GeForce GTX 970 SLI review

Posted on: 09/26/2014 04:28 PM

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Is anyone actually selling the reference 970 with the titan cooler on it?

Posted on: 09/26/2014 04:37 PM

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So, sandwitching two cards and expecting it to perform well? I bet the cards are not even boosting at all because of temperature thresholds.

Besides, isn't that GTX980 in the pictures? the GTX970 reference has a smaller pcb AFAIK

Posted on: 09/26/2014 04:41 PM

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Its not the titan cooler, its just the reference cooler on the reference pcb but no one sells it yet. It is OEM only. All the partners used custom PCB and coolers on the 970. I would like someone to adopt the reference cooler but it costs more because you have to buy it from nvidia vs producing your own cheaply.

Posted on: 09/26/2014 04:41 PM

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I couldn't find the reference boards clock speeds anywhere in the review. What are they?

Anyhow, I'm so glad I didn't go for reference boards in my case. The MSI cards are just too good to be true. Some comparisons with OCed results (1380/7500) I did earlier. Ran them on a ROG Swift 1440p monitor with G-sync disabled.

Temps idle:
Reference 970SLI - 33
MSI 970SLI - 54 (fans are turned off if card is idle, plus I have the 2D bug)

Temps load:
Reference 970SLI - 83
MSI 970SLI - 73 (fans inaudible at 1400RPM)

Metro Last Light Redux (Very High, 16xAF)
Reference 970SLI - Avg.FPS: 73
MSI 970SLI - Avg.FPS: 108 (I'm running the Redux version, maybe it's better optimized?)

Thief (Very High Preset with SSAA Off)
Reference 970SLI - Avg.FPS: 75
MSI 970SLI - Avg.FPS: 101

Pretty big differences...maybe too big?

Posted on: 09/26/2014 04:52 PM

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Reference baseclock is 1050 MHz for the GTX 970. So yeah the MSI cards overall are pretty terrific alright.

Your Metro results, no clue on Redux. We use the standard version with the Metro LL v2.0 benchmark. But my results are on par with other SLI combo's. For Thief I have SSAA enabled at high as well as FXAA and the other IQ settings.