msi afterburner too check? It might be easier if we could some how talk away from here as I’m quite the noob but would love you’re help an dont want to clog up you’re wall here.
This is the image you’re trying to use as a guide: http://www.pcgameware.co.uk/images/UNiGiNEHeaven4.0TestSettings.png
Can I use a 500w power supply with this graphics card? I know that the minimum for a gtx 970 in general is 500w, but is that really going to work?
It all depends on what else you are powering in the PC. If it’s just MB assembly (MB/CPU/RAM) a couple of HDDs or SSDs, some fans and the 970 GPU then you will be fine! Assuming the PSU is a good one! You could just get one of these (http://amzn.to/1PWRzRR) to see how much power is being pulled from the wall socket…
😉
Got this card for $305 US shipped w/ a game! Testing out the OC of my card now so far at 1420/3600. Mine didn’t come with that soft cell foam though?? Is that for review samples only?? If so not fair!!
Good card that! 😉 and nice overclock too! 😮
No, that was a retail sample we used, so maybe they changed the packaging!?
ATB
COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power RP-550-PCAR 550w 12v 16a 12v 16a work for this card ?
YES! 😉
thanks bro!!
How did you get the temperatures below 65C with overclock? I’ve got about 79C in every new game with no overclock and fans at 80% or more (so it’s pretty loud and still hot, I’m thinking of changing my card for something else). What did you do?
All of our overclocked tests are run with fans at 100%, that’s how we got the temps we did. But of course this also relies on your case having good airflow. Maybe you’re simply not getting cool air to the Graphics Card and/or not getting the hot air out!?
I just purchased this beauty and received The Division for free as their promo. I have ran this at ultra settings with an i5 4570 and it was jitter-free. I adjusted the settings to max/ultra, with a little tweaking and the game has been running butter smooth with no lag or jitter. I am impressed with this gpu. Well worth the $500 Canadian price tag.
Great review! I bought this video card right before a big cross U.S. move/job change and am just now building my gaming rig. The only thing I have left to buy is a monitor and I’m interested in a 4k model. when I look at the max resolution cited on amazon.com (where I purchased it) it says 2560 x 1600. The 4K gaming sites I’ve read cite 3840 x 2160 as 4k resolution. So can a single card not achieve 4K resolution then? What about 2 cards?
I would not buy a 4K monitor and pair it with a GTX 970 as it simply doesn’t have the horsepower to drive it! I would stick with 2560×1440 if it was me…
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So can the ‘Acer XB280HK bprz’ I purchased not run at lower resolutions? It has Gsync tech…I was assuming it would ‘see’ my 970x and ratchet down to 2560 x 1440?
don’t see why it wouldn’t!?