Nvidia Launches GTX 980 And GTX 970 "Maxwell" Graphics Cards ($549 & $329)

Lol. I need to stay out of this thread. Putting ideas in my head that 4GB isnt enough for me!

I wish Amazon would get some of these in already. Still no estimated ship date even.
 
pestul said:
Are there any reviews on the lowest end Zotac 970? Cause I can't find one. I want to see how well it over clocks.
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No review will tell you how the card you end up getting will overclock. It all comes down to the silicon lottery. The gpus are all the same in every one of the cards, the only differences being frequencies and cooling systems. You should make your decision based on that.
 
hoserx said:
No review will tell you how the card you end up getting will overclock. It all comes down to the silicon lottery. The gpus are all the same in every one of the cards, the only differences being frequencies and cooling systems. You should make your decision based on that.
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But isn't it more likely that manufacturers use the "better" chips for their overclocked cards?
 
brotkasten said:
But isn't it more likely that manufacturers use the "better" chips for their overclocked cards?
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It's a reasonable assumption, but that doesn't mean that a card that is overclocked by the factory will overclock a single additional mhz, and that doesn't mean a stock clocked card can't be overclocked to fuck and back. Most companies deny "binning" gpus, but EVGA definitely chooses choice ones for their classified cards.
 
Phil0sophy said:
So GAF....I am going to sell my GTX 690 and was looking for opinions on what to do...

Should I upgrade to one GTX 980 or go with SLI 970's? I really am thinking about going for the latter.

Looking for minimum 60fps in most games and x4 AA so am thinking maybe the 970 sli is a better option for me.

BUT I am getting tired of games not supporting SLI and am wondering for the games that don't is one 970 going to be enough for 60fps?

What do you all think?
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I can get 60fps @ 1080p and 4xAA with pretty much every game I own besides Crysis 3. If I were you I'd buy a single 970 now and see how happy you are with the results. You can always add a second one after the fact.
 
UPDATE: I will get my replacement (Gigabyte 970) in 1 week. I'm always glad when the customer service of an online shop is uncomplicated.
 
Phil0sophy said:
So GAF....I am going to sell my GTX 690 and was looking for opinions on what to do...

Should I upgrade to one GTX 980 or go with SLI 970's? I really am thinking about going for the latter.

Looking for minimum 60fps in most games and x4 AA so am thinking maybe the 970 sli is a better option for me.

BUT I am getting tired of games not supporting SLI and am wondering for the games that don't is one 970 going to be enough for 60fps?

What do you all think?
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I'm in the exact same situation.

I'm just going with a 980GTX for now. Looks like with some overclocking it can match (and even beat) the 690GTX in most situations. Like leng jai said, you can always add a second card down the line.
 
DarkFlow said:
It's not a bottleneck...
This is what I feel like in these threads now days when people talk about VRAM.
Small-kitten-chasing-its-tail-do-not-know-the-cat-will-dizziness-it.gif
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Well, if it's not a bottleneck why do you need at least 6 to use high/Ultra textures on Shadow of mordor?
Not that I'm going to buy the game but it seems to like the games are demanding for Ultra/High settings even in 1080p more than 4gb Vram and that would definitley mean that this is a problem for people who bought cards with 4 or lower vram.
 
Yudoken said:
Well, if it's not a bottleneck why do you need at least 6 to use high/Ultra textures on Shadow of mordor?
Not that I'm going to buy the game but it seems to like the games are demanding for Ultra/High settings even in 1080p more than 4gb Vram and that would definitley mean that this is a problem for people who bought cards with 4 or lower vram.
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It's for Ultra, and it's an optional download that doesn't come with the game.

Nor has it actually been tested yet. I'd wait for some actual testing of the game before making judgements. That VRAM thread and the hysteria around it is embarrassing.
 
Today I received my Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 GAMING ordered yesterday, I got the time to install it but had to go back to work right after the first boot.

Using VNC I can see it's running at only 30°C, my 680's were running near 35-40°C on the desktop (original design).

I hope I can overclock it at least up to 1400MHz, it should match my old 680's in games with great SLI profiles, but in games not using SLI I will get a very nice boost. And going from 2GB to 4GB VRAM will allow me to set Ultra textures in a few games and add more textures mods in Skyrim :p

In a few months I'll add a second one for sure :)
 
Pah, Amazon have cancelled my £299.99 MSI TFV 980 order as expected.

And here I was thinking that Amazon had stepped in and priced the 980 in line with what it should be compared to the 970 ;)
 
Faith said:
UPDATE: I will get my replacement (Gigabyte 970) in 1 week. I'm always glad when the customer service of an online shop is uncomplicated.
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Good news, but still a bummer.

I just got mine today:



Out with the old, in with the new.

Replaced a case fan, turned my CPU overclock back up to 4.2Ghz, installed GTX970 and then pretty much immediately overclocked it to 1250Mhz(to start). Haven't done a whole lot of testing. Running Divinity: Original Sin at a rock solid 60fps now at 1440p, which is great. Will play around more with it soon.

Gotta say, the card is heavy, though. My previous 670 already sagged a bit and this one does moreso. I don't think its in danger of snapping from its slot, but I wish it didn't sag as much as it does.
 
Seanspeed said:
Gotta say, the card is heavy, though. My previous 670 already sagged a bit and this one does moreso. I don't think its in danger of snapping from its slot, but I wish it didn't sag as much as it does.
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That's one of the things I love about my ITX case. That the motherboard sits flat, so the CPU cooler and GPU stand upright. Just feels a much more sturdy set-up to me.
 
Seanspeed said:
Good news, but still a bummer.

I just got mine today:



Out with the old, in with the new.

Replaced a case fan, turned my CPU overclock back up to 4.2Ghz, installed GTX970 and then pretty much immediately overclocked it to 1250Mhz(to start). Haven't done a whole lot of testing. Running Divinity: Original Sin at a rock solid 60fps now at 1440p, which is great. Will play around more with it soon.

Gotta say, the card is heavy, though. My previous 670 already sagged a bit and this one does moreso. I don't think its in danger of snapping from its slot, but I wish it didn't sag as much as it does.
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Whoa man, I'm upgrading from the exact same card. Should be coming in the evening, excited!
 
hoserx said:
No review will tell you how the card you end up getting will overclock. It all comes down to the silicon lottery. The gpus are all the same in every one of the cards, the only differences being frequencies and cooling systems. You should make your decision based on that.
Click to expand...
True, but I want to see if the cooling solution is really all that more innefficient given the price is significantly cheaper. 2 or 3 reviews should at least expose one good over clocking card. Surely we have a few Gaffers who purchased this version of the Zotac 970.
 
I'd expect the higher VRAM variants of the 970 and 980 to be a minimum of $100 more if they are released at all this year.

Wondering if it's worth the time/money to wait. I'm leaning no. As Andy said, new compression techniques will likely alleviate some of the VRAM pressure for games, plus I don't think the extra RAM will result in better performance in games. It'll just allow you to hit the ultra textures, probably at a performance hit all the same.
 
I have a question. Let's say those 8GB 970s are real and I get one in addition to my 4GB 970. Can I use both in SLI and get full use of that 8GB? I know VRAM isn't combined but am wondering if there are any kind of weird issues when you do SLI two cards of different VRAM
 
Salaadin said:
I have a question. Let's say those 8GB 970s are real and I get one in addition to my 4GB 970. Can I use both in SLI and get full use of that 8GB? I know VRAM isn't combined but am wondering if there are any kind of weird issues when you do SLI two cards of different VRAM
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No. It would use the 4GB. Also, it is debatable whether it would even work in the first place. SLI is much more picky than CFX.
 
You guys have me worried. I play on a 1440p display and figured 4GB would be great.

Also what should I do with my 670 GTX Windforce? I was thinking about putting it in a smaller box like an Alienware x-51 for emulation/console like game purposes or should I leave it in my computer as a physx dedicated card? How would I set it up to be a physx only card?
 
Anandtech's 970 review is up: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8568/the-geforce-gtx-970-review-feat-evga

With the GTX 970 NVIDIA only ties the R9 290X, but in the process they do so while consuming nearly 90W less power, generating far less noise, and most importantly delivering all of this at a two-thirds the cost. GTX 980 gave NVIDIA a well-earned lead over AMD, but it’s the one-two punch of GTX 980 and GTX 970 together that so solidly cement NVIDIA’s position as the top GPU manufacturer. It’s one thing for R9 290X to lose to NVIDIA’s flagship, but to be outright tied by NVIDIA’s second tier card is a slap in the face that AMD won’t soon forget.

There’s not much more that can be said at this point other than that as of this moment the high-end performance landscape is entirely in NVIDIA’s favor. They have undercut AMD with better hardware at a lower price, leaving AMD in a very tenuous position. AMD would have to cut R9 290X’s performance by nearly $200 to be performance competitive, and even then they can’t come close to matching NVIDIA’s big edge in power consumption. To that end it’s a lot like the GTX 670 launch, but even in that case NVIDIA’s overall hardware and pricing advantage wasn’t quite as immense as it is today. At anything over $300 there are only two single-GPU cards to consider: GTX 980 and GTX 970. Nothing else matters.
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Damn.
 
kharma45 said:
It's for Ultra, and it's an optional download that doesn't come with the game.

Nor has it actually been tested yet. I'd wait for some actual testing of the game before making judgements. That VRAM thread and the hysteria around it is embarrassing.
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It's really not a stretch to say that games are going to be using 4+ VRAM on the norm for the highest settings very soon. Most of that is bad optimization but we have to live in the world as it is and not the way we want it to be.

Nvidia is shitting the bed in a huge way in regards to VRAM.
 
I don't believe this rumor, but:

Nvidia ‘Big Daddy’ Maxwell GM200 GPU Alleged Specs Leaked – GTX 980 Ti or GTX Titan X?


First of all, I would like to apologize in advance for the heading. I do not know what the GM200 GPU will be called, but since I have to name the article something appropriate, 980 Ti and Titan X will have to do. Anyways here are the specs as mentioned by PCTuning:

Die Size: 551mm^2
SMMs/CUDA Cores: 20-22/ 2560-2816
Memory Bus: 384 Bit
Performance: ~50% Boost over GTX Titan Black
Launch: Q4 2014

Now, the publication mentions that the professional and gaming equivalents will release together and there is a chance that Nvidia will keep the GM200 GPU for the professional space only. In such a case a “Geforce GTX 990″ is expected rocking two GM204 Cores. This is where the actual leak from PCTuning ends and I take the reigns on conjecture, so if speculation isn’t your cup of tea you might want to skip this part.

Basically, we already know that the GM200 chip/GTX 980 Ti/TitanX is completely ready. Its customer samples were tested a few weeks back and if it follows the same trend as the Gm204 then it should be out and about within 2 months at most. This is confirmed by data from the shipping portal zauba.com. Before the first ‘CS’ entry which appeared on 12th August 2014, there had only been entries using the nomenclature ‘INT’ which means the core is meant for Internal Testing. Because green follows the same pattern we knew that once the INT chips were spotted the CS chips wouldn’t be that far behind and chips with the name GM200-CS0-A1 and GM200-CS1-A1 were soon spotted, indicating that the GPU is now ready. This core will have double the performance per watt of the GK110 core (as can be seen from the research paper) and we should see an amazing leap in gaming performance from 204 to 200.

Now while the GM204-A1 die is based on the 28nm process, and as I have previously mentioned before sources inside the industry tell me Nvidia is thinking about porting the circuit to 20nm in 2015. There is also one more path Nvidia can choose. I believe that Nvidia is keeping the Gm200 GPU as the ultimate checkmate against AMD. If AMD rolls out a competing flagship on the 28nm node, by my estimates the GM200 should have the performance crown. Either way, the leak scene is starting again.
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http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti-gtx-titan-x-coming/#ixzz3EQrUPU9d

I don't see GM200 on 28nm being used for anything other than professional Quadro / Telsa cards in Q4 2014 and Q1 2015.

Nvidia might put out a GTX 990 using two 28nm GM204 GPUs, as they did with the GTX 690 using two GK104s in Q2 2012.

I wouldn't expect a Titan II or Titan X with GM200 until they've got it on 20nm and a less expensive "GTX 1080" with less memory on 20nm or FinFET.
 
Waiting for Amazon to stock the Asus model, but after seeing the Ryse/EW/Mordor VRAM stuff, it's probably best to stick with a 2GB 770 until we see how Nvidia and AMD respond to this VRAM stuff. The game I'm most wanting a new card for is Batman, but that was pushed back to the summer. If there's a 970-range card with extra VRAM coming up, it's probably best to wait for that.
 
plagiarize said:
So with everything turned up pretty damn high in Batman AC (FXAA high for the AA), running at 4K (DSR) I averaged over 90 fps, with a brief low in the high 40s.

O_O

With PhysX and the DX11 stuff turned on, that is. Ridiculous.
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I can't wait to re-install the Arkham games and finally try them with PhysX and DX11 features turned on!
 
Smushroomed said:
Frys in anahiem was selling 980 for like 700 bucks
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I used to live right next to that one.

Faith said:
UPDATE: I will get my replacement (Gigabyte 970) in 1 week. I'm always glad when the customer service of an online shop is uncomplicated.
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Cool. Sorry, which shop was it?

Seanspeed said:
Gotta say, the card is heavy, though. My previous 670 already sagged a bit and this one does moreso. I don't think its in danger of snapping from its slot, but I wish it didn't sag as much as it does.
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Yeah the brief time I had my whiny MSI I noticed it sagged quite a bit. I'm sure it would have been fine but it still bothered me.
 
So my EVGA GTX 970 has been performing fine, and noise hasn't been much of an issue. For the hell of it, I decided to take a look at the reviews it's been getting.

...and uh, wow, did I get lucky or something? I haven't been having the issues others are having.
 
pestul said:
True, but I want to see if the cooling solution is really all that more innefficient given the price is significantly cheaper. 2 or 3 reviews should at least expose one good over clocking card. Surely we have a few Gaffers who purchased this version of the Zotac 970.
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the cooling system is definitely important, but you can look at 99 zotac cards and they may overclock to a certain amount...... but that 100th card may not. It's 100% dependent on the gpu silicon itself once cooling is thrown out of the equation. You can read tons of reviews about a card, and you will never know how the card you receive will overclock. You can only know that it will run at the advertised frequencies. (hopefully, or it's RMA time).
 
Got a question for you guys. My current setup is AMD 6970 HD x 2 cross fire so it's just best me waiting for the 20 size GPUs that will come out potentially next year for the next jump? I plan to build a new machine again at some point so I can go to haswell and PCI 3.0.
 
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