MSI Vs GIGABYTE GTX 970

[h3llfire741]

Which one should I opt for? These two are almost the same in performance, but MSI seems to be having a lot of problems with their fans. I have yet to hear any problems with the Gigabyte one, so that one looks promising. Its only $10 more on Amazon so it's not that big a price difference from the MSI one.

 

[mosti]

Go the G1 hands down. It is rated the highest of all the 970's (but poorest aesthetically lol). I actually don't mind it's looks. Maybe because I owned a GTX 660 windforce, and then a GTX 770 windforce. I'm use to them lol.

 

[jay2tall]

I have 2 MSI 970s and the fans are super quiet. No issues here. Not sure what problems you are reading. The fan profile doesn't have them turn on until about 60C or so and the ramp up pretty appropriately with the temp. I love mine and run extremely well. I've OCed to 1300Mhz base clock on the GPU and 8012Mhz effective on the Memory. I didn't even try to push them harder with no issues. The MSI's do use Mil spec components and also upgraded the power delivery on the memory as well from the stock 1 phase to 2 phase. I am not sure about the G1, but have not heard they did anything beyond stock. It does use 6 phase for the GPU though. I am a fan of the MSI, my co-worker has the G1 and loves it as well. So you probably can't go wrong with either. They are considered the 2 top cards at this point. Though the Zotac AMP! cards are supposed to be REALLY good to. There is an Omega card and Extreme card. There are little reviews on them, but from what I have read they are really good overclockers are well. EVGA uses a virtually stock card and just puts a fancy cooler on it. They don't OC nearly as well as the others and you are paying the same for stock parts.

 

[mosti]

I have 2 MSI 970s and the fans are super quiet. No issues here. Not sure what problems you are reading. The fan profile doesn't have them turn on until about 60C or so and the ramp up pretty appropriately with the temp. I love mine and run extremely well. I've OCed to 1300Mhz base clock on the GPU and 8012Mhz effective on the Memory. I didn't even try to push them harder with no issues. The MSI's do use Mil spec components and also upgraded the power delivery on the memory as well from the stock 1 phase to 2 phase. I am not sure about the G1, but have not heard they did anything beyond stock. It does use 6 phase for the GPU though. I am a fan of the MSI, my co-worker has the G1 and loves it as well. So you probably can't go wrong with either. They are considered the 2 top cards at this point. Though the Zotac AMP! cards are supposed to be REALLY good to. There is an Omega card and Extreme card. There are little reviews on them, but from what I have read they are really good overclockers are well. EVGA uses a virtually stock card and just puts a fancy cooler on it. They don't OC nearly as well as the others and you are paying the same for stock parts.

I've heard of issues with their fan technology messing up with fan curves with overclocking etc. I can't remeber the exact details but it wasn't a MAJOR issue. For $10 more I'd go for the G1 based on my own expereinces with gigabyte and reviews. Not to say the msi card is bad, it is as you said, one of the top cards. So far the majority of 970 custom cards have had great reviews and success.

 

[h3llfire741]

I have 2 MSI 970s and the fans are super quiet. No issues here. Not sure what problems you are reading. The fan profile doesn't have them turn on until about 60C or so and the ramp up pretty appropriately with the temp. I love mine and run extremely well. I've OCed to 1300Mhz base clock on the GPU and 8012Mhz effective on the Memory. I didn't even try to push them harder with no issues. The MSI's do use Mil spec components and also upgraded the power delivery on the memory as well from the stock 1 phase to 2 phase. I am not sure about the G1, but have not heard they did anything beyond stock. It does use 6 phase for the GPU though. I am a fan of the MSI, my co-worker has the G1 and loves it as well. So you probably can't go wrong with either. They are considered the 2 top cards at this point. Though the Zotac AMP! cards are supposed to be REALLY good to. There is an Omega card and Extreme card. There are little reviews on them, but from what I have read they are really good overclockers are well. EVGA uses a virtually stock card and just puts a fancy cooler on it. They don't OC nearly as well as the others and you are paying the same for stock parts.

I'm not really looking to overclock. So out of the two which has better raw performance. And is it significant. I already ordered the MSI one a few weeks ago, and it has yet to ship, so I could still cancel the order right now. But the G1 has a backplate and "better" cooling, so that combined with all the coil whine/fan problems everyone in the forum is having with the MSI, I kind of want to switch. I've tried researching and I can't really find a huge difference between the two.

 

[junkeymonkey]

right now between the msi or giga for me would be the cards length the giga is longer and I don't think I would want it cramped in my case i'm sure between the 2 each one should do you a good job so for me it would be msi

also for me I going to wait and see if the issues with these gtx900 cards get worked out like coil whine and underclocking i'm thinking these first release cards may be beta samples to see what issues like stated above comes in on them and the next release may have all this fixed in some way [opinion]

 

[h3llfire741]

Damn, the length is 312mm, I don't think that will fit in my case. So I guess i'll just go with MSI.

 

[junkeymonkey]

ya it looks like a good deal its a shame evga seemed to have goofed there offerings but the MSI should do you just fine .. if I were to buy today that MSI would be the one [opinion]