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EVGA GTX 970 Superclock ACX 2.0

Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 And 980 Review: Maximum Maxwell
By , Igor Wallossek

EVGA sent us the its superclocked take on the GeForce GTX 970, outfitted with the company's ACX 2.0 cooler. It's slightly smaller in length than the GeForce GTX 980 reference card, but significantly lighter at 639 grams. While its 1165 MHz nominal clock rate is substantialy higher than the 1050 MHz reference spec, this card's 1317 MHz boost clock is impressive and one of the highest factory overclocks we've seen.

The Speeds And Feeds
Form Factor
Dual-slot design
Length (from Slot Panel to End)
243 mm (9.5")
Height (from Slot to Top)
111 mm (4 3/8")
Depth 1 (from PCB to Front Cover)
35 mm (1 5/16")
Weight
639 g
Connectors
1x DL-DVI-I, 1x DL-DVI-D, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort

EVGA's card is actively cooled by two 87mm axial fans. The company claims to have focused on details like fan power draw and blade quality to provide 26% lower temperatures and 250% less fan power consumption than a reference fan and cooler setup, with 36% less noise.  Fan draw is part of any graphics card's power requirement, so it's interesting that the company has taken this approach to efficiency. EVGA even suggests that the power consumption of fans can directly affect overclocking ability.

On the top of the card you'll find two 6-pin power inputs as well as dual SLI connectors, which suggests that the card supports triple- and quad-SLI configurations.

The GTX 970 Superclock features three small (~5mm) and two large (~8mm) heat pipes that worm through nickel-plated fins and tie in to an aluminum cooling block.

For monitor connectivity there is a single DisplayPort 1.2 output, DVI-I and DVI-D outputs, and a single HDMI port. Like the GeForce GTX 980, the 970 is also equipped with the new HDMI 2.0 standard.

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  • 0 Hide
    Ce3in , 19 September 2014 13:24
    Excellent Review!

    Looks like The Gtx 980 will become a part of my build family!
  • 0 Hide
    HEXiT , 19 September 2014 20:31
    went to buy 1 form ocuk today as they had around 70 in stock of both the 970 and 980... but by the time i sorted the order (about 10 mis) they were out of stock...
    so roll on next week and hopefully they will have them back in stock...
  • 1 Hide
    Marco Washa , 20 September 2014 06:09
    These cards are really impressive. GG nVidia you have done right this time.
    -Top performance as always
    -Low power consumption
    -A right price this time XD
  • 2 Hide
    Marco Washa , 20 September 2014 06:12
    These cards are really impressive. GG nVidia you have done right this time.
    -Top performance as always
    -Low power consumption
    -A right price this time XD
  • 0 Hide
    shaunwil , 20 September 2014 09:47
    Bought a 980 from scan. By 2pm they had sold almost 300 cards in the day. Looking forward to 4k G-sync with the card now when the monitor comes available.
  • 0 Hide
    Omar101 , 21 September 2014 22:51

    nvidia
  • 0 Hide
    Alpha3031 , 22 September 2014 05:00
    Now, if AMD actually made some progress with power. That should drive prices down too.
  • 0 Hide
    Mahisse , 22 September 2014 11:42
    I fear this may be the beginning of the end for AMD GPU. Seems like Nvidia is beating AMD on any entry level now with a better cost/performance ratio. I want competition not monopoly!
  • 0 Hide
    Alpha3031 , 23 September 2014 03:15
    Triple post?
  • 0 Hide
    Mahisse , 23 September 2014 09:30
    Don't know how that happened but they are deleted now :) 
  • 0 Hide
    Bitty , 9 October 2014 14:51
    Just getting back into gaming after a huge gap. Got a Gigabyte G1 gtx970 (another later) to replace a very well-behaved AMD 9790 GHz. All seemed ok until I hit replay in Grid2 when it froze. Repeatedly it did this with oc or not but temps etc were fine. hmmmmm. Valley worked like a charm with none and big overclocks - no artifacts. Titanfall would freeze too. Asetto Corsa was fine. I looked about and saw a few complaining of similar issues thinking the 344.16 drivers were the cause. I suspec ted that power might be an issue since other factors were okay and not everybody has the issue. I then found this article on power draw and the penny dropped.

    I have an oldish Antec TP New Series 650 watt modular psu. I had the gtx970 on one 25A 12v rail feeding the 8+6 connectors. It seems this was possibly not enough to cope with the peaks. Not up on psus but with 80% efficiency that 25x12 is not a full 300 watts - more like 240watts. So, I added another 12v rail for the 6pin and hey presto it worked fine no issue.

    So anyone with such an issue might try this or get a more powerful psu.
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