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

I ordered an EVGA 970 OC on Amazon three days ago because it showed them as in stock, but requiring an extra day or two for shipping, but with a delivery date of the 10th. It still hasn't been sent out yet (I chose two-day shipping) and the status, for over a day now, has been "shipping now." I'm wondering if I'll actually get it tomorrow.
 
Might as well ask this now:

Anyone running the MSI 970 in SLI? Saw some talk about how a rigid SLI bridge might not work due to the coolers they use. Wondering if I should pick up something like this.
 
Got my Asus strix 970 in today! Installed super quick and easy. Just got the latest drivers installed and in the desktop. Time to run a few benches.

edit: Hmm.. can 3dmark 11 not run only firestrike? I didn't even see Firestrike as an option.

edit2: Hmm.. I thought I installed the regular 3dmark but it looks like somehow I ended up with 3dmark 11. Guess this is the old one.
 
garath said:
Got my Asus strix 970 in today! Installed super quick and easy. Just got the latest drivers installed and in the desktop. Time to run a few benches.

edit: Hmm.. can 3dmark 11 not run only firestrike? I didn't even see Firestrike as an option.

edit2: Hmm.. I thought I installed the regular 3dmark but it looks like somehow I ended up with 3dmark 11. Guess this is the old one.
Click to expand...

I just grabbed the 3DMark demo off Steam, it has Firestrike in it (but not the advanced version for multi-GPU rigs, I guess).
 
My 970 G1 Gaming arrived and i'm really loving the DSR, it's like GeDoSaTo but even easier to set up and more compatible (though lacking all the other features GeDoSaTo has, of course).
Really fun to use.

In terms of performance, it's similar to the 780 i changed it from.
 
I got a replacement Gigabyte G1 970 for my first one because the first one buzzed/clicked (I presume this is a form of coil whine or something similar?) and it's not really faring much better. It sounds a bit different/quieter, but generally makes the same noise.

However, I didn't plan on shipping back the first until I got the replacement and for the past hour or so I've been testing out SLI.

It's odd, the buzzing is actually less pronounced in SLI and I'm fairly certain the card in the bottom PCI-E slot (my first 970) is not buzzing or at least not audibly like this. Could my problem be related to my top PCI-E slot? Or SLI maybe just does something differently with power delivery that mitigates the issue? All I can say is coil whine/buzzing of any kind irritates me and I really wish the industry as a collective whole could eradicate or at least identify the root problem.

Different things also cause differing amounts of buzzing regardless of similar GPU usage % and FPS. For example, Unigine Valley and Tomb Raider are relatively quiet, Skyrim produces a very distinctly electrical noise/light buzz, and Crysis 3 makes buzzing quite audible, moreso depending on something as simple as looking in a certain direction and whatnot. Even below 60 FPS (way below), the buzzing's sound, volume, or even frequency seems to correlate not just with framerate, but very specific things being rendered regardless of GPU usage. Overclocking makes the buzzing louder, underclocking has the opposite effect (so much for 970 overclocking, can't because of that infernal noise).

Temperatures are pretty good with SLI 970s. My side fan is currently disabled so the top card will peak in the upper 70s under load right now, but additional airflow should help later on. The fans are quiet too, of course, but that's a moot point with the buzzing.


Performance


SLI 970s (with my 3770K) kick ass. Crysis 3, Tomb Raider, Unigine Valley, Watch Dogs, the Batman games, etc. at 1440p are all doing a constant 60 FPS with settings turned up to 11 (though AA still applied conservatively with Crysis 3 and Watch Dogs).

The Witcher 2 does not like DSR downsampling in SLI for some reason, I'm getting random sustained drops to around 24-40 FPS depending on the direction I look even though neither card nor any of my cores are being stressed to near max. Arkham Origins is also giving me some similar trouble with TXAA in SLI. Unigine Valley drops frames and GPU usage if I alt tab and get back in, crashing later on (no overclock on my GPUs or CPU). Watch Dogs with any AA beyond temporal SMAA has hang ups and dips as if running out of VRAM, and my Afterburner overlay is not able to record memory usage, just stuck on some strange 8-digit or so number.

Overall, when it works, these things give anything a run for their money even at the higher resolution I'm running (This could be my perfect Witcher 3 machine), but Watch Dogs is seemingly running into the 4 GB VRAM wall very easily like this and I'm hoping the other issues are a matter of very immature drivers. Still don't like the buzzing, but I'm tempted to keep both of these now after some time to break them in and think it over.
 
x2gVSVh.png


i5 2500k @ 4.2
stock 970 Asus strix 970

Mot bad. Can go higher though. Gonna try a small OC on the card

edit:

Here we go. +155 clock OC on the card with a 120% power limit bringing it to 1269 core, 1408 boost according to GPU-Z. Really though I was getting a max of 1484 according to Afterburner.

nbwilsX.png


Much better. I'll probably fine tune this over the next few days but this is a good start. Will do some memory OC and probably bump the i5 2500k clock up to at least 4.4 ghz. I never pushed it too hard before. I know it can go higher.

edit2: Card is quiet. Very quiet. Fans don't kick on until 60C. I never hit more than 72C during the OC'd tests. 69C non-OC'd. Fan speed never broke 50%. I'll have to put together a custom fan profile. Have it kick in around 45. I really don't mind it running. I can't even hear it over my case fans.
 
God dammit, my second 980 and SLI bridge arrive tomorrow, but my PSU PCI-E cable won't be here until next Tuesday.

I ordered 2 days ago and Fucking USPS told me selecting First Class shipping would get my package here in 3 days or less.
 
I've searched around and I keep finding conflicting answers. How badly, if at all, would I be bottlenecked on a 970 with an I7 920 OC'd to 3.8 - 4.0? I want a stopgap upgrade from crossfire AMD 5870s. I don't plan on doing a full blown upgrade until late next year.
 
So guys, my 2nd Gigabyte Gaming G1 GTX970 has also coil whine.

I don't know what to do about it? RMA every card till I get 2 with no coil whine?
 
garath said:
x2gVSVh.png


i5 2500k @ 4.2
stock 970 Asus strix 970

Mot bad. Can go higher though. Gonna try a small OC on the card

edit:

Here we go. +155 clock OC on the card with a 120% power limit bringing it to 1269 core, 1408 boost according to GPU-Z. Really though I was getting a max of 1484 according to Afterburner.

nbwilsX.png


Much better. I'll probably fine tune this over the next few days but this is a good start. Will do some memory OC and probably bump the i5 2500k clock up to at least 4.4 ghz. I never pushed it too hard before. I know it can go higher.

edit2: Card is quiet. Very quiet. Fans don't kick on until 60C. I never hit more than 72C during the OC'd tests. 69C non-OC'd. Fan speed never broke 50%. I'll have to put together a custom fan profile. Have it kick in around 45. I really don't mind it running. I can't even hear it over my case fans.
Click to expand...

You basically answered my question, thank you. I really thought that 9500~ points at stock were low for a 970, but it seems normal. And it's crazy how well the card scales with a little overclock.
 
CyberPunked said:
Yeah, apparently Win 8 improves the scores significantly. Anyways I did what you said, and my score is much better now, thanks :D
r5PGjub.png

I'm probably gonna upgrade to windows 8.1
Click to expand...

You should overclock your cards. I got 15,732 GPU score out of a single 980, so with good scaling, you should be able to increase your score to around 30K.

And how does Windows 8 improve scores exactly? I got a really good score on Windows 7.
 
pahamrick said:
I've searched around and I keep finding conflicting answers. How badly, if at all, would I be bottlenecked on a 970 with an I7 920 OC'd to 3.8 - 4.0? I want a stopgap upgrade from crossfire AMD 5870s. I don't plan on doing a full blown upgrade until late next year.
Click to expand...
You should be fine with most games and it will feel like a healthy upgrade. I'm waiting for my Zotac GTX 970 to arrive (so pissed expected delivery is Tuesday), but I'll let you know (I've done pre-benches) how worthwhile it is coming from a i7 920 @ 4.2GHz with 2x5850s overclocked to the GTX 970.
 
pestul said:
You should be fine with most games and it will feel like a healthy upgrade. I'm waiting for my Zotac GTX 970 to arrive (so pissed expected delivery is Tuesday), but I'll let you know (I've done pre-benches) how worthwhile it is coming from a i7 920 @ 4.2GHz with 2x5850s overclocked to the GTX 970.
Click to expand...

Nice, thanks. I figured picking up a new cooler for a better overclock and a new gpu would let me stretch the system a bit further. Looking forward to your benchmarks.
 
plagiarize said:
So Frys just cancelled the back order I had with them on the ROG Swift (even though I'd already told them to cancel it, it whatever) 'due to overwhelming demand or insufficient availability'.

I'm feeling very good about the Acer G-Sync monitor that's out for delivery to my house right now.

It also doesn't have shitty 3D. So yeah, I'm happy to step away from the Swift, and I'm biting my nails to find out what 144 hz and Gsync / ULMB / 3DVision are going to look like with my 980s, because I've never seen any of those things before.
Click to expand...

Sorry I caused a fuss in the other topic
 
So the Acer XB270H is all set up and I love it so far. One thing, currently the combination of SLI + Gsync/ULMB + DSR is a no go. You appear to be able to do SLI + 3DVision + DSR, but currently I have to pick between SLI + Gsync and DSR + Gsync. Hopefully driver updates will rectify that. I had no issues doing SLI + DSR on my previous setup.

Smushroomed said:
Sorry I caused a fuss in the other topic
Click to expand...

I don't actually know what you're referring to, so we're good :)
 
I'm surprised how much heat my 970 gives off. I upgraded from a HD6970, which is a bigger chip that requires like twice as much power, so it seems odd just how much warmer it gets under my desk (where I keep my PC) when gaming with the 970.
 
So did the board partners just massively under estimate the demand for these cards?

Other than one Zotac one I cannot find 980's in stock anywhere save for Ebay and random scammers (let's be honest, these resellers are nothing but scammers) on Amazon selling cards for $200+ markups
 
brotkasten said:
You basically answered my question, thank you. I really thought that 9500~ points at stock were low for a 970, but it seems normal. And it's crazy how well the card scales with a little overclock.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I've kept an eye on the thread and the high 9000s seem pretty average with modest OC and a 2500k. I also have a low OC on my 2500k and the ASUS 970 has the lowest stock core clock out of all of the manufacturers. I was a little dismayed to see the 9100 but the jump after an OC was great. Very pleased. Need more time to fine tune it though.

These 970s are something else. Tried a few of my old games that used to give me a bit of dips on med-high - batman origins, assassins creed black flag - and I was able to crank them up as high as they go with a rock solid 60fps (vsync). Sweet.
 
my roller coaster ride of building my new rig continues as when I was going to cancel my 970s and get a 980, they finally got the 970s in stock. Very limited stock, I can only get 1 for now (should arrive tomorow) and the second next week.

so now im back to the initial 2 970s SLI plan afterall. My emotions cant take this :(
 
Faith said:
So guys, my 2nd Gigabyte Gaming G1 GTX970 has also coil whine.

I don't know what to do about it? RMA every card till I get 2 with no coil whine?
Click to expand...
Don't suppose you can find/borrow a different PSU to try with it? Some people seem to suggest PSU's can cause it. I can't confirm or deny because I no longer have my old one, and I don't have the money to buy a new one just to fix some noise.

I've personally just accepted mine has coil whine. My headphones obfuscate it, so it's not the end of the world, as annoying as it is.
 
Given all the complaints about Gigabyte coil whine I have to thrown in my personal experience with my Gigabyte 970 - it is blissfully quiet.
 
So I ordered a Zotac GTX 970 Amp Extreme from Amazon and gave them a call and told me they were going to have them in stock soon so I can expect my card in a week from now. I decided to save the extra $200 for my next card upgrade... but not really sure if I should instead get the 980... I think the 970 is enough for now.
 
I strolled into Microcenter today because I was in the area for work. Apparently I had good timing as they had 8 in stock. I hadn't even totally decided yet if I wanted to take the plunge, but I caved. Got a ASUS Strix 970. upgraded from an AMD 7970.

Havent had much time to play with it, but Shadow of Mordor benchmark my minimum FPS went up over 50%. First Nvidia card since my 460. Looking forward to playing more tomorrow.
 
ankor77 said:
I strolled into Microcenter today because I was in the area for work. Apparently I had good timing as they had 8 in stock. I hadn't even totally decided yet if I wanted to take the plunge, but I caved. Got a ASUS Strix 970. upgraded from an AMD 7970.

Havent had much time to play with it, but Shadow of Mordor benchmark my minimum FPS went up over 50%. First Nvidia card since my 460. Looking forward to playing more tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Could you tell us the settings that you are playing the game in and the average frame-rates while in game? It is to my understanding that the benchmark tool does not really correlate to in-game performance.
 
leonidas. said:
Could you tell us the settings that you are playing the game in and the average frame-rates while in game? It is to my understanding that the benchmark tool does not really correlate to in-game performance.
Click to expand...

Will do. All i had time for tonight was install. I ran the be chmark just to test anything. Will check back in tomorrow.
 
pahamrick said:
I've searched around and I keep finding conflicting answers. How badly, if at all, would I be bottlenecked on a 970 with an I7 920 OC'd to 3.8 - 4.0? I want a stopgap upgrade from crossfire AMD 5870s. I don't plan on doing a full blown upgrade until late next year.
Click to expand...

the i7 920 will never die bro.
 
plagiarize said:
G-sync makes such a huge difference in Dead Rising 3. It's everything I hoped.
Click to expand...

Hell yeah. Got the same monitor yesterday as well. I was pretty freaked out at first... first game I used to test the whole thing out was Wasteland 2. G-Sync is broken in that game for some reason so of course I sit there just starring at the screen panning for hours trying to stop how it was different my old monitor. Was blown away once I tried out other games.
 
Rhaknar said:
what is G-Sync?
Click to expand...

Serious question?
Basically it's a piece of hardware developed by Nvidia, attached to some specific monitors, that enables them to have variable refresh rate, which basically alleviates latency, tearing and stuttering, usually by product of other methods, such as v-sync.
And it's especially noticeable in very variable framerates.

This is my (very simpleton) understanding of it.
 
UrbanRats said:
Serious question?
Basically it's a piece of hardware developed by Nvidia, attached to some specific monitors, that enables them to have variable refresh rate, which basically alleviates latency, tearing and stuttering, usually by product of other methods, such as v-sync.
And it's especially noticeable in very variable framerates.

This is my (very simpleton) understanding of it.
Click to expand...

you will learn that all my tech related questions, no matter how idiotic they sound, are all serious. Im a huge noob when it comes to stuff like this, I pretty much just press "max settings" button on games and run them

im trying to learn from various threads, but its not easy. Snarky awnsers dont help either :)

I apreciate you explaining it tho. So its a monitor thing, not a GPU thing, so I dont have to worry about it since my monitors are just normal 24inch 1080p screens, nothing fancy
 
Rhaknar said:
you will learn that all my tech related questions, no matter how idiotic they sound, are all serious. Im a huge noob when it comes to stuff like this, I pretty much just press "max settings" button on games and run them

im trying to learn from various threads, but its not easy. Snarky awnsers dont help either :)

I apreciate you explaining it tho. So its a monitor thing, not a GPU thing, so I dont have to worry about it since my monitors are just normal 24inch 1080p screens, nothing fancy
Click to expand...
Well its also a GPU thing because you need a gsync capable monitor plus an nvidia card for it to work
 
Varna said:
Hell yeah. Got the same monitor yesterday as well. I was pretty freaked out at first... first game I used to test the whole thing out was Wasteland 2. G-Sync is broken in that game for some reason so of course I sit there just starring at the screen panning for hours trying to stop how it was different my old monitor. Was blown away once I tried out other games.
Click to expand...
You got the acer xb270h as well?
I love this monitor so much

Newegg already remove their 10% discount on the thing
 
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