Which GTX 970 should I buy?

[Taud]

So instead of using my tax refund as rent money in the coming months, I decided to buy a new graphics card, which required me to buy a new PSU for my Dell XPS 8700. Before anyone mentions that I should've built my own instead of buying a premade, I 100% agree and regret not building my own. Anyhow, I've decided on the GTX 970 because it seems future ready enough for me since I don't see myself getting into 4k gaming quite yet, and I could always go SLI in a couple of years. I also considered the 980, but it is even more over kill and a lot more expensive. I also considered the R9 290x, but I prefer NVIDIA over AMD in general and either are more than enough for my sub 4k needs. I should also note that I do not plan on overclocking my GPU or using an aftermarket cooler.

I thought I was decently knowledgeable about graphics cards but apparently I'm not. As you can see at this Amazon page:
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-256bit-Graphics-04G-P4-3975-KR/dp/B00R3NK2LE/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1428631993&sr=1-2&keywords=970+gtx

There are many slightly different versions of the 970 under eVGA with their own benefits. However, I do not know if future me will want it to be able to be water cooled safely or overclocked. Also, I don't know which manufacture to choose. The only reason I linked eVGA is because I found an outdated survey on a different thread, and the community chose eVGA as the best.

Which 970 does the community recommend?

My specs:
i7-4770
GTX 645 (replacing)
8g ram
CX 600m psu on order
Dell 0KWVT8 Motherboard

Sorry for any grammar mistakes or poor posting etiquette. Long time lurker first time poster (besides posting this same post in the wrong forum on accident).

I look forward to reading your suggestions!

 

[Adam Persaud]

i have the msi 970 4g version and have no complaints... no coil whine great overclock and looks good if you have a red and black set up in your case

 

[Snookslayer]

Gigabyte has good benchmarks, good reviews, and a backplate. I'd mention the LED, but won't see it through your Dell case anyway.

I haven't tried them all, but from what I've read on this forum you really can't go wrong with any 970 brands, particularly the big names - Gigabyte, MSI, ASUS, or EVGA. The only complaints I've read about smaller brand names is poor customer support and some rebates not getting mailed back.

 

[Taud]

Does anyone think I'll regret not buying and over clocked version?

 

[JimF_35]

Most will perform the same at stock.

The differences come in the VRMs and Cooling which will help with extreme overclocking. Some come with multi bios support which again helps with overclocking when you flash the BIOS to remove the voltage and power caps built into almost all of the cards.

Other differences are in the look. Some come with back plates which prevent card sag and some come with metal fan shrouds instead of plastic which look cooler.

The Over Clocked additions usually come with a BIOS that supports Turbo which will do a mild over clock to boost performance. You might consider one of these because they might be speed binned to be better over clockers.

 

[Taud]

To anyone interested in my decision, I decided to go with the standard EVGA GTX 970 ACX 2.0 for the following reasons:

1. I can overclock it later by myself if I'd like.
2. I could add additional cooling / a back plate if I'd like later.
3. My case doesn't have the best ventilation (still not bad), and I don't want the possibility of extra heat (probably won't make much of a difference since I don't for see myself being too hard on the card in the short term)
4. I'm a mild NVIDIA fan boy (reason I didn't go for the more or less equal R9 290x that cost less).
5. I may use DX12 SLI after I update the rest of my computer so I want a long life span on this card.
6. I have a Corsair Vengeance V2 headset and a Logitech G502 which both are coincidentally blue, so evidently a blue PC build is my long term goal unbeknownst to me until I decided to buy this (reason for EVGA over Gigabyte, ASUS, etc).

Snookslayer, you would've gotten the best answer if JimF_35's post didn't lead me to researching the aspects that I didn't even know were things to consider.

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[Adam Persaud]

hope you enjoy it! just got my 2nd 970 today

 

[Taud]

Updste: For anyone who buys a new graphics card and has a older machine, you may have to update your BIOS to get it to work. My computer wouldn't boot when I plugged in my 970, and I was afraid I fried the card. This may be common sense to most people, but it made my life difficult.

TL;DR : You might have to update your BIOS.