EVGA GeForce GTX 970 04G-P4-2974-KR 4GB SC GAMING w/ACX 2.0, Silent Cooling Graphics Card

Pros: This card has unbelievable graphic potential for the price. Should be any builders new pick for their current pc build. Low power consumption and requirements. Quiet performance under most conditions and pretty good cooling. Looks are sleek and simple and look great with any blue black mb pattern. Came with a free back plate but the offer is either expired or will soon, hopefully they will start producing this model with the back plate pre installed or for a decent price for future buyers.

Cons: Fan shielding has a cheap feel to it, but it will be face down in a pc case so who cares. I have experience some coil whine but only under extreme fps condition (usually 200+ fps), also this can be avoid if a max fps setting is used. Heat sink and some wiring is exposed on the side, would had like to see a thicker shield to cover at lease the wires for the fan link but this is simply a cosmetic problem which only applies to the OCD window builders. Some isses with Nvidia drivers on a few games but I think this isnt specific to just this card.

Overall Review: Buy this card if it fits your budget! Currently ranked as the third highest scoring card on passmark, followed by the gtx 780 ti and number one being the gtx 980 of course. With a good overclock my card has surpassed both of those cards! Even if I had the budget for the gtx 980 I would still buy the 970... i would just buy two 970's!!!! I have heard some bad reviews stating awful coil whine, and bad cooling due to a misaligned heatsink tube but let me just give some corrections on those "problems". Coil whine will not casue any damage to your gpu, it's mostely caused by a lack of glue on the components or too high fps. If your fps are low and you still get bad coil whine then yes, contact evga and they will help resolve the problem. As for the cooling issues due to a misaligned heatsink, well that's how its suppose to be, the heasink was used from a different model gpu which had a bigger chipset so one of the cooling tubes sets right on the edge of the chip. since the tube is attached to the heatsink block it this provided thermal transfer for cooling. My current clocks are an addition +152mhz for the gpu +686mhz for the memory 110% power target and +37mv on voltage and I have not seen anything past 80°C. I also adjust the fan curve to allow for a steeper profile after 50°. Be sure you have good air flow in general for this card and you won't have any problem. Im running 7 fans with a 240mm cpu cooler that create a pressurized air flow style (5 fans as intake, 2 for exhaust)

Pros: Capable of handeling over 4.5 million poly in 3ds Max without chugging at all. Zbrush 4R7, I've reached over 18 million poly with the same results. All of my renders with several rendering programs have tripled in speed compared to the "top of the line" AMD FirePro that I just removed. The onther thing I was rather impressed with was it's ability to adapt setting itself (though still offers full customization options). With my last 3 cards, I had to preform custom setups for each program.

Cons: The only con I really have is the size of the software package install was rather large for a video card. Also, their software package is broken up into 3 seperate programs, each serving seperate purposes. I feel that this should have been unified into one software tool/utility.

Overall Review: Being an Indipendant Game Developer, and 3D Modeler myself, I work with the newest versions of modeling, rendering, and game engine software. This is my third graphics card in 4 years, and I finally feel as though I found something that does the work I need without breaking my pocket book. I couldn't recemmend this drive any higher, the only way to get better is to spend $500+

Pros: - Quiet operations - Low power requirements (2 x 6 pin connectors vs 1 x 6 and 1 x 8 pin connectors for my old GTX 760) - Runs cool in my build (fan cooled) - Looks great (if that is important to you) - Product and packaging appear very high quality - Runs all my games on highest settings (i7-4770k, 16GB RAM)

Cons: - None

Overall Review: This card delivers unbelievable performance for this price range. I previously owned a GTX760 which was a fantastic work horse of a graphics card. This card runs on less power, is near silent in operation, and easily runs on highest settings at 1080p 60FPS. If you are looking for a performance graphics card without paying over $400 then look no further.

Pros: The card is great without question (after the first one was replaced due to had coil whine).

Cons: I never received my $10 rebate. The rebate people claimed to have never received my paperwork. I did take pictures of the documentation before mailing them, which I recommend everyone do! It's only $10 right, so eh the rebate people don't care and hope you'll just blow it off, since it's only $10. I'm $10 worth of annoyed, hence this post of my disapproval of the laziness and dishonesty of eVGA's rebate people!

Overall Review: Again, take photos of all your documentation before mailing them in. That UPC is gone from your box, so you're essentially up a creek without any proof. Good luck trying to get your $10!

Pros: - No Coil Whine (Looking at other reviewers, they said it had HUGE coil while, the only time you're going to actually hear the GPU is when it's under heavy load, and the fans ramp up) - Absolutely amazing performance, runs every game I've thrown at it at max settings, 1920x1080p - Stays cool, 60C max when running demanding games. - Absolutely SILENT when running at idle, and you can even turn the fans off because of the new fan design and software. - Overclocked out of the box, you can still overclock it a little bit more, not too much to get that maximum performance. - EVGA Customer support is AMAZING. - 4GB VRam - Really stretches it's legs when it plays games at 1440p (Legitimately, it pushes itself alot more when gaming at 1440p, for me this card is meant to be played at 1440p (In OPTIMIZED games, not games like DayZ) and hits those constant 60+ fps on the 1080p sweetspot)

Cons: Just a little con that came with all the GTX 970 models, but the way it's architecture was made, the 4GB of VRam cannot be accessed at the same time. It has 3.5 GB on the primary RAM storage of the GPU, and 500 MB on the secondary RAM storage, which is kinda weird, and drops performance by about 2% when the game goes over 3.5 GB (No game goes over 3.5 VRam right now unless it's 4K, which you're not going to achieve on a single card right now.) Other than that, very solid GPU.

Overall Review: Amazing GPU, very solid performance for what you pay, it's amazing how Graphics Cards have dropped in pricing over the years. 60 FPS on max settings Dying Light, view distance dropped down. BF4 everything on Ultra 1440p 55-60 fps BF3 everything on Ultra 1440p 68-75 fps Far Cry 4 everything on Ultra 1080p 55-60 fps Batman Arkaham Origions On Ultra 1440p 60-120 fps

Pros: If you check benchmarks at video card benchmarks website, you can see where the reference version of this card sits. After a lot of research I made the choice to move to this card. I work as an IT professional and have time to do this extra research in between projects, and I enjoy my gaming. I would recommend from my research and first hand experience that if you are running 1-3 1080p screens, one card should really impress. I run a 4K Samsung panel using SST on display port, getting 60Hz refresh rate. The one card does an impressive job at 4K resolutions. I just ordered a second. I usually run SLI and in order to really push the 4K at higher settings for newer games, I need the second card. Most games 1-2 years back and earlier, seem to be just fine at max settings at 4K. Newer games, such as Crysis 3 and Black Flag, are much more intense. Although I can run those games at respectable frames, I do need to dial back the settings a bit. I turned off all AA and pulled other settings back a bit in order to boost my frames. The second card should nearly double my performance. The reason for the great scaling, I discovered through extensive research, is because I am running an AMD 990FX platform. AMD has the PCIE lanes on the board, where Intel places theirs on the CPU. I was a bit surprised at this but it also makes sense why my rig has always seen good scaling with SLI. Most Intel CPUs are using 16 PCIE lanes, that is why you lose some performance and SLI doesn't always scale well on an Intel platform. Granted, there are still many more factors, but this one does make an impact from the get-go. Anyhow, in summary, if you are NOT stepping to 4K and staying 1440p or even 1080p, you should find yourself very pleased with this card. If you want to run 4K, you will likely want a second one in order to really push the current generation games at high to max settings. The firmware update for this card from EVGA also allows for 0 RPM fan speed. That means when you are doing typical usage outside games, you are saving power and noise. I can't stress how amazing the card is, just look at the impact the 900 series has had on the rest of the market.

Cons: I found that my card seemed to have some issue when I first connected it. When booting, I got a BIOS beep code which indicated the card was bad or malfunctioning. Once installed with drivers in place, it would sometimes not boot into Windows (7). However, it performed amazingly! I am running a 4K panel from display port. It wasn't until after much troubleshooting and trying to mix things up to make a determination, that I realized that the issues I was having were only occurring when booting with only the display port connected. Once I connected another monitor via HDMI as well as the main panel via display port, then the beep code ceased and Windows always boots successfully. Not sure if this is a widespread issue or something unique to my setup. My BIOS is current, all firmware is current. Latest drivers, etc. There was nothing that EVGA or myself could conceive of to make it go away, except to not connect with only the display port. Maybe there needs to be a firmware fix later for this? This is my only negative. The coil whine that others complained of? (What is coil whine? coil whine is a high pitch frequency noise produced by the inductors creating vibrations at resonant frequencies under a particular load) I did notice it, but it was not annoying or distracting. My guess is that other people have a quieter area and maybe fewer fans and thus are more likely for it to be noticed in the first place. I have a HAF 932 advanced case and lots of fans, plus a louder second desktop behind me and usually a fan or two running in the house. Turn on some music, make some white noise. Coil whine is always there, older tech just made more noise to cover it. Now we are in a level of tech where things are getting much quieter and so things like coil whine are going to be more easily noticed.

Overall Review: If you took the time to read this and do some research of your own, kudos! Don't take my word for all this. Check it out for yourself, do some research and decide for yourself.

Pros: Fast. Improved the FPS rate in many games. Was able to run Unity much better than the GTX 660.

Cons: nothing

Pros: Great FPS on all ranges of settings across most major titles that i play currently. Quiet, i do not have the "Coil whine" as stated in some of the reviews i combed through prior to my purchase. Runs Cool temps, i have a coolermaster HAF 912 Case with great air cooling and the GPU runs pretty consistent temps even under load the cooling def does its job, and it isnt a jet turbine engine when it needs to cool down either. Free game came with it, and Shadowplay beta runs smoothly and records video very nicely which is very important to me as i constantly record for my youtube channel and with recent updates its performing smoothly and stable with no noticeable frame drop or lag or any interference whether livestreaming on twitch or just capturing the moments in the battlefields

Cons: in the media its Suffering from the Nvidia 3.5gb "not a full 4gb" scandal however i am not running 4k or even pushing the need for the full 4gb of VRAM this may potentially be an issue in the future but by the time that comes around ill probably be upgrading again anyways. reason i gave it 4 eggs instead of 5 Eggs is the drivers available currently crash more than i am used to seeing. I get alot of display driver errors when playing games that my 760 Would cruise through with no issues. Hoping that its just an issue with the drivers for a new card and will be worked out shortly but Directx11 errors crashing out games like War thunder and having display errors even on the desktop if i run two seperate games like Minecraft and war thunder i will 98% of the time have a driver display error and war thunder will crash as will minecraft. it has also crashed while just sitting at the desktop or in chrome browser. Thats the one big thing so far is this driver issue and random crashes where my previous GPU EVGA 4GB 760 never had any crashes due to drivers or the GPU itself

Overall Review: Basically im happy with the upgrade from an EVGA GTX 760 4GB to this new 970 and there is a nice Noticeable difference in performance (not trashing the 760 at all as it ran wonderfully) but this is a great replacement for it and is great price for performance