EVGA GeForce GTX 970 ACX has misaligned GPU vs heatpipes




Interesting, the cooler of the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 ACX series graphics cards seems to be somewhat poorly designed. Well that or somebody forgot to look up the GPU placement on the PCB and didn't compare it to the cooler spec sheet. Photos from reviews with the cooler removed show clearly that the GPU is mounted way off the position of the heatpipes.
Redditors point out, the ACX cooler on last year's EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SC had pretty much the same design with just two of the three direct-touch heatpipes actually touching the GPU. This could explain why EVGA's ACX cooler performs more poorly and noisier in reviews versus other custom cooling solutions. They are missing almost a third of the cooler performance.
Above examples where you can see the problem, basically only two pipes are in contact.
And above an example from the ASUS Strix, the way it should look like (photo's are courtesy of the respective owners Bit-Tech).
You just have to wonder, how stuff like that passes QA (quality analysis) control? Didn't they really notice that when designing the GPU placement on the PCB they needed to compare that with the cooler specs ? Now in defense of EVGA, the cooler still offers enough cooling performance, so if you own one .. don't worry. It's just that it could have been a good notch better isn't it? It will also be interesting to see how this pans out with the EVGA GTX 980 ACX cards, with a similar cooler and PCB design, that product might be effected similar to the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 ACX series.
An EVGA Step Down ?
EVGA GeForce GTX TITAN-Z Graphics Cards - 05/28/2014 03:14 PM
EVGA unleashes the most powerful graphics card. The GeForce GTX TITAN Z is a gaming monster, built to power the most extreme gaming rigs on the planet. With a massive 5760 cores, 12 GB of 7 Gbps GDDR5...
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 with 6GB Available - 03/23/2014 09:46 AM
EVGA has added a SKU in their GeForce GTX 780 line-up, this model comes with 6 GB of graphics memory making the card a bit more future proof allowing more eye candy and UHD resolutions a notch better...
EVGA GeForce GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti - 02/18/2014 06:36 PM
EVGA released their GeForce GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti line up as well. Step up to EVGA GeForce GTX gaming with the new GTX 750. Its ultra-efficient, next-gen architecture makes the GTX 750 the weapon of...
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Kingpin Edition Graphics Card (updated new photo added) - 12/04/2013 04:22 PM
EVGA apparently is working on a special edition GeForce GTX 780 Ti. The card is labeled as Kingpin Edition Graphics Card as their facebook is showing with a teaser photo. k|ngp|n is a well-known p...
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SC SuperClocked ACX test and review - 11/26/2013 01:18 PM
We review the EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SC SuperClocked ACX. Oh and hey, SC means a factory overclock - this thing is fast! NVIDIA unlocked the GPU completely meaning all 2880 Shader processors are avai...
Newbie
Posts: 16
Joined: 2009-01-11
Will still buy evga cards... the other cards out there is just ugly as fk and i cudnt care less if the card gets 1c hotter.. we dont even know if it does make a dif.
But to me their solution does look like the most optimal, no point in trying to place it betwen 3 pipes with 2 big gaps when u can place it on 2 with only 1 gap and even if it isnt the most optimal and only gets 1-2c hotter i think its fine if it can save them some $$$$.
Ancient Guru
Posts: 26658
Joined: 2005-01-08
Will still buy evga cards... the other cards out there is just ugly as fk and i cudnt care less if the card gets 1c hotter.. we dont even know if it does make a dif.
But to me their solution does look like the most optimal, no point in trying to place it betwen 3 pipes with 2 big gaps when u can place it on 2 with only 1 gap and even if it isnt the most optimal and only gets 1-2c hotter i think its fine if it can save them some $$$$.
I don't know why you care about EVGA saving $$$. I would worry about what I'm getting for what I pay, in the first place.
Ancient Guru
Posts: 10979
Joined: 2005-08-13
According to Fudzilla, their sample had coil whine (or something).
Also VRM's are much better in other cards. AFAIK EVGA only has 4+1 when MSI for example has 6+2 config.
Ancient Guru
Posts: 26658
Joined: 2005-01-08
According to Fudzilla, their sample had coil whine (or something).
Also VRM's are much better in other cards. AFAIK EVGA only has 4+1 when MSI for example has 6+2 config.
Thought EVGA was 4+2, it is according to this http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/14
Still, that's pretty sub par, compared to competition, MSI having 6+2.
EDIT: The Gigabyte G1 is a 6 phase power design, assuming that's 4+2?
Maha Guru
Posts: 1565
Joined: 2009-04-27
Decent airflow case, hottest i saw was 76c load with an ambient of ~22c. EVGA SOC in metro 2033, crysis, and some assetto corsa.
Meh. It works. obviously the gigabyte or other cooler options much more ideal.
76c is a lot for a 970 considering its TDP.
My 780 GE doesnt reach 73c while playing metro and archeage and that is with auto and no fan profiles. With fan profiles its usually around 65-66c max.
Luckily VRM cooling isn't affected by heatpipes. As long as you dont overclock it too much you'll be fine i guess, but its a shame not to overclock such a nice card.
Maha Guru
Posts: 1027
Joined: 2003-12-15
You never know man. Maybe he's on EVGA's board?
Maha Guru
Posts: 2725
Joined: 2009-03-02
somebody didnt do there job right. looks like they where lazy and didnt want to go back to the drawing board for a redesign, and miss the release window.
my 780 hovers around 80c when playing battlefield 4 campain for 7 hours at 4k resolution and using msi after burners default fan profile. if I did not use the profile, it would of probably burned.
Ancient Guru
Posts: 4178
Joined: 2008-08-21
I'll check fan profiles and overclocking ability later.
It still destroys my 660 ti in performance so I'm not too displeased.

Master Guru
Posts: 518
Joined: 2010-05-26
You might think 1-2C is nothing, but i bet if you love to OC which most of us do here @ G3D it will snowball @ higher temps, meaning you'll probably end up with a lower overall OC.
The 3 gas filled pipes should of been a tad slimmer and if done correctly there should be no Gaps in between them at all. If you look at that 3rd unused pipe it doesn't really go anywhere and is very small compared to the others. I doubt it even does anything at all.
I think they have just Shoehorned an old design to fit the 970 to save money.
Sad really that such a top gfx card maker is failing so fast.
Ancient Guru
Posts: 4178
Joined: 2008-08-21
Also did notice some whine through my audio - I thought I might have just bumped the EMI shielding on my audio card like I've done before. I'll do some testing.
If it is in fact whine caused by the power phases, the card will get returned. More testing required.
However it seems pretty much all 970s are out of stock at this point ...
Master Guru
Posts: 252
Joined: 2009-03-25
what, the, ****
Master Guru
Posts: 518
Joined: 2010-05-26
EVGA has banned G3D from voicing it's Opinions on their products.
It's like communism, you can only say good things about EVGA and that's fine but say anything bad, even the truth and they get rid of your voice/opinion or in HH's case EXPERT REVIEWS.
Big mistake if you ask me. Once you go down that road then i'm afraid you have bias. Bias is not good for consumers.
It's a threat basically, say only good things or we won't work with you.
PATHETIC.
Master Guru
Posts: 347
Joined: 2007-10-08
On that note, have any other water cooled 980s been announced other than the EVGA Hydrocopper? I'm now growing more and more hesitant to buy their products given all their negative publicity recently. Seems like they have gotten big and arrogant. Now they are learning the price that comes with.
Ancient Guru
Posts: 5588
Joined: 2004-05-10
Seems Evga did the same thing with their gtx 760 cards. By looks of it with 970, keeping manufacturing costs down and using existing parts. Even though 2 heat pipes get the job done (temps are not a problem in reviews), their big fail imo is not seeing the potential PR damage they could get from doing this. Some of their 970 buyers have been returning their cards as a result. 2014 is Evgas annus horribilis.

Maha Guru
Posts: 948
Joined: 2006-04-10
Decent airflow case, hottest i saw was 76c load with an ambient of ~22c. EVGA SOC in metro 2033, crysis, and some assetto corsa.
Meh. It works. obviously the gigabyte or other cooler options much more ideal.
That's not great, the TDP is only 165w. It doesn't really leave much overclocking headroom.
I guess you can turn the fans up?