Info About EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SSC ACX 2.0+?

[poofyhairguy]

Does anyone have experiance/info with/on this card? I was given it as compensation for some work I did, and I am kinda out of the loop because I have been team Red for a while. In fact I was saving up for a 290 before I was offered this (instead of the money I would have used to buy a 290) and I jumped on it because I know EVGA warranties transfer and what I was owed was less than its Newegg value by a lot. EVGA cards have always been good to me but I don't know more than that.

I assume it's a decent upgrade over my Vapor X 7970 GHz no matter what, but is it a decent 970? I noticed it is factory overclocked a little, that is probably enough for me. I might push it a little further but my i2500k at 4.5 GHZ is getting dated and I only game at 1080p and that will be the case for as long as I own the card (my Panny plasma I game on will hopefully outlive it). Frankly since my rig is in my livingroom I care more about fan noise and coil whine than pure power.

So is it a keeper or should I try to sell it and get the 290(maybe X) I planned to get instead or maybe some other 970? I personally HATE hate selling computer parts so I will only do this if the card is no good, like if this is the worst 970 they ever made then maybe I can stomach going through that process. I just need to get a card I can use for a couple of years (2-3) as I know my 7970 might soon run out of rope even at 1080p and I don't want to be stuck with a dud once I gift the 7970 to a family member. One last thing to note is I usually only buy my games on sale, so whatever the timeline is for gaming hardware obsolescence I am a year or so behind that.

Thank you in advance for any feeback.

 

[Termie]

It's the best 970 EVGA makes, and one of the best models period. It will easily beat a 290 and should generally outperform the 290X as well.

Keeper.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Awesome, that makes me feel better. I hate not giving AMD my money this round but if it beats a 290 that undoes my original upgrade plans. I really appreciate the feedback.

 

[cruzinforit]

I have this card myself, and it's great. Personally, the difference in power consumption and heat alone makes it worth it over the AMD cards. One nice thing is that it runs fanless until it hits 62c, and even under furmark, I've never seen it top 72c. At that point, the fan is only running about 1100RPM, and it just keeps it sitting right at 72.

The performance is great too. The best card I've ever purchased.

 

[riversend]

Agree with the relative quiet of the card, even at high loads. If you got a good deal on it then don't fiddle around, just go with it. Looks to be about a 40-60% boost over the 7970, depending on the title.

 

[RussianSensation]

It's the best 970 EVGA makes, and one of the best models period. It will easily beat a 290 and should generally outperform the 290X as well.

Keeper.

You know these statement are crazy misleading or you haven't been following reviews that closely? 970 will not easily beat an after-market 290. As far as 290X, it takes an after-market 970 to barely beat a reference thermal throttling 290X. As far as after-market 290X, an after-market 970 will actually....lose:

390X (aka after-market 290X 8GB) > 970 SSC in both stock and OC vs. OC.

Agree with the relative quiet of the card, even at high loads. If you got a good deal on it then don't fiddle around, just go with it. Looks to be about a 40-60% boost over the 7970, depending on the title.

60% faster? That's wishful thinking on average. Even an after-market 970 is barely closing in to <40% faster than a 7970Ghz at 1080P.

7970Ghz vs. MSI Gaming 970:

1080P = 970 is 39% faster
1440P = 970 is 33% faster

Sure you can say well you can overclock the 970 from its after-market 1290-1300mhz boost (MSI Gaming) to 1500mhz but so can HD7970Ghz overclock from 1050mhz to 1150-1200mhz. GCN scales amazingly well and many after-market 7970 cards hit 1150mhz on stock voltage of 1.174V. Both of mine do.

Now considering as of now HD7970Ghz is more than 3 years old we get:

1080P = 39% / 3 years = 13% per annum
1440P = 33% / 3 years = 11% per annum

^ Overall, that's a very mediocre upgrade given the time frame since GPUs tend to increase in performance about 33-35% per annum. That's just my opinion but I don't think many PC gamers would say that 33-39% faster after 3 years (i.e., 3 year old card) is a good upgrade.

I am sorry that's not what the OP wants to hear but those are just the facts in terms of the performance comparison. In this case, I would have personally either waited for faster cards such as 980 or Fury to come down in price or better yet skipped this entire generation as the OP is still on 1080P and 7970Ghz slices through most games at that resolution. Plus, the 970 has the 3.5GB of VRAM fiasco which means after 3 years the OP is barely getting an improvement in this area over 7970Ghz.

Another way to think about it is an after-market 970 is only ~ 40% faster than HD7970Ghz after 3 years but Pascal's successor of 970 in 2016 should be 60-80% faster than the 970, all in less than 1.5 years from now. That also just highlights that 970 was not a good upgrade from a 7970Ghz.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Even an after-market 970 is barely closing in to <40% faster than a 7970Ghz at 1080P.

That isn't too bad. Isn't that about what the 290 I was saving for would have done? Maybe a little better depending on the game?

Plus I have to admit your overclocking math is off, my card gets barely over 1100 and it starts pitching a fit and only if I don't touch the ram. I won't miss how little that card let me overclock. Part of it I know is my case setup though. I don't have a ton of airflow as I am trying to have my rig be more quiet for living room gaming. Honestly part of what really appeals to me about the 970 is that it consumes less power than my 7970 GHz did, which means that much less heat my case won't kinda push out. One thing that scared me about the 290 is every review had it consuming more than the 7970 which could have meant no overclocking in my reality no matter the card's ability. I am pumped this 970 runs so cool it can leave its fans off in idle. I mean maybe not in my case but it gives me hope.

There really isn't anything I don't want to hear other than its a terrible 970. I completely agree RS that right now is a bad time to be upgrading short of a Ti or a Fury as the market will move quickly next year. Heck with GPUs its always best to buy either when the card is new or when it's about to be replaced. Mid-cycle, like the 970 is, has low value normally, just not for me personally in this case.

With that said I still pretty excited as there was more than one title in my library that couldn't quite run a rock solid 60fps with the settings on ultra that hopefully should be able to with even just a 20% boost. One thing that gets lost in just comparing percentages in benchmarks is that there is a quality ceiling for a TV gamer like me at 60fps and 8 feet, so for a lot of games a Ti is not better than a 290 or 970 or even maybe the 7970 without cranking the AA or DSR or whatever. I just want to hit that ceiling for a year or two and then I will be happy to get ahold of the newer and cooler technology to maybe drive a 4K TV if 970 price range single card tech can do it. That is why I was saving for a 290, as a stop gap.

To me its all about playability. The 7970 was almost perfect at 1080p so I hope the 970 is better when I get it in. When 4k is that playable at 60fps with a single card I will upgrade. Seems like no card short of a crazy overclocked Ti really does 4k by itself, so outside of such a card it seems all a waste for those of us who don't want to game on a desk and have to chose between 1080p and 4k TVs. You have to upgrade when a good opportunity strikes sometimes, like you and your 7970s back when gpu mining mattered.

Thank you for your input RS! I greatly respect your insight.

 

[RussianSensation]

Thank you for your input RS! I greatly respect your insight.

Thank you for sharing your side of the story. I am sorry if I came off a little harsh and in no way did I want to personally attack the 970 SSC as it's a great card on its own. It's just frustrating for me to see how little the GPU market has moved in the last 3 years aside from Fury X and 980Ti. With EVGA's excellent customer service, and high boost out of the box, double ball bearings for longer fan life, the SSC is a good 970. I guess my vent was was more about whether it's truly a worthy upgrade over a 7970Ghz given the time-frame - I suppose that's up for debate since 970 is a $300-330 card, not a $500 one. However, as you said if looking at it as a stop-gap 2-year thing between your 1080P TV and a 4K TV down the line, then yes you are right that no card above 970 is great for 4K either. For 1080P, I would have definitely picked the 970 over the 290 as you did so you picked well there. :thumbsup:

Also, as a bonus you do get a card that uses way less power than a 290. Having said that I don't think the comparison is that straight forward in this case since an after-market 290 is $240, not $300+, but 970 does overclock better than a 290 giving it an edge there.

Anyway, since you had a dud overclocking 7970Ghz, I hope your SSC+ can hit 1450-1500mhz Boost and then you probably will get a 50%+ performance increase across the board, more in GW titles. Enjoy the card! It's obviously not your fault that both NV and AMD dropped the ball this generation as far as price/performance goes. I mean the Fury is really a 290 successor, but instead of $399 price tag AMD jacked it up all the way to $549 because they don't want to be perceived as a 'budget brand', while NV is selling an upper-mid-range 980 for $480.

Hopefully in 2.5-3 years when you end up upgrading from a 970, we do have something > 50% faster at the $350 mark.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I say keep the 970 as a interim card. You can sell it to pay some of a 980 or something a year down the road (or whenever) - plus the money you'll get from selling your 7970 if you do.

 

[yacoub]

However, as you said if looking at it as a stop-gap 2-year thing between your 1080P TV and a 4K TV down the line, then yes you are right that no card above 970 is great for 4K either.

The 390 or 390X seems a good choice for future-proofing longevity due to its 8GB of VRAM. If I were looking for a card to keep for 3+ years and overall bang-for-the-buck, as soon as the 390X drops $50, that might be the card to get?

 

[riversend]

That's wishful thinking on average. Even an after-market 970 is barely closing in to <40% faster than a 7970Ghz at 1080P

I missed the "GHz" after the 7970 in his post - so while not correct in the context of the OPs upgrade, I don't think the numbers against the straight 7970 were too far off. However, I should have gotten it right the first time around.

I also feel that neither company has done well by the mid-range in the past couple of generations, or even mid-high. Agree that FuryX and 980Ti are nice if you can spend that kind of money. I wound up buying a used 970, and it was still more than I have ever paid for a GPU - but felt it was necessary given performance of the cards below it. Considered the 290 or 290x also.

 

[manimal]

I have two of them and they are louder than my msi gtx 980 by a large margin though not that loud since the MSI is almost silent at full load.

 

[therealnickdanger]

I have two of them (in different machines) and they are super quiet, running at 1400MHz. I was able to get them super cheap, which made the choice for me. If the 290/390 had HDMI 2.0 or if there were an adapter that worked, I would have kept my 290 Tri-X from last year.

 

[poofyhairguy]

For 1080P, I would have definitely picked the 970 over the 290 as you did so you picked well there. :thumbsup:

Thank you RS, I appreciate it!

 

[poofyhairguy]

Thank you everyone for your input! I appreciate all the feedback, as normally I obsess over tech purchases for days but in this case it dropped in my lap. I have decided to keep the card because of your input. AMD will get my money at the node change.

I need to install the backplate that came with it then I will put it in. I ran a lot of benchmarks last night in the games I want to play so I will know exactly what this upgrade does for me and report back. The old Vapor X 7970 Ghz will replace the 1GB 7850 in my CS Go Core 2 System.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I wanted to post an update now that I have had it in my machine. Overall I really like the card and I am glad I went for it. At first I was a little nervous because the HSF seemed a little more puny than the Vapor X, but once I installed the back-plate it really adds to the look and heft and maybe does something for the heat.

Overall the card is very very quiet compared to the Vapor X (without a custom profile I mean). Even when the fans are maxed when overclocked its still more quiet than the Vapor X at full blast without a single bit of overclock ever AFTER I replaced the 7970 fans recently. The fan is never going over 40% that I see, that is pretty cool.

Strangely enough there is a way to make it kinda noisy, via a switch on the card that loads the slave (I swear, that is what the backplate calls it) bios. In this mode the card's fan never turns off, which is annoying because at its lowest mode it kinda makes a click sound. The benefit of this mode is that it lets you jack up the power and temperature limits an extra 50% (10% vs 15%), which is why I ran to it at first when I wanted to see what the card could do. Strangely enough I had WORSE luck overclocking in this bios mode, not only did the new limits not help but something about that bios hurt my OC ceiling. So I am sticking to the bios that lets the fan turn off.

Overall I am pretty happy with my overclock on this card compared to my last one. The max stable boost clock I can manage is 1519, which mostly stabilizes at 1505 when I push it for more than a few seconds. The ram overclocked +550 which I am sure helps things some. At its best my 7970 hit 7079 in Firestrike, at this overclock the 970 hit 10149. I was planning on playing Tomb Raider next in my library and the min rate on ultimate in the benchmark went from 48.5 to 83.7 (ave 64 vs 109). So there is a guaranteed improvement in my upcoming gaming experience. I am pumped.

Thank you again for all your input.

 

[Rhezuss]

I bought this card in september 2014, the SSC ACX 2.0, not +, which seem to be the same card as I have.

It's a beast, performs extraordinarily well in every games i've played so far. But mine have coil whine, which was worst when I got it and seem to be slowly disappearing with time.

I don't even bother to OC it since the factory OC is already enough for what I play so far and EVGA gave me a free backplate

Great buy man!

 

[Mushkins]

I upgraded to a Gigabyte factory OCed 970 from a 7970 factory OC and couldn't be happier.

It's a solid upgrade any way you shake it. Yes, people are going to flaunt a bunch of benchmarks and say ITS NOT GOOD BECAUSE THIS OTHER CARD DOES XYZ % BETTER IN ABC SITUATION and argue about drivers until they're blue in the face, but the bottom line is it's considerably faster than a 7970 and it's an absolutely solid card.

Enjoy your card and ignore the naysayers, it will serve you well for years to come.

 

[Headfoot]

A good hold over card until 14/16nm. This gen unless you have a big budget generally speaking I don't think its wise to go above 970/290/290x/390/390x level, rather hit that mid range sweet spot to hold over until the real die shrink comes. I'd have done the same in your shoes.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Thank you all for the vote of confidence!

I will admit, the cooling on this card leaves me a little wanting. I have some golden silicon that could maybe get near 1600 with a little voltage, but once I start adding some in the heat gets around 80C which triggers the throttling. I considered getting an aftermarket cooler, but really the overclock difference will never be seen in a game probably. So I pull back the clock speed to right below 1500 which then never goes over 76C.

Every game I have this thing eats it up. And honestly after years of hearing how Physx stuff in say the Batman games was overrated, I actually liked seeing all the dirty newspapers blow around. I am a big fan of all the hair stuff too.

Thanks again!

 

[tg2708]

So does any one recommend the 980? I can't help but always consider nvidia even when I know they might be at a disadvantage later on. Created a purchase advice thread awhile back but the masses chose the 290 (great value), though I ended up wanting to get nvidia deep in my mind.

 

[Headfoot]

So does any one recommend the 980? I can't help but always consider nvidia even when I know they might be at a disadvantage later on. Created a purchase advice thread awhile back but the masses chose the 290 (great value), though I ended up wanting to get nvidia deep in my mind.

No. The 980 is just a bad buy. If you can find cheap 290s there's a reason everyone suggests it. Its the best perf/$ hands down. The cheap 290s are drying up, so it ends up being an even split between the 970 and the 390 otherwise. The little tiny bit more you get on a 980 vs a 970/390 is completely not worth the money.