Which GTX 970 Brand?

[Guest]

I have chosen on the 970. Now, I don't know which brand to buy. Which brand do you recommend?

Asus Strix GTX 970: $350
EVGA ACX GTX 970: $330
Gigabyte Gaming GTX 970: $370
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 970: $350
PNY GTX 970: $330
Zotac GTX 970: $330

Which one if those is your favorite? I am stuck into which brand to buy.

 

[Gam3r01]

I would take the MSI model.

 

[Guest]

Looks like the MSI?

 

[HighEndGaming]

I have chosen on the 970. Now, I don't know which brand to buy. Which brand do you recommend?

Asus Strix GTX 970: $350
EVGA ACX GTX 970: $330
Gigabyte Gaming GTX 970: $370
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 970: $350
PNY GTX 970: $330
Zotac GTX 970: $330

Which one if those is your favorite? I am stuck into which brand to buy.

I'd prefer the ASUS STRIX but the MSI Gaming isn't bad.

 

[frag06]

Looks like the MSI?

The top two cards are the MSI 970 Gaming and the Gigabyte G1. Just go over to the OCN 970 Owners Club and take a look at the list. You'll see that the majority of the cards are MSI and Gigabyte, with a few STRIX and EVGA cards.

Many EVGA 970 owners are returning their cards due to the poor overclocking performance and poor design (compared to other 970's).

 

[Gam3r01]

It has nothing to do with poor design, its simply an engineering error resulting in 2/3 heatpipe contact with the GPU die. The same thing happened with the 760.

 

[frag06]

It has nothing to do with poor design, its simply an engineering error resulting in 2/3 heatpipe contact with the GPU die. The same thing happened with the 760.

By poor design, I meant their PCB. It's not poor outright (it's fine) but when we're comparing the 970's, it is comparatively poor.

As for one of the heat pipes not making full contact, that also could have been avoided. They instead chose to use the cooler. It probably doesn't hurt the cooling performance much, if at all, but why buy the card when you can get a better one for the same price?

I have always bought EVGA, including one of their 970's. I returned it like many others because it had pretty bad coil whine, the OC performance was poor (voltage locked) and it just wasn't as good of an offering as the MSI 970. Not to mention the fans on my unit were very loud for some reason.

 

[Guest]

Either the MSI or Asus...

 

[Mac266]

I'd go Asus. Or Gigabyte.

The G1 has the coolest temps. and the Strix is the quietest.

 

[17seconds]

PNY has a lifetime warranty that you will appreciate after you hit that three year time limit on the other brands.

As far as EVGA, if you really look at photos of the heat pipes, you can see that it might actually properly installed. With the offset design there is only one heatpipe gap and two full heatpipes in contact with the GPU. If the GPU were centered, there would be two heatpipe gaps and contact with only one full heatpipe, both would degrade the cooling performance.

How exactly Asus got it right, however, I'm not sure.

 

[kingcarlos89]

anyone has idea when MSI will ship the 2nd batch of gtx 970 with diff fan sticker?

 

[Guest]

I will buy either the evga or the msi...