scan have a 970 on black friday deal, is this one worth getting? http://www.scan.co.uk/products/blac...5-gpu-1165mhz-boost-1317mhz-?ProductId=109772
Looks good to me, that is £25 off for a custom cooler super clocked no? EVGA are well known for their great service and warranty and the discount puts it in the same range as cheaper high end cards/brands, I do not think you will pay less than £250 for a GTX 970 new so why not this one?
I've ordered the EVGA ACX 2 from Scan and they confirmed the game promo will be included (wasn't clear last night). But now I see 980 Phantom for £360.......... How much faster is 980 compared to 970? Worth the £100 extra?
Well, I had written a nice big post on my first thoughts of 970 ownership, but it appears I shut down the page without actually posting it. So in brief, it's a beast. Had it it at 1316 on the core happy as Larry for a while, bit then it changed its mind and decided it didn't like it and would drop the overclock halfway through a bench. Had to rig a fan to blow air on the back of it as my case I have at the mo is a bit ghetto. Tomorrow I'll see about getting it on water and see what I can do. Forgot how much I love just pissing about with pc's.
My shiny EVGA ACX 2 SC 970 arrived. After some rewiring (PCIe won't reach the awkward middle-of-nowhere position) it is running beautifully. Well worth the upgrade from 580. I can confirm there's no issue with this report about heatsink issues. The middle smaller heatpipe is sealed properly. Although I've no way to tell if all heatpips are making full contact, but IMHO it's no big issue as long as it doesn't overheat during normal use. Another thing wasn't reviewed by many (including Bit-tech) was that the card's fan-stop semi-passive feature. Fans doesn't start until 60-ish. Combined with my T-balancer fan controller on the CPU cooler I now basically have a silent PC. The card idles at 45-50c, games fly at around 65-70c and absolute maximum logged is 75c. This was with 110% and 91c limits. I've found although the card is sold to boost to 1317, it goes up to 1370 at times. I've yet to touch the clock offsets. Anyone else find nVidia experience "optimised" settings are very conservative? I'm happy with 30 FPS for eye candy in single player games but nVidia "optimised" thinks anything below 60 is bad. Also, what does EVGA precision's "FPS target" setting do? Is it an automatic over/underclock setting to attempt to lock FPS at a certain range? Anyone using it?
Do you mean this bit from the GTX 970 round up on Bit:- 'Like the ASUS card, the GTX 970 Gaming 4G features a semi-passive mode, which it calls Zero Frozr. It's something MSI first brought to the market in 2008 (it's keen to clarify that it hasn't copied the ASUS Strix cards here). The temperature cut-off points are similar to the ASUS card – between 60 and 65°C, the fans will spin up; once the GPU drops to about 50°C, they're no longer needed. This carries benefits for noise production, efficiency and fan lifespan.'?
Yes, I believe EVGA released a BIOS update for this feature. Current cards in the channel will have the semi-passive mode. There was a notice in the box regarding this feature.
Er, that quote relates to the MSI card, not the EVGA Bit's review specifically mentions that the EVGA does not have a semi-passive mode: "One thing the ACX2 cooler does lack is a semi-passive mode. Even when idle, the fans will be spinning, which is not the case with the ASUS or MSI models. Both fans are also controlled by the same 4-pin header so there's no independent control." As wuyanxu suggests, it looks as if EVGA have introduced this feature via a BIOS update. It would be good if bit would update their review accordingly...
IIRC Anands review of the ACX 2.0 cooler said it wasn't particularly good, noisier than competitors including ACX 1.0 and no passive mode. Then EVGA sent them the beta bios they were working on which introduced passive mode, changed the fan profile and their review said it was on of the best coolers in terms of noise.
That's the other thing. Anandtech's review showed a heatsink design different to this report about heatsink issues. The product I got from Scan is EVGA 970 SC ACX 2.0, it has heasinks touching VRM (as shown in Guru3D's pics) with the heatpipes properly sealed. I suspect Anand got pre (or early) production card with a generic heatsink?
Mines the same. Evga did release a press statement saying they were early versions and it would get fixed. How much do you think a core2quad would choke a 970? I killed my motherboard and am contemplating commandeering my misses' pc till I get that sorted.
Would depend on the game. You wouldn't want to play Total War, but it would be fine for a lot of other things. No harm done if its only temporary anyway.
Will see what comes of my endeavour to fix it this weekend. I've got my eye on a couple of boards on fleabay if all else fails.
For anyone considering an EVGA ACX 2 version but are worried about the heatpipe thing, here's how they're placed on the proper production version. While they're not in direct contact but via a contact plate, there are 4 not 3 which all pass right over the gpu. Very cool, very quiet. EDIT: So turns out this version of the cooler is for the Cheesecake version only. Sorry for the mistake. Also full-cover copper cheesecake
