Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I already wrote a review for this from Newegg, where I purchased the card from, so I will copy that and add a few things I missed. Updates added at end. ___________________________________________________________ ~ PROS ~ Popped it in and worked as it should. I honestly don't know where to start so I'll try this... Noise: It's non-existent. I seem to hear it above 70%, but that's also with a H80 right next to the card and 4 case fans so it's more hearing those than the card still. Even at 100% fan (not needed at all) it's still nowhere as loud as my 480 at 100%, but is audible as expected. Coming from one of the top 3 loudest cards on the market, it's an awesome change. Cooling: In Furmark I can't get it to work past 62 C. That is with my max overclock, and fan obviously stays low (I set my own). The fans will turn off when the temperate is lower than 40 C, but since I can't heat it I just run them. In games it is higher. Crysis 3 was hitting about 68 C, and Unigine Heaven hitting 72 C. AC4 Black Flag was the same with around 65-70 C. All with the fan at 60% or under. Performance: Well, coming from a GTX 480 it's night and day. Sleeping Dogs (max) was ~110 FPS in the benchmark while ~95 in gameplay on average. Resident Evil 5 (max) is ~130 FPS (and ~100 FPS in 3D). Scored a 5682 in 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme with highest overclock. Unigine Heaven Extreme @ native, reference clocks (not the factory OC), is 50.8 FPS. With my overclock, it's 58.3 FPS. Crysis 3 (Max/4xMSAA) is around 45 FPS average in the opening ship area. Dead Rising 3 on average is between 55-60 FPS, while obviously dropping in cutscenes due to subsurface scattering to around 45-50 FPS. I would try more games in 3D, but it's late as I write this and don't have any good ones installed. Running AC4 Black Flag near max, with 4xTXAA, very high shadows, and low PhysX is usually within 55-62 FPS in towns, with around 45-55 FPS in deep jungle. The game is horribly made anyways, as well as the engine, so that's expected. I personally think the PhysX smoke effects are way over done, and think sharper shadows look better than the soft shadows. If I do use PhysX-High, then it's a lagfest with smoke, as is with the 780 Ti. Bioshock Infinite @ max is 90 or so frames on average. Metro Last Light Redux max with no "supersampling" (downsampling) and driver side injected HBAO+ is 60 frames average--really depends where I am at the time. Overclocking: As reviews have stated, overclocking is good. I've also found it easier with this card than with my 480. The top I managed was +215/+495 (1531MHz/4001MHz). I can go +220/+500, but the chance of artifact there is likely. So figured for games I'd play it a bit safe and reduce it a bit. For very demanding games, like Crysis 3, +150/+450 is much safer since a crash will usually occur. +155/+455 is actually perfect (Was perfect with original posting). Over time, the most stable has been +125/+400. Form/Aesthetics: The 8-pin connector is reversed so you don't have to fight with yanking it out. Fan/Sheathing is literally dual profile as well. I was expecting the shroud to extend a bit over in terms of height rather than be near standard dual profile. Card isn't heavier than I expected. Normally with aftermarket coolers, you have warping PCB on the back of your head. Backplate also looks nice, but I can't say how much it helps since I don't feel like removing it. Other than that, in general it looks nice. Software: GPU Tweak apparently has an option to update the card's BIOS when released, which will surely be appreciated. I use Afterburner, so that's all I have to say about GPU Tweak. Power Consumption: With the card on its max overclock, CPU on max overclock, 16 GB of RAM at CAS10 2400 MHz, I haven't seen my total system power consumption surpass ~285 W. So I'd say it's safe to assume 300 W is the most I will see drawn from this system. I haven't tried games yet like BF4 on it, which was the one to get over 550 W on my old GTX 480. As long as you have 28 amps on your +12 V rail(s), you can probably run this card with a 400 W PSU no problems. Got a 2nd one, and haven't seen consumption over 420-450W Dynamic Super Resolution: An easy and basically one click tool to get downsampling working without having to overclock/modify your monitor settings/timings and saves a lot of time. Once enabled, the new resolutions will show up in games that can support them, and when selected ingame, the GPU will automatically downsample the resolution. They can also be forced in GeForce Experience. I personally find GeDoSaTo still much better, but it unfortunately doesn't work in DX11+ yet. Some games get hit very heavy when using DSR like Borderlands The Pre-Sequel, while others have equal performance to using GeDoSaTo. In the case of Borderlands, I found DSR to look very slightly better, barely, but was unplayable at 3840x2160, while with GeDoSaTo it was playable, 40+ frames compared to ~12 frames with DSR. Again, this is a weird case and not all games act like this with DSR. MFAA: Seems to work/do as advertised. Tried it in BF4, which in a lot of maps has bad aliasing, and I did notice a reduction as if at a higher setting. Performance hit is negligible. Doesn't require an AA flag in Inspector to start working, as previously hinted. I've been too lazy to do screen shot comparisons out of MP though. SLI: Scailing is great where applicable. ~ CONS ~ Overclocking: Not really a biggie, but you can only increase the core by 37 mV and it's only a one 8-pin design. Form/Aesthetics: The SLI connectors do protrude out a bit more than usual. The back end of the shroud with "STRIX" written on it is also abnormally large. Due to these two things, it may be hard to actually screw the card into the slot/bay area as these obstacles make it so you may have trouble fitting your fingers in the gap, and then coordinating them. Normally I can use my fingers, but I had to get a screwdriver and keep moving the card just slightly to match up the screw holes. This obviously differs based on your case due to the amount the case itself also protrudes outwards to hold the door on (HAF X here). Also, it's possible the card may hit your northbridge heatsink; with my one it literally touches it, so any movement results in a metal on metal grinding/screeching (not as bad as I make it sound). Software: I just don't like the flow of GPU Tweak. It works as expected though. The tray icons for both monitoring and the software are the same, unlike RTSS/Afterburner for instance. GPU Tweak doesn't allow updating of the GPU BIOS if more than 1 card is plugged in. Thus, you must remove cards if you use SLI to update the BIOS. Packaging: The portion of the package involving a very basic manual and GPU Tweak CD are in an overly large box within the box, so it's tons of random space wasted. I hate it when they do this and don't try to cut back on those costs in order to hopefully charge us less. Dynamic Super Resolution: Yes, it's literally supersampling/downsampling as we know it. It's mainly marketing, but to their benefit it's in an easy to-go form, based on GeDoSaTo. Some people have already asked will this benefit them for things other than games. You can actually apply the desktop resolution to a DSR resolution, but I honestly don't see a point in it at all aside from a particularly special reason someone may have. MFAA: Only will work for games that developers cooperate with Nvidia for integration I assume. Some games it can have visual bugs; I.e. BF4 with it on may result in a hair-thick white line coming from the bottom corner and extending to the center of the screen out in the distance (barely noticeable in general). Coil Whine: Very minimal, happened over time with the original card. The 2nd card I just got has it at an equal volume, which is barely noticeable (and inaudible with open headset). As of around 5 months later, I noticed it didn't happen anymore. Another friend coincidentally told me the same. 3.5 GB + 512 MB VRAM: Technically, the card does have 4GB of memory. But the last 512MB, when accessed, is at 1/8th the speed of the rest. Why is it this much slower? Due to a lower L2 cache and fewer SMM clusters. In order to cut down the GTX 980 (which is the 970), SMM's had to be disabled--which is what happens with all cut down cards. Because of the Maxwell architecture, they were able to make the card this way rather than locking it in at 3GB even like previous cards. The only catch was it's not a full extra GB running at full speed, but half running at full, and the other half running at well below. Generally the card doesn't try to use the last 512MB as best it can; if so stuttering can occur as proven by FCAT tests from Guru3D, etc. which specifically picks up frame timing. Personally, the only game where I hit 3.5GB and above was Dying Light. I had the texture settings at the highest (which just caches all the textures into the VRAM to prevent pop-in). I did stutter in that game, but that also is a pretty poorly made game (or at least at launch it was when I played). Reducing the texture settings to medium, which look the same but caches less in the VRAM, did help. Other games as of updating this that I recall hitting that soft-limit, I had little or no stuttering. Check page 3 of comments for more technical links I provided explaining this issue. The whole issue was blown out of proportion when it comes to a performance standpoint; as in it's hard to say whether one person will experience stuttering and another won't--such as in my case it's very random. There's nothing that can be done about this as the card is still technically 4GB. It was just dirty of Nvidia to have not disclosed that until someone pointed out weird results. I, and other tech sites though still think the card is very good for the price aside from this. For now, it doesn't affect too many people unless they downsample (like me from time to time) or game at 4K. ~ OTHER THOUGHTS ~ - If you want to try to get close or dead on to the reference GTX 970 clocks, I've done the following: 108% Power, -64 Core, -3 Mem. Unfortunately you can't reduce core voltage manually or else it just resets back. Also, setting an overclock (or rather an underclock) will push the voltage up, even if not manually increased, so use Adaptive settings via NVCP/Inspector instead. - Make sure if you are using a program like Afterburner that you have a skin updated for when or after GPU Boost became used. Otherwise, new additions like Power Limit and Temperature will be missing. - To get DSR working, you need to check the corresponding box in the Nvidia Control Panel under Global Settings. When checked, they will show up in games, or can applied by Geforce Experience. Make sure to modify any other Nvidia Inspector/Panel settings you had before because when you apply that, all your settings will be reset to what's on that panel page. For me, since a lot of options don't show there and are hidden, I have to go back to Inspector and redo some stuff. - Of course you can use whatever software you like, I just like Afterburner. If you want to use GPU Tweak, there really is nothing wrong with it. - You can register the card using its serial number on ASUS' support site. I guess there's no real reason to do so, but might as well imo. - As shown by reviews, if you own a GTX 780/780 Ti/690, don't bother upgrading. I would even say if you own a 770, 760, or 680 to not bother yet. If you still have a 400 series, go for it--I'm glad I did. If you own an AMD from the 7950 and above, it's not a worthwhile investment either. If you're looking for a card to upgrade to, the R9 280X and R9 290 with price cuts should be viable options to consider (aftermarket ones of course). - Cards apparently use Samsung and Hynix memory. The first original card I have uses Samsung, and the 2nd uses Hynix. - Whereas I was under the impression of every card utilized Samsung memory, they appear to use Hynix now too (maybe exclusively, dunno). ASUS, MSI, EVGA, Gigabyte? From all that I've gathered, I'll try to make things simple. If you want the quietest card, get the ASUS. If you want the coolest/best overclocker, get the Gigabyte G1. If you want the in-between, get the MSI 4G model. Honestly, overclocks of others like the MSI one are 50+ or so more for core and is therefore trivial--unless you want the best 3DMark score you can get. Basically, expect the same performance for games across the board with overclocks. That 0.05 frame addition doesn't faze me at all. EVGA? After what was pulled, I wouldn't bother. The AMD competitors are not expected until around March of 2015 or so, so either wait until then to compare, or get a card now if your one has aged like my GTX 480. I expect Nvidia to release the revision of the Maxwell GM200 chips then as well to compete with AMD immediately. I do not expect the usual 6 month or so gap between each card manufacturer this time around when AMD releases theirs. Coil Whine is not a problem caused by Nvidia, but rather the AiB partners that manufacture the PCB and put it together (ASUS, EVGA, MSI, etc). Be mad at ASUS for this one, not Nvidia. ______________________________________ For some of the things I mentioned earlier to clarify: I use a 120Hz 1920x1080 monitor with a 3770K on a GA-Z77X-UD5H using Corsair AX760i. TL;DR--If you own a 700 series, high 600 series, or mid-high R9 series, don't bother upgrading. Performance increase coming from a GTX 480 is night and day. Power consumption is over 300 W less than my 480, and overall spectacular; same for temperatures and noise. DSR is not a game changer, but convenience. This card cools very nicely, overclocks fine, and looks fine. It unfortunately may be hard to get into your case to secure due to its shroud. Feel free to ask questions or point out anything. ********************************************* UPDATE 1/16/2015: Added sections on MFAA, coil whine, SLI. Redid formatting since it was horrible. Added thoughts on coil whine and memory manufactures. UPDATE 7/2/2015: Added info under CONS: GPU Tweak, Coil Whine. Added section CONS: 3.5 GB + 512 MB VRAM. UPDATE 1/26/2016: So to this day, and even though I wouldn't say it affects me much at all, the memory debacle still bugs me in the back of my head. I played through Dying Light again, which was a stutter fest a year ago, to see if it was a result of the cards or the game that needed fixes. Playing at 2560x1440 and turning texture quality to high resulted in an instant stutter that persisted; VRAM here would rocket above 3600MB+. Fortunately for me, I just turned it to medium as high doesn't improve on texture quality at all, but merely caches the textures to reduce some supposed pop-in. However, there are some other games I play that don't show any problems at all. GTA V at 1440P (Highest settings including high resolution shadows, with extended " " off and MSAA/TXAA off) can hit as high as ~3650MB of usage and still remain smooth. And now, Fallout 4 is just a poorly made game so I can't use that as a reference, albeit a fun one.