Anyone own a EVGA 970 SSC with the straight heatpipes?

[Charlie98]

Well i think i can answer this because it used to be a problem in watercooling, until i forced the standard with standoff's.

My thread is here which i addressed this problem to all vendors.
Me = NaeKuh.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?205033-The-Importances-of-Standoff-s-on-FC-blocks

ok, warping on the pcb is usually cased by the heat sink being uneven and then pulling the card in the corners.

This causes a BOW to happen.
Here is a example of a BOW, when there is a lot of mounting pressure exerted on the die.

A Straight heat sink which is perfectly even with the required standoff's will keep the card straight, however the cost is mounting pressure on the GPU Die itself.

A Backplate helps this problem by allowing the said heat sink to have mounting pressure on the GPU die, and keep the card straight.

Is it needed? No, its not NEEDED if the heat sink is exact. Also no one really wants to CLAMP on a heat sink to a bare naked die and risk cracking it, unless they are ABSOLUTELY sure its a flat heat sink... (like a waterblock)

Is it nice to have? YES, because i see rear ram chips, the back plate would also work as a heat sink keeping those ram in the rear cool.

I'm having a hard time following you...

Backplates are good?

...and is the straight heatpipe setup better than the traditional setup?

 

[cmdrdredd]

The new ssc and ftw have the same cooler. The sc and the original ssc have the acx 2.0 cooler with the heat pipe issue.

The 2.0 is the updated model. I asked EVGA directly before I settled on my MSI cards. I was told the 2.0 is the new one and all the cards should come with it now.

 

[96Firebird]

The new ssc and ftw have the same cooler. The sc and the original ssc have the acx 2.0 cooler with the heat pipe issue.

The new SSC and FTW models do not have the same heatsink design, although they are more similar compared to the older SSC and under design.

The FTW has 4 heatpipes that spread out from the center through the heatsink, as shown:

The SSC has 3 heatpipes that spread out from the center, but are closer to each other and do not go through the heatsink (image taken from video linked above):

As for which design is better, that is anyone's guess. I like the FTW design because it has more heatpipes and it goes through the heatsink rather than next to it. Plus, its the model that I have. :biggrin:

However, this new SSC has 1x8-pin and 1x6-pin, up from the FTW's 2x6-pin. It might have a higher TDP. They both have the dual BIOS switch.

And to throw another card into the mix, EVGA has a new FTW+ model. Looks like it has the same cooler as this new SSC, as well as the 1x8-pin/1x6-pin setup. Looks like EVGA just wants to keep pumping out new model 970s...

 

[Charlie98]

Curious.... the SSC is obviously copper... is the FTW nickel-plated copper, or some other material?

 

[96Firebird]

Both heatsinks are aluminum, and I'm guessing the FTW heatpipes are nickle-plated copper. But the plate that the GPU touches is aluminum.

Should also point out that the new cards have more outputs. 3xDP, HDMI 2.0, and DVI-I.