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r0ck0
Sep 12, 2004
r0ck0s p0zt m0d3rn lyf
Newegg has lots of video cards on sale:
http://www.newegg.com/SLI-Ready-Graphics-Cards/Eventsalestore/ID-307

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Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

spasticColon posted:


That card is 15.9 inches long there is no way that is fitting in my case.
Yeah, I'm right out, too. My Corsair Air 540 maxes out at 320 mm, and that card is... 15.9*25.4 = 404? Yikes.

Unlucky7
Jul 11, 2006

Fallen Rib
http://www.microcenter.com/product/439028/GeForce_GTX_970_Overclocked_4GB_Video_Card_-_Armor_2X_Thermal_Design

Any difference between this card and the other msi card that has been linked already?

Rastor
Jun 2, 2001

MSI has two 970s out, the standard one, which is blue, and the GAMING, which is red.

The red one has a bigger cooler. Presumably that makes it harder to fit into cases, but easier to overclock.

Unlucky7
Jul 11, 2006

Fallen Rib
Other than the cooler size and overclocking potential (I am not sure if I am interested in OCing, yet anyway), is there any clear cut difference between them performancewise?

EDIT: there is a standard one in stock at a store near me. What I suppose what I am asking is should I jump on that or hold out for a gaming model?

Unlucky7 fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Sep 30, 2014

1gnoirents
Jun 28, 2014

hello :)
Well the gaming one is clocked higher if you dont want to OC. Although it almost feels weird not to OC a GPU these days.

As far as I know nobody has reviewed the blue one.

Hamburger Test
Jul 2, 2007

Sure hope this works!

spasticColon posted:

Could you check to see how much VRAM it uses at 1080p? If it uses over 3GB at 1080p I'm most definitely getting a 970.

As it happens, not easily no. My options were 70% for slightly lower resolution or 80% for slightly higher. At 70%, which would be 1008 vertical it was still spiking at 3220MB - but those spikes were short lived and it stuck between 2800 and just over 3000 most of the time. Keep in mind it's possible the auto config is allowing for more memory intensive settings behind the scenes because it knows it can, since it has hidden stuff like AA from the user.

AirRaid
Dec 21, 2004

Nose Manual + Super Sonic Spin Attack

1gnoirents posted:

Well the gaming one is clocked higher if you dont want to OC. Although it almost feels weird not to OC a GPU these days.

I haven't OCed mine yet. I always worry about breaking it :ohdear: despite knowing it'll probably be fine.

Also voltage settings etc confuse me a bit. I'm never sure how much I need to bump it, if at all.

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf

Don Lapre posted:

The killing blow to AMD will be the 15a outlets in peoples homes that cant handle the power load.

:golfclap:

1gnoirents
Jun 28, 2014

hello :)

AirRaid posted:

I haven't OCed mine yet. I always worry about breaking it :ohdear: despite knowing it'll probably be fine.

Also voltage settings etc confuse me a bit. I'm never sure how much I need to bump it, if at all.

Its nothing like a CPU. The bios doesn't allow you to do a whole lot with it. For example you could go into your motherboard bios, set the you voltage to 1.55 and get a mean overclock out of it - until it dies in a day. You simply can't do that with a GPU without reflashing the bios and you aren't going to do that on accident (and even then, there are hard limits built into nvidia cards that prevent that from happens anyways, people run at the hard limit all the time)

As far as I know the typical nvidia card with typical software (say MSI Afterburner) will allow you to do +75 mv, with a power target max of 105%. That's not really a lot. Sometimes it still doesn't even reach 100% power usage. Although a little side note, that's been different to me for the same exact chipset between different brands and I dont know why.

So the general process is max your power target, max your voltage (we're going from 1.100 to 1.175 here) and increase your core mhz slowly and memory mhz slowly.

I'm not trying to say it doesnt matter or isnt potentially degrading though. It's just a matter of how much. I've never heard of anybody really concerned with it except for bitmining. And really I think that also had a lot to do with heat/power as well as degradation, being as they were AMD cards that typically ran hot to start in general.

Also overclocking is technically not warrantied... but it is. Nobody is going to spend the time inspect your silicone or whatever, and vrms burn out overclocked or not.

Hamburger Test
Jul 2, 2007

Sure hope this works!
The MSI fan story is getting interesting. The current popular theory is that pulling off the sticker that covered one of the fans may have damaged the bearings. That thing was really on there too.

Oh, and it still has not happened again to me - maybe I did nudge it just right.

Hamburger Test fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Sep 30, 2014

Skwee
Apr 29, 2010

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ふたり ドゥビドゥバ

Hamburger Test posted:

The MSI fan story is getting interesting. The current popular theory is that pulling off the sticker that covered one of the fans may have damaged the bearings. That thing was really on there too.

Oh, and it still has not happened again to me - maybe I did nudge it just right.

Ha yeah that sticker was really on there good

Also for anyone wondering, the 970 even with it's 4 gb vram seems to run shadow of mordor on ultra settings just fine.
Here is a benchmark I took.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht4_AZlTrE0

and if you are wondering:


Having played the game for an hour or two I didn't notice any of the frame rate drops (Which were more like stutters) like there were in the benchmark. The drops could be due to the recording software (I was using shadowplay manually instead of saving a replay) Also video quality might be bad because I just uploaded the shadowplay file directly rather than re-encoding it beforehand.

Fiscal Conservative
Feb 26, 2006

Kvantum posted:

Yeah, I'm right out, too. My Corsair Air 540 maxes out at 320 mm, and that card is... 15.9*25.4 = 404? Yikes.

I pooped my pants when I saw that. Fortunately it is incorrect.

L=312mm (12.28), W=129mm (5.08), H=43mm (1.69)

shown here
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5209#sp

Hace
Feb 13, 2012

<<Mobius 1, Engage.>>

Skwee posted:

Ha yeah that sticker was really on there good

Also for anyone wondering, the 970 even with it's 4 gb vram seems to run shadow of mordor on ultra settings just fine.
Here is a benchmark I took.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht4_AZlTrE0

and if you are wondering:


Having played the game for an hour or two I didn't notice any of the frame rate drops (Which were more like stutters) like there were in the benchmark. The drops could be due to the recording software (I was using shadowplay manually instead of saving a replay) Also video quality might be bad because I just uploaded the shadowplay file directly rather than re-encoding it beforehand.

Not trying to doubt you, but can you perceive a difference between High and Ultra HD? The game might just not load the textures if you don't meet the requirements.

Kornjaca
Mar 19, 2007

Hamburger Test posted:

Worth noting that the mods are not MSI employees as far as I can tell.



This is true, however what I found funny was the fact that he is a mod on the official MSI forum and is indirectly advising the participants of the thread against purchasing the newly released MSI products. You'd think that someone would tell the people modding the site that they shouldn't really be advertising against the MSI products or be telling people to wait for the updated versions of the hardware. I just found it funny nothing else. :peanut:

Unlucky7
Jul 11, 2006

Fallen Rib
I see the ZOTAC 970 is available on Newegg. I am not familiar with that manufacturer. Should I give them a shot, or hold out for an Msi card?

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

Unlucky7 posted:

I see the ZOTAC 970 is available on Newegg. I am not familiar with that manufacturer. Should I give them a shot, or hold out for an Msi card?

Evidently the same company that owns Zotac owns Sapphire. I think Sapphire makes AMD's reference boards.

Skwee
Apr 29, 2010

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Hace posted:

Not trying to doubt you, but can you perceive a difference between High and Ultra HD? The game might just not load the textures if you don't meet the requirements.

That may be true. I just went and tried taking loads of screenshots during the benchmark test on high and ultra textures to see if I could spot anything that looked different:

HIGH:


ULTRA:


The red cloth on the bottom left of the image, the pink-ish cloth on the bottom center of the image

HIGH:


ULTRA:


Same things as the last two

There is no AA in the game for some reason

Unlucky7
Jul 11, 2006

Fallen Rib
I have not seen anything bad about zotac in the last few pages, so I may probably order that.

Well, I do have an entire car ride to think about it.

Schiavona
Oct 8, 2008

Unlucky7 posted:

I have not seen anything bad about zotac in the last few pages, so I may probably order that.

Well, I do have an entire car ride to think about it.

I can't speak well enough of the Zotac 560ti-448 I've had for the past 3 years. Zero problems at all, they seem to be a legit brand that just suffers from still being relatively new on the scene.

eggyolk
Nov 8, 2007


How long did it take for the 760 to arrive after the 770 and 780 were released? It seems like a 960 would be the perfect companion for a budget 1080P mITX computer based around the Pentium G3258. I'm hoping to upgrade to one around the release of GTAV.

Unlucky7
Jul 11, 2006

Fallen Rib
The only thing I noticed in the user reviews of the Zotac 970 is that the card apparently runs hot and the cooler slightly struggles with it. I don't have any additional fans in my PC, so should I wait for a MSI to be available?

Sorry for blitzing you all with questions!

Star War Sex Parrot
Oct 2, 2003

The Tech Report just posted a great article on Maxwell's Dynamic Super Resolution feature.

Josh Lyman
May 24, 2009


Unlucky7 posted:

The only thing I noticed in the user reviews of the Zotac 970 is that the card apparently runs hot and the cooler slightly struggles with it. I don't have any additional fans in my PC, so should I wait for a MSI to be available?

Sorry for blitzing you all with questions!
Zotac cooling has been subpar since at least the 500 series.

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

Unlucky7 posted:

The only thing I noticed in the user reviews of the Zotac 970 is that the card apparently runs hot and the cooler slightly struggles with it. I don't have any additional fans in my PC, so should I wait for a MSI to be available?

Sorry for blitzing you all with questions!

The Zotac 970 is also the smallest 970 available. Seriously, it's tiny.

Unless you get their 'Extreme' edition - then it's pretty similarly-sized.

Ralith
Jan 12, 2011

I see a ship in the harbor
I can and shall obey
But if it wasn't for your misfortune
I'd be a heavenly person today

Atreus posted:

Showing Gigabyte cards in stock at newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ID=6202798&SID=
Missed them. Why won't auto-notify work :qq:

Diviance
Feb 11, 2004

Television rules the nation.

Ralith posted:

Missed them. Why won't auto-notify work :qq:

I got tired of waiting for the MSI or ASUS ones to come in stock, so I ended up getting the Gigabyte one. I hope I am happy with the performance increase from a 2GB GTX 670.

God knows the fans will be quieter and it will run significantly cooler.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

The Tech Report just posted a great article on Maxwell's Dynamic Super Resolution feature.

That's a good read. Seems like DSR is a pretty decent option if you're on a "low-res" display.

dorkanoid
Dec 21, 2004

dorkanoid posted:

Nope, running a 660 - sure, some games I have to go down to medium/high, but until something I really want to play comes out and plays like crap, I'm good. The next game I buy will probably be Borderlands (I guess only the 700 series cards get that for free?) which I doubt will be a problem.

Well, that lasted 2 days... A store here had the MSI Gaming in stock when I dropped in, so, yeah.

I blame all of you :argh:

Hamburger Test
Jul 2, 2007

Sure hope this works!

dorkanoid posted:

Well, that lasted 2 days... A store here had the MSI Gaming in stock when I dropped in, so, yeah.

I blame all of you :argh:

Be careful when peeling off that sticker :v:

Senjuro
Aug 19, 2006
Regarding the MSI fan issue, Is the sticker really the most likely culprit? Doesn't it mean that even if they fix the sticker you still get a fan that is extremely fragile if it can be damaged so easily?

dorkanoid
Dec 21, 2004

Hamburger Test posted:

Be careful when peeling off that sticker :v:

I was :v:

Senjuro posted:

Regarding the MSI fan issue, Is the sticker really the most likely culprit? Doesn't it mean that even if they fix the sticker you still get a fan that is extremely fragile if it can be damaged so easily?

...and yes, I can see that being a problem: the sticker glue is very strong, and it's fixed to the hub of the fan plus some of the blades (a bit idiotic)

Man, this thing is SILENT :D

Current fan speed: 0

Stanley Pain
Jun 16, 2001

by Fluffdaddy

Hamburger Test posted:

Shadow of Mordor does indeed use 3GB of VRAM with High textures. Maxed out at 3558MB at auto detected settings for a 970 at 2560*1440.

Can't say what type of AA it's using or what level, but it's more than 0.

Ultra for me was somewhere in the 3800MB range. Pretty sure this game is dynamically allocating textures, or their Vram numbers are complete out to lunch.

Deuce
Jun 18, 2004
Mile High Club

dorkanoid posted:

I was :v:


...and yes, I can see that being a problem: the sticker glue is very strong, and it's fixed to the hub of the fan plus some of the blades (a bit idiotic)

Man, this thing is SILENT :D

Current fan speed: 0

Wait, so you have to peel off the sticker to use the card and in doing so can damage the card?

Foxhound
Sep 5, 2007

Deuce posted:

Wait, so you have to peel off the sticker to use the card and in doing so can damage the card?

Yeah some admin posted in the thread: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=183618.150

Weird fuckup that they didn't check all that poo poo for a stupid sticker, but hopefully it's not faulty hardware.

dorkanoid
Dec 21, 2004

Deuce posted:

Wait, so you have to peel off the sticker to use the card and in doing so can damage the card?

The sticker covers one of the fans, and helpfully explains how the fans are ridiculously silent.

Hamburger Test
Jul 2, 2007

Sure hope this works!

Deuce posted:

Wait, so you have to peel off the sticker to use the card and in doing so can damage the card?
I was about to post that it was just a theory still, but I guess it's confirmed (or accepted as a scape goat) by MSI themselves. I was halfway joking about it earlier because I wanted it to be true, just because it is so stupid - on the other hand this leaves me in a dilemma. As long as the issue isn't recurring for me RMA'ing it is probably a bad idea since they will likely just send it back to me when they can't reproduce it. I think I can return it within 14 days paying just the postage, but I'd probably have to pay more for any of the other options at this point in Denmark.

I think betting on the issue being gone for good being able to fall back on a law mandated 2 year warranty is the better option for me.

GreatGreen
Jul 3, 2007
That's not what gaslighting means you hyperbolic dipshit.
This is going to sound stupid, but with stubborn stickers like that, I've always found that using a hair dryer to heat up the adhesive for a little while before and then during the peeling-off process really helps.

Senjuro
Aug 19, 2006

GreatGreen posted:

This is going to sound stupid, but with stubborn stickers like that, I've always found that using a hair dryer to heat up the adhesive for a little while before and then during the peeling-off process really helps.

And then you find out you damaged your card by overheating something. Seriously though, I was very much set on getting an MSI card but I'll never have peace of mind knowing that the fans are so drat delicate.

So between Gigabyte and Asus I suppose Gigabyte is better if I don't want to deal with overclocking myself? Higher clock although louder at idle (and at load too?).

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1gnoirents
Jun 28, 2014

hello :)

Senjuro posted:

And then you find out you damaged your card by overheating something. Seriously though, I was very much set on getting an MSI card but I'll never have peace of mind knowing that the fans are so drat delicate.

So between Gigabyte and Asus I suppose Gigabyte is better if I don't want to deal with overclocking myself? Higher clock although louder at idle (and at load too?).

There is no way a hairdryer is going to damage your video card.

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