Review: ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 09/24/2014 08:43 AM | source: | 30 comment(s)

Join us, as we review the ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix graphics card. A product that has been overhauled in terms of PCB and cooling. ASUS also clocks the product a little faster then reference. The new DirectCU II based cooler is so good that it won't even spin with GPU temperatures up-to 67 Degrees C. This card however has one 8-pin power feed and again, does come with that new revision model DirectCU cooler, the one with the two OWL eyes.

Read the full review right here.

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nanogenesis
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#4920781 Posted on: 09/24/2014 08:54 AM

Nope, it seems this round Gigabyte is the winner, excellent clocking and cool VRMs.

mohiuddin
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#4920791 Posted on: 09/24/2014 09:17 AM

Performance not bad. But you can decide not to buy it , just by looking at it.

bigfutus
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#4920865 Posted on: 09/24/2014 11:23 AM

My old Gigabyte GTX560 Ti was super noisy after two years, so i try Asus now. Not so stellar performance doesn't matter for me, because overclocking. And this time it's cheap like the rest, which is nice too.

alanm
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#4920867 Posted on: 09/24/2014 11:25 AM

Hilbert, nice review. I had ordered this card yesterday but then cancelled after reading this from the bit-tech review:

One issue we did notice with the ASUS card is that it initially wasn't boosting as high as we'd have expected. We noticed that the fans didn't seem to want to spin beyond 42 percent, apparently prioritising low noise over boost frequency. As such, we set the fans manually to 50 percent, which saw a higher and more constant boost clock emerge. The downside to this is that the fan speed is locked, and won't slow down or enter its passive mode, even when idle.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/12

Not sure if they missed something here, but they set the fans "manually" at 50% (using Asus GPU Tweak). Cant this card use fan profiles in MSI-AB to follow temps or is their something hard coded in the bios that interferes with that due to the cards unique cooling design? If it can work with profiles like all other cards, I'll reorder it (and make sure never to visit bit-tech ever again). Thanks.

Hilbert Hagedoorn
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#4920880 Posted on: 09/24/2014 11:49 AM

As my charts show, perf is just a hint slower overall, but so little in the entire scope of things.

I'm running some SLI tests ATM so the test-system / bench is in use, but if you can wait a bit longer I'll pop in the ASUS card later today and check if fan profiles work with AB for you ok ?

alanm
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#4920917 Posted on: 09/24/2014 12:29 PM

Thanks! Much appreciated!

Pinstripe
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#4920927 Posted on: 09/24/2014 12:36 PM

Does the passive cooling has any negative impact on the longevity of the card? And what about the VRM temps and cooling?

If I can set fan profiles in Afterburner even in idle mode then all is good.

eclap
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#4920938 Posted on: 09/24/2014 12:55 PM

Does the passive cooling has any negative impact on the longevity of the card? And what about the VRM temps and cooling?

If I can set fan profiles in Afterburner even in idle mode then all is good.

yes, you can set a custom fan profile that will apply to idle mode as well, of course, preventing the fans from stopping spinning. Takes a few clicks of the mouse in MSIA. That's what I did.

Hilbert Hagedoorn
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#4920951 Posted on: 09/24/2014 01:05 PM

Alright Alanm, fully functional. You can start as low RPM 35% for IDLE and raise all the way up-to 100% fan RPM. That all works beautifully. The fan curve works fine, and if applied to startup at windows boot, it kicks in nicely.

So you should be good to go.

alanm
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#4920975 Posted on: 09/24/2014 01:32 PM

Thanks Hilbert, much appreciated. I will re-order this card. Will probably be using it in passive mode mostly (without fan profiles), but good to know that I have that option when I need it later on.

Segamon
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#4921087 Posted on: 09/24/2014 03:02 PM

much respect Hilbert for giving the time testing the card with profiles. much appreciated.

I'm going to get this little black beauty.

bigfutus
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#4921432 Posted on: 09/24/2014 09:15 PM

Thanks a lot!

Rita
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#4921764 Posted on: 09/25/2014 04:57 AM

Thanks for everything.

I still can't make my mind, Gigabyte Vs. MSI Vs. EVGA Vs. Asus for a 970. I've heard some bad things about the EVGA ones already, some minor ones (coil whine and fan issues) for Gigabyte ones, MSI I always had problems with their support, so I tend to avoid 'em. Asus on the other hand has always been perfect, and Strix looks nice, I was worried about the cooling of VRM's and mem with the whole silly 0% RPM below 65c but since the custom fan profiles work so nicely -- it's good. However, that 80+ temp at VRM worries me, won't it severely affect it's longevity?

PhazeDelta1
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#4921786 Posted on: 09/25/2014 06:19 AM

nevermind. answered my own question.

alanm
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#4921791 Posted on: 09/25/2014 06:45 AM

However, that 80+ temp at VRM worries me, won't it severely affect it's longevity?

The VRMs are designed to operate at 100c and above, so no issue there.

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