Palit GTX 970 reference

netxzero64

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May 16, 2009
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Hello,

I just want to know if anyone of you guys here has tried this card as I am interested in getting this one rather than the JS version because I am planning to do an SLI setup that would fit my case without full WC.

How are the temperatures? are they like the GTX 660ti reference?

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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Do you mean a Palit GTX 970 with a blower cooler?

It looks similar to every other short-card GTX 970, save for the cooler. As long as it can take in some air, it should be fine, like with 3-slot spacing instead of 2.
 

netxzero64

Senior member
May 16, 2009
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Do you mean a Palit GTX 970 with a blower cooler?

It looks similar to every other short-card GTX 970, save for the cooler. As long as it can take in some air, it should be fine, like with 3-slot spacing instead of 2.
yes exactly with the blower cooler as posted on the palit website. I only have 5 slots with the Corsair 350D casing and the placement would be on the 1st and 4th slot. with one slot breathing room.

would that be fine? how about i use an aggressive fan curve and try to OC it? what are your thoughts?
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
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I would not touch those cards with a 10-foot pole. Thermal throttle at 80C:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-nvidia-gtx-970-sli-performance-review-3.html

Noise levels near 290CF reference!
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-nvidia-gtx-970-sli-performance-review-4.html

Get dual MSI Gaming 970s or Windforces. Even in a poor ventilated case their coolers will cope well enough with the extra heat as they run in low to mid 60s. This Palit card is 80C with no overclocking. Total junk!

Btw, Sapphire Tri-X 290 is $250 on Newegg and Windforce 290 is $222. At those prices I would seriously think twice about spending $660-700 on 970s.
 
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netxzero64

Senior member
May 16, 2009
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I would not touch those cards with a 10-foot pole. Thermal throttle at 80C:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-nvidia-gtx-970-sli-performance-review-3.html

Noise levels near 290CF reference!
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-nvidia-gtx-970-sli-performance-review-4.html

Get dual MSI Gaming 970s or Windforces. Even in a poor ventilated case their coolers will cope well enough with the extra heat as they run in low to mid 60s. This Palit card is 80C with no overclocking. Total junk!

Btw, Sapphire Tri-X 290 is $250 on Newegg and Windforce 290 is $222. At those prices I would seriously think twice about spending $660-700 on 970s.
I see. Thanks for that. how about the 970 Tiger by MSI? I am only limited to 2 slots per card as I think the MSI 970 gaming is 2.5 slots?
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
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I see. Thanks for that. how about the 970 Tiger by MSI? I am only limited to 2 slots per card as I think the MSI 970 gaming is 2.5 slots?
I had that cheaper non gaming MSI 970 and it was junk. even when raising the power target it constantly had huge throttling issues and dropped voltage as it was pegging TDP.
 

netxzero64

Senior member
May 16, 2009
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I had that cheaper non gaming MSI 970 and it was junk. even when raising the power target it constantly had huge throttling issues and dropped voltage as it was pegging TDP.
Thanks for your insight. I was reading the review on techpowerup about the MSI 970 gaming and i was glad that it was 2 slots. My only worry is that the card would be facing my psu (2nd card i mean). should I worry about that? Its kinda costly for 2 970 gaming gpus lol!
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
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why not just stick with your current card and wait until a faster single gpu comes out?
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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yes exactly with the blower cooler as posted on the palit website. I only have 5 slots with the Corsair 350D casing and the placement would be on the 1st and 4th slot. with one slot breathing room.

would that be fine? how about i use an aggressive fan curve and try to OC it? what are your thoughts?
No need to worry about cooler type, then, just make sure you have 2 good intake fans, and don't be going crazy with exhaust fans, or at least their speed, so as to make sure that both cards keep getting fresh air. Do that, which may already in place, for all I know, move your cables out of the way of the air flow, as much as possible, and you'll easily cool just about any pair of cards, blower type cooler or not.

If your PSU fan is facing down, the card will be alright right next to it. Might get a touch warmer than if that weren't the case, but it won't be the ordeal that can sometimes happen with a hot top card, due to lack of space between them.

P.S. being the one in your sig, then...if your H100i is mounted top-side, and the PC is not in a cubby or similar situation, try making the top and the front fans both intakes, and see what temps are like.

would that be fine? how about i use an aggressive fan curve and try to OC it? what are your thoughts?
If you already game with headphones, think about getting IEMs :). If not, get ready to go crazy from the noise. Even though blower coolers are going to always be more efficient at heat removal, there's good reason most custom cards don't use them.
 
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Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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I would not touch those cards with a 10-foot pole. Thermal throttle at 80C:

Noise levels near 290CF reference!
D:
With my MSI Gaming 970, I've hit 94C once, during 3Dmark, when it turned the fans off in between tests, then had to spin them back up after the next one started. Even that, however, took adjusting my case fans to be plain cruel to it, running just slow enough to keep my CPU from throttling (2xNF-P12, reading 187 RPM, 1xNF-S12A reading 304 RPM). Once the fans on the card started back, it never went above 75C. My normal in-game temps are anywhere between 53C and 74C, with a 34C AUX motherboard reading (varies by actual ambient temp, but not by cooling, so I assume it's a zone near the power and SATA connectors, or in front of the DIMMs). It has clearly throttled from the power limit, but not by temp.
 
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netxzero64

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May 16, 2009
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why not just stick with your current card and wait until a faster single gpu comes out?
I sold it already and bought a new psu for the sli in preparation as this is the final build before i go abroad for work so i wanna go out for one big bang ride hehe
 

netxzero64

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May 16, 2009
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Im just worried about the temps that russian posted. Ambient here goes as high as 34 35 during the summer.
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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why not just stick with your current card and wait until a faster single gpu comes out?
Also, if this is for the rig in your sig, I would ask the same. I at first figured it wasn't, due to having a 780 Ti. With a Gigabyte or MSI GTX 970, you might save 50W, which you would lose before you could OC the 970 to 780 Ti performance levels, anyway (like Haswell, the new Geforces are power-efficient due to being able to race to idle all of the time, when not under 100% load, not because they can't draw high peak currents, if allowed).

And, Ninja'd (that'll teach to open tabs then check them later...not!)
 

netxzero64

Senior member
May 16, 2009
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Also, if this is for the rig in your sig, I would ask the same. I at first figured it wasn't, due to having a 780 Ti. With a Gigabyte or MSI GTX 970, you might save 50W, which you would lose before you could OC the 970 to 780 Ti performance levels, anyway (like Haswell, the new Geforces are power-efficient due to being able to race to idle all of the time, when not under 100% load, not because they can't draw high peak currents, if allowed).

And, Ninja'd (that'll teach to open tabs then check them later...not!)
Thats my rig within my sig. I just havent updated it yet. The psu and the gpu is what is out. Well guess i'll go with the 970 msi gaming then sli it.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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It's using the same cooling design on the reference gtx670, and that was terrible. Very loud during warmer days and it would throttle to base clock speeds with the fan at 80%.

Avoid unless you are OK with reference R290 cooling, which isn't acceptable for me. :p
 

RussianSensation

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Sep 5, 2003
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Thats my rig within my sig. I just havent updated it yet. The psu and the gpu is what is out. Well guess i'll go with the 970 msi gaming then sli it.

Check out the idle and load noise levels of various 970 cards in videos here:

http://www.computerbase.de/2014-10/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-test-roundup-vergleich/4/

To me even at idle the reference GTX970 with 760 cooler (Gainward/Palit) is simply unacceptable when spending nearly $700 for dual 970s. Plus, the MSI Gaming 970 turns off the fans at idle which is a nice bonus with 2 cards as your PC will be uber quiet on the desktop.
 

netxzero64

Senior member
May 16, 2009
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It's using the same cooling design on the reference gtx670, and that was terrible. Very loud during warmer days and it would throttle to base clock speeds with the fan at 80%.

Avoid unless you are OK with reference R290 cooling, which isn't acceptable for me. :p

Check out the idle and load noise levels of various 970 cards in videos here:

http://www.computerbase.de/2014-10/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-test-roundup-vergleich/4/

To me even at idle the reference GTX970 with 760 cooler (Gainward/Palit) is simply unacceptable when spending nearly $700 for dual 970s. Plus, the MSI Gaming 970 turns off the fans at idle which is a nice bonus with 2 cards as your PC will be uber quiet on the desktop.
I see. Well, I have purchased the MSI 970 gaming and only one card for now. I will go for another once I have the money to do so right about next month.

The only dilemma that I have is that when researching further on the MSI 970, I have read that there were a lot of issues with regard to the fan of the MSI 970/980 gaming, mostly are vbios related and some are the fans itself. MSI did resolve the problem with a vbios update though and hopefully I dont encounter such problems later when I test the card as I went to sleep right away upon receiving the card when it was delivered as I was too tired.

Anybody here having an MSI 970 gaming with the fan issue as well?
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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Mine had the sticker, which I was careful to peel off nice and easy, and the fans work as advertised. I don't like that I cannot customize them (technically I can, but that ability is really BS, since doing so means losing the 0dB feature), and that I haven't figured out exactly when/why they come on (sometimes in the mid 50s, sometimes in the 60s...), but overall, that's pretty minor (as a quiet PC fanatic, I'd rather them run slower and my GPU reach 80C, than run at 1200 RPM and keep it near 65C :)).

With the independent operation, the RPMs often read 0 before both fans actually stop running, but both will stop running if it gets and stays under 50C, and often a little higher (I don't know if they use power draw, or some hidden temp sensors as part of it, but when they'll stop and start is clearly not only based on immediate GPU temp readings).
 

netxzero64

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May 16, 2009
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Mine had the sticker, which I was careful to peel off nice and easy, and the fans work as advertised. I don't like that I cannot customize them (technically I can, but that ability is really BS, since doing so means losing the 0dB feature), and that I haven't figured out exactly when/why they come on (sometimes in the mid 50s, sometimes in the 60s...), but overall, that's pretty minor (as a quiet PC fanatic, I'd rather them run slower and my GPU reach 80C, than run at 1200 RPM and keep it near 65C :)).

With the independent operation, the RPMs often read 0 before both fans actually stop running, but both will stop running if it gets and stays under 50C, and often a little higher (I don't know if they use power draw, or some hidden temp sensors as part of it, but when they'll stop and start is clearly not only based on immediate GPU temp readings).
So in short I cannot use a custom fan profile on this card?
 

netxzero64

Senior member
May 16, 2009
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You can, but the minimum speed seems to be 25%, if doing so, while the stock profile includes off.
I see.. so I'll leave it to auto for now so that the stock profile kicks in right? I'm currently testing the card with idle mode. will try to do some benchmarking later.
 

netxzero64

Senior member
May 16, 2009
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I dont know if this would be fine to post on this thread, I am running my MSI 970 gaming and under idle mode the fans would spin for a second only even the temps are just 39c. would it damage the fan in this behavior? on and off for like every 20~30s?