GTX 970 or GTX 980?

Thegame741

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Sep 11, 2014
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http://pcpartpicker.com/p/y23tNG

This is my build. I have already built the pc and i intend to get a GPU some time in the future. This rig is intended for gaming uses. The GTX 980 is obviously better than the GTX 970. The question is, is it worth paying the extra? Is the difference that major? If the difference isnt great it would be better to save money and get the GTX 970.
 
Solution
GTX 980 is 10-15% better than 970 and costs 40-50% more. Calculate your profit. IMHO, I'd go for a single 970, since it can pretty much max out any current title with decent FPS. Then go SLI down the road as you have all the right equipments.
thing is like in the thread I linked above from toms is all the issues with the 970 you see in like newegg reviews about the fan and coil whine what ever dont come up as much or at all with the 980 -- I think all the junk sub standard parts that were not good enough for the 980 get passed down to the 970 and sold as a 970 at a cut rate price.. an then hobbled as in the link I gave above from tekreport ??? so in the end you pay for the top issue free 100% card or buy the one that's close but no cigar one that may leave you wanting to rma it cause of all the 970 issues as been seen???

 
I have an asus strix gtx 970, I have no problem with it and its extremely quiet. The fans don't even run when you're playing simple games like Lol or minecraft. And I can over clock it very easily.
 
you see like whats said here on that is kinda makes the 970 a bit more fishy and this deal

Interestingly, the GeForce GTX 970 was the one card of this Maxwell release where all of NVIDIA's partners chose to go the route of custom designs rather than adopting the NVIDIA reference design. On the GTX 980, however, you'll find a mix of both and I would wager that NVIDIA's reference boards do not exhibit any above average noise levels from coils. (I have actually tested four reference GTX 980s without coil whine coming into play.) Sometimes offering all of these companies the option to be creative and to differentiate can back-fire if the utmost care isn't taken in component selection.

see 980 less issues -NVidia reference --- 970 issues -- non NVidia reference---
so now I go back to what I said about sub standard parts used in the 970

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GeForce-GTX-970-Coil-Whine-Concerns
 
start laughing

one more for ya---

''Compared to GTX 980 and its full-fledged GM204 GPU, GTX 970 takes a harvested GM204 that drops 3 of the SMMs, reducing its final count to 13 SMMs or 1664 CUDA cores.

''GTX 970 has been a pure virtual (no reference card) launch, which means all of NVIDIA’s partners are launching their custom cards right out of the gate. A lot of these have been recycled or otherwise only slightly modified GTX 700/600 series designs, owing to the fact that GM204’s memory bus has been held at 256-bits and its power requirements are so low.'''


this is why you pay for quality of the 980 over the 970 [970= reject recycled parts not making NVidia specs,] you get what you pay for
 
I had two 980's and now one 980 and one 970. I will say that you most definitely get more for your money with the 970.

Take it from someone who owns or has owned both or some random reviews from disgruntled people that don't know what they are doing when they buy from Newegg...
 
Many GTX 980's have coil whine, so do 970's. There the same parts, just subset models. Of course the GTX 970 may get it more, but an RMA is most certainly easy. The price difference is not to be ignored, it's huge. Even if the "quality" by stated "close but no cigar" is not worth the extra in itself.


"I think all the junk sub standard parts that were not good enough for the 980 get passed down to the 970 and sold as a 970 at a cut rate price."

This is a thought, defective 980's are sold too. If this is the case there would not be a reported case of a GTX 980 coil whine, which there is. Stock cooled EVGA models have this RMA worthy whine, the card itself isn't modified in any way to be claimed as an EVGA cooled card.
 
but not as near the reported rate as the 970 lets face it its like every other one and as you see there not NVidia spec or reference just thrown together with what 980 chip that was tested not good for the 980 and put with what ever they got laying around in there warehouse inventory [ as in used in recycled salvaged old card ] to keep them from being wasted in to the trash bin

so all I see from the 970 is a ''afro'' engineered vid card sols at a cut rate to get rid of substandard / old/ recycled /... parts and still make some money so as its stated what you got was maybe a old gtx 770 with a 980 chip that was not good enough for the 980 in it ???

the more I look in to the 970 the less appealing it becomes ..

how hard is that to see form all the articles on this ???
 
I was going to add that I feel these 970 cards were hurried and thrown together with want ever and how ever to get them out for the x-mas rush and I fell if you wait till around march or so next year you may see the NEW gtx 970 come out that will be more to real life card that will be a 100% true 970 design and not based on a bunch of hand me down parts [opinion]
 
SKU disabling has been done in the industry for years now. Many, many cards based off the same chips but disabled GPCs or SMMs have been used to create differently binned cards for different price ranges. There's nothing wrong with that.

GTX 970 is a different card from 970 and a bad 980 is still a 980, it cannot lock it's own SMMs and become 970. Similarly, 970 is a definitive card with 13 SMMs enabled and based off GM204 arcitecture, technically. Both are different cards with different number of cores. It's like saying i3 is an i5 with not good enough cores.

I've recommended 970 to tons of users by now and recieved none complaints. Not sure why it is being attacked for no concrete reason whatsoever. A 970 is never supposed to be a 980, it has it's own space.

And both 970 and 980 use different chips, no 'bad 980' is converted to a 970. It's not a child's play to disable SMMs. 970 is not made from any recycled parts, or bad parts, it is full fledged chip.

The whining noise is caused not by the chip itself, but by coils in the power regulation circuitry of the card. There's no reason to blame the GPU (the chip) for that. The cooling solutions may be based off an older design which results in such issues, but they've been largely accounted for by the manufacturers.

The GM204 is likely to be the last Nvidia 28nm fabrication process release, they're moving to 20nm chips based on GM200 now. There will not be any other or 'improved' GTX 970.
 
^ Summed up perfectly. Do not use opinion as an excuse to persuade users to get a GTX 980.

"so all I see from the 970 is a ''afro'' engineered vid card sols at a cut rate to get rid of substandard / old/ recycled /... parts and still"

Again with 'this'. Please refer to one source (or even better your articles) indicating it as the truth. Do NOT refer back to forums or Newegg/Amazon reviews, they do not prove anything. The factors of coil whine would appear to be the thing making you believe such a claim.

"The whining noise is caused not by the chip itself, but by coils in the power regulation circuitry of the card. There's no reason to blame the GPU (the chip) for that. The cooling solutions may be based off an older design which results in such issues, but they've been largely accounted for by the manufacturers."

Excellently summed up MeteorsRaining.
 
I care if you buy it or not . a fool and his money are soon parted ... also with what I said about it.. makes it more clear on why its so much cheaper then the 980... that's a big price gap... as like I think I said above ''you get what you pay for '' [and some times less ]

what I posted came from AnandTech

and then in the one part of the review link on these cards '''Coil noise can happen, for example, when the coil is poorly secured to the circuit board, is poorly damped, or if the resonant frequency of the coil is close to the resonant frequency of the electric circuit.]]]


what part of that falls under top quality???

''
Excellently summed up MeteorsRaining. ''' I guess if your trying to fool yourself [lol]

with this '' Do NOT refer back to forums or Newegg/Amazon reviews, they do not prove anything' I should believe the company hype over a actual user ??? or a review from AnandTech or a site like toms ? [witch may be paid for giving a good review or risk getting there free samples to play with revoked ] ??

get real the end user is giving his real life experience with the product.. not a endorsed company line to make sales...

 
"what part of that falls under top quality??? "

What part of coil whine does? Let alone what does anything of what your examples do.

"Excellently summed up MeteorsRaining. ''' I guess if your trying to fool yourself [lol]"

If you'd like to put this in a manner of your points -

"I think", "[Opinion]", "Maybe"

Consider this also from yourself -

"so as its stated what you got was maybe a old gtx 770 with a 980 chip that was not good enough for the 980 in it ???"

That doesn't even make sense, nor is it even possible.

"NEW gtx 970 come out that will be more to real life card that will be a 100% true 970 design and not based on a bunch of hand me down parts [opinion]"

Never even heard of that, nor ever will.

Also - I am not taking anything directly from the company, nobody does. To put this to you in another manner, do you also want to know why there are so many more complaints about coil whine for the GTX 970 on Newegg and the forums? Simple to answer, because far more people buy them and are smart enough to know what's better for the cost. If this weren't the case, You would see equal complaints about both, but the market is in much higher demand for the 970, due to the reviews which show the actual difference. In any review to date about both cards, I do not see anything relating to the major quality differences at all.

If you can directly relate ONE source about anything your talking about that doesn't involve coil whine, I think all of us would be gladly listening for what's to show. Anything about recycled parts and what not is totally unacceptable to continuously state without proper reasoning.



 
funny how gigabyte has now a rev 1.1 ,, why is that if there was nothing wrong with the 1,0???

directly relate ONE source ????? everywhere you look


That doesn't even make sense, nor is it even possible I can see you don read nothing on this [AnandTech --- ''GTX 970 has been a pure virtual (no reference card) launch, which means all of NVIDIA’s partners are launching their custom cards right out of the gate. A lot of these have been recycled or otherwise only slightly modified GTX 700/600 series designs, owing to the fact that GM204’s memory bus has been held at 256-bits and its power requirements are so low.''']

why would they lie ??? I see you got this card and now feel you got to defend your buy--

Since all of the GTX 970 cards currently shipping are non-reference, custom built PCB designs, NVIDIA's input to the problem is one mostly of recommendations. NVIDIA knows that it is their name and brand being associated with any noisy GeForce cards

so it would seem NVidia is not pleased with whats going on with this ????

sorry your so easy to please .. and you seem like the type they see coming a mile away

enjoy
 
REV 1.1 is just a different VRM area Layout, no links or relation to coil whine from what I'm seeing. It is not just a BIOS update however from what is seen. To also note you will see cases of an RMA to a REV 1.1 which solves coil whine, as the point I have stated an RMA is of course an option. The solved coil whine from an RMA to REV 1.0 to 1.1 is of no way related to the 'quality'.

"'GTX 970 has been a pure virtual (no reference card) launch, which means all of NVIDIA’s partners are launching their custom cards right out of the gate. A lot of these have been recycled or otherwise only slightly modified GTX 700/600 series designs, owing to the fact that GM204’s memory bus has been held at 256-bits and its power requirements are so low.''

Just realized you used this quote before and is what your basing your argument around but here’s an easy response to that -

Lovely quote though take note of the bolded word. This does not indicate that the board is exactly the same, just a similar 'design' to previous models. They owed it to the fact of it's similarity, but they did not owe it to be the same. I hope you can realise that they are referring 'recycled' to the PCB board, not the parts in which the board holds. Also to note, The GTX 980 is 256-bit and also has a low power consumption which would only indicate it is targeted exactly the same as the GTX 970, and the non-reference GTX 980's would also appear to then use the 'recycled' PCB and 'design'. Thus to conclude this part makes the quality the same, and your whole opinion invalid. If you can give sufficient reasoning to why using an unused PCB in storage is bad or degrades Nvidia, please explain.

"so it would seem NVidia is not pleased with whats going on with this ????"

Nvidia have not even said a word from what you've listed and stated.

"I see you got this card and now feel you got to defend your buy-- "

I don't currently even own a Nvidia card, keep invalid points out of it.

"why would they lie ???"

You have interpreted it completely wrong. To say it again, Companies such as Gigabyte have just used their pre-manufactured board from an older series (Windforce 3X to be precise), it's not used before nor has anything wrong with it, it's just they wanted to save money and earn more, as a business tends to do. The PCB used is the same as any other, nothing special if it were new or not, nor would it make a difference either. To go even further, the PCB is still new, it has only been in storage, nothing out of the ordinary in terms of your definition of 'quality'. There is absolutely nothing related to faulty parts or bad 980's used on it, as your implying too. Further on it’s quality, The pre-manufactured PCB’s are exactly the same as your classification of the ‘NEW’lineup, the new PCB’s printed will be exactly the same, use the same parts (The parts on the board are different to that then what was on the 600/700 lineup), and use the same chips. So in reality the difference is (Gigabyte used example) - 970 - Uses a new board that was in storage, which utilizes brand new components / - 980 - Has an identical printed board, also new. No relation to bad parts used, again. From this I have not changed my argument to suit, after the quote you gave me I only needed to explain what it really means. As far as my initial message goes, it means exactly the same.

"sorry your so easy to please .. and you seem like the type they see coming a mile away"

Not even acceptable in an argument. I'm not here to please, I'm only hear to help and to crack down on misused information for this particular thread.

Sarcasm is of poor defence to a comeback also.
 
Seeing the arguements coming from junkeymonkey, I'll just repeat a few wise words. "Don't let personal experiences and opinions become so prevelant and person becomes so driven, that the very objective of a fair arguement is lost". Attack the opinions mate, not the person.

unknownofprob IMO reasoned against your not-so-legitmate proofs, particularly your bad interpretation of a straightforward statement, in a clear and sensible way. To be honest I don't see this discussion going anywhere where one (two, including me) member(s) present claims based on proofs and facts and another member bashes it for the sake of some undefined eternal quality issues.

In an arguement if you can't justify your cause, then atleast be sane enough to believe what the other person is saying. Do not commit to believing blind folded, but do not become so stubborn with your (and yes, only yours) opinions and ideas that the person other end feels so helpless that he stop caring about.

I can't care less about Nvidia cards (or any cards for that matter) and to me it doesn't really matter if OP gets 980 or 970. But yes as said I do tend to commit myself to correct misinterpretation of statements and facts. In this case, the absency of OP's reply combined with your stubborness to not understand is certainly driving me out of this thread and mods into it.

I hinted you about your incorrectness with a one line reply which you couldn't grasp to be the clue. Now you find yourself at a juncture where you must either agree upon what's being (correctly) said or contiune with your currenct ignorant behaviour and be ultimately taught a thing or two by moderators, one fine day. Your choice.

Sorry for the harsh words but even facts were not enough to make you understand, so I just presented you with what you're currently doing.