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

Question for overclockers. When I increase my core clock too high (150 core, for example), 3Dmark just crashes on load. Why does that happen? Would increasing the voltage help? I'm kinda afraid to do that...

I have my power set to 125% (maxed).
 
Interesting, the Titan Black I got rid of in favor of the SC GTX 980 was nowhere near that fast. It scored right around 3000 coupled with a 4930K @ 4.5Ghz. The 980 (overclocked) scores about 3300, and I'm guessing that's just about what to realistically expect from them with the reference cooler.

I just tried my 780ti sc and got 3063.
 
Just tried with the new beta drivers. Same Valley score.


Question for overclockers. When I increase my core clock too high (150 core, for example), 3Dmark just crashes on load. Why does that happen? Would increasing the voltage help? I'm kinda afraid to do that...

I have my power set to 125% (maxed).

The drivers crash to prevent damage if the OC is too high. You can try increasing voltage to see if it helps.The card can easily take it. The voltages allowed in Precision X and Afterburner are totally safe.

It didn't do anything for me. I hit a wall of 1425mhz on the core at stock or max voltage.

Interesting, the Titan Black I got rid of in favor of the SC GTX 980 was nowhere near that fast. It scored right around 3000 coupled with a 4930K @ 4.5Ghz. The 980 (overclocked) scores about 3300, and I'm guessing that's just about what to realistically expect from them with the reference cooler.

I just tried my 780ti sc and got 3063.

Damn. So did I just have a beast 780Ti?
 
Anyone here have any history or comments on Zotac brand cards?

How do they compare with the main partners like ASUS, EVGA, MSI and Gigabyte?

How is their warranty coverage? Component quality, etc...


I ask because I rarely (if ever) see reviews for them or see people posting as having their brand cards in a system.
 
Anyone here have any history or comments on Zotac brand cards?

How do they compare with the main partners like ASUS, EVGA, MSI and Gigabyte?

How is their warranty coverage? Component quality, etc...


I ask because I rarely (if ever) see reviews for them or see people posting as having their brand cards in a system.

I had a Zotac GTX 570. Only reason I bought it was because it was on sale and I wanted to SLI it with my ASUS. I had to raise the voltage to keep it from crashing at stock clocks. It also ran quite hot.

I personally wouldn't buy one again, but they may have improved recently.
 
Question for overclockers. When I increase my core clock too high (150 core, for example), 3Dmark just crashes on load. Why does that happen? Would increasing the voltage help? I'm kinda afraid to do that...

I have my power set to 125% (maxed).

You should be fine upping the voltage a bit, bios has it hard capped at a pretty safe level anyway. But you had a 980, right? So your temps are most likely already reaching 80C so it might not even be worth it.

I only had the crash during the loading screen one time myself, usually it happens during the test. More voltage can help, but it's not guaranteed. I currently have my voltage set to +35 on my 970 and I'm completely stable in everything I've thrown at it with a +215 core clock and +400 memory clock. I'm planning on doing some more testing some day and see if I can lower the voltage and keep this clock. Noticed some instabilities with memory at +500 so currently have it at 400 and will do some more tweaking there too.
 
Question for overclockers. When I increase my core clock too high (150 core, for example), 3Dmark just crashes on load. Why does that happen? Would increasing the voltage help? I'm kinda afraid to do that...

I have my power set to 125% (maxed).

It means you can't clock that high, lower the clock.
 
Anyone here have any history or comments on Zotac brand cards?

How do they compare with the main partners like ASUS, EVGA, MSI and Gigabyte?

How is their warranty coverage? Component quality, etc...


I ask because I rarely (if ever) see reviews for them or see people posting as having their brand cards in a system.

It seems the Zotac 970 (vanilla) is built very well. Here are some first hand reports. The parent company also owns Sapphire (AMD).

http://www.overclock.net/t/1514089/zotac-970
 
The drivers crash to prevent damage if the OC is too high. You can try increasing voltage to see if it helps.The card can easily take it. The voltages allowed in Precision X and Afterburner are totally safe.

Huh. I increased the voltage and the benchmark actually ran... but I got a much lower score this time around. The temps didn't even go over 65 during the benchmark so it wasnt downclocking. I'll have to restart and try again....
 
I had a Zotac GTX 570. Only reason I bought it was because it was on sale and I wanted to SLI it with my ASUS. I had to raise the voltage to keep it from crashing at stock clocks. It also ran quite hot.

I personally wouldn't buy one again, but they may have improved recently.
Hmm, will have to do some research. I just find it odd that they are the ONLY brand that still has 980's in stock.
It seems the Zotac 970 (vanilla) is built very well. Here are some first hand reports. The parent company also owns Sapphire (AMD).

http://www.overclock.net/t/1514089/zotac-970

I've owned several Sapphire cards in the past and have had no issues with them but I am not sure if the level of quality can be directly transferred over to Zotac...
 
Huh. I increased the voltage and the benchmark actually ran... but I got a much lower score this time around. The temps didn't even go over 65 during the benchmark so it wasnt downclocking. I'll have to restart and try again....

Make sure the overclock didn't reset. That can happen when it crashes sometimes, but it doesn't show in afterburner apart from checking the max core clock in the monitor. Just reset and apply it again and see if it helps.
 
Well, I don't think I've read any reports of coil whine on the Zotacs at least.. so one thing they have going for them. I'm not sure why they're barely considered by most.. they have 'apparently' excellent tech support, five year warranties and mostly good reports first-hand. Some good overclocking results even on the small form factor 970 too.
 
just wondering, ive been getting inconsistent answers when i search, does the 970 outperform the 780? i've seen some benchmarks that show the 970 provides higher FPS in most games but im wondering if the 780 numbers those benchmarks are showing are current.
 
Well, I don't think I've read any reports of coil whine on the Zotacs at least.. so one thing they have going for them. I'm not sure why they're barely considered by most.. they have 'apparently' excellent tech support, five year warranties and mostly good reports first-hand. Some good overclocking results even on the small form factor 970 too.

Unfortunately, I've seen Zotac have some coil whine reports. Infact I don't think there is a brand that hasn't had any report of it. Seems common across the board.

That said. I think Zotac is decent. Never had any problems with my old Zotac GTX 260.
 
Did you do any overclocking beyond out of the box?

Cause my 780 ghz + my oc: Scores 3070.

What are the clocks on it if you don't mind my asking? ~3000 scores in Valley Extreme HD with current drivers are typically achieved by cards sporting 2880 cores + healthy overclocks.

That's a seriously quick 780! :-)
 
What the hell.

I don't know how this happened, but I think it was a fluke.

SWNhHHG.png


http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4196791
 
What are the clocks on it if you don't mind my asking? ~3000 scores in Valley Extreme HD with current drivers are typically achieved by cards sporting 2880 cores + healthy overclocks.

That's a seriously quick 780! :-)

Kepler Bios Tweaker, yo. Gpu Boost off, 1254 sustained--stays between 80-83 degrees when working. Plus its the B1 variant of gk110.

0SMOVQy.png
 
Jim, were you watching what was happening on 3dmark when you got that score? I would have loved to seen what was going on there. Your graphics test 1 was 131444.6 fps LOL

Too bad it wasn't a valid result. You'd be #8 in the Hall of Fame right now :D


edit^^^

These are new cards and new drivers... there's bound to be a few bugs here and there. lol That said, we need a new 3dmark bechmark.
 
Damnit, this card can't hold a stable OC for shit in 3D Mark. It's crashing with a 50mhz core bump.

Think I'm gonna go return it to Frys. Because without a hefty OC, it's going to be slower than my 780Ti in everything I play.
 
Damnit, this card can't hold a stable OC for shit in 3D Mark. It's crashing with a 50mhz core bump.

Think I'm gonna go return it to Frys. Because without a hefty OC, it's going to be slower than my 780Ti in everything I play.

Why not sli 970s? Out of stock?
 
^ curious myself

Yep, sold out everywhere. I should have just picked up a pair of those MSI 970s from Microcenter yesterday. All 5 were sold out by the time I got there today.

Might get lucky with some other stores, surely can't be out everywhere...all stores received their stock already?

Either way isn't everyone upgrading next year with the shrinks, not too bad as a stop-gap?
 
Sounds like you must have terrible luck. I've got +275mhz on the core and +360 on the mem. Stable as a rock. Barely any extra voltage applied. I refuse to believe that you can't +50 your core and have it not rock solid. That's nothing for these gpus.


Did you format your PC after installing the 980? I'd start fresh and rule out any possibilities.
 
My Gigabyte 970 G1 arrived today. Amazon said it wouldn't arrive until the 6th of Oct, glad they were wrong! Will be all up and running in time for Shadow of Mordor.
 
To SLI these cards do I need them to be the same brand/model or can I combine a Gigabyte G1 with an MSI or a stock model?

You can SLI different brands of 970s together or 980s together. However if you have one card that is OC'd out of the box and one that is stock clocks, then both cards will automatically clock down to the clocks of the slower card. Then you could use a OC'ing program such as Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX to clock both cards up as high as will be stable for both cards.
 
Think I finally got a stable overclock on my Gigabyte GTX 970 after having some time to play with it, anything higher/any lower voltage locks up Firestrike completely.

ibkXzH7wHIm9yX.png


Based on the scores I've seen throughout the thread, I'm pretty content.

That's very impressive! I was deciding on whether or not to sell my R9 290 to get a 970, but was afraid it wasn't going to be much of an upgrade, and I'm wrong:

amdr9290.png


So I'm going to sell the R9 290 to get the 970. I'm glad to see that the Gigabyte 970 can overclock well.

Switching to team Green! lol
 
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