# ASUS Strix GTX 970 OC 4 GB



## W1zzard (Sep 18, 2014)

ASUS just released their GeForce Strix GTX 970 OC, an overclocked version of the GTX 970 with its own custom-PCB. What is special about the STRIX technology is that it will shut off the fans completely during idle, media playback, and light gaming, resulting in a completely noiseless experience.

*Show full review*


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## newtekie1 (Sep 19, 2014)

This is my next card!  Time to put my GTX670s up for sale...  $330...thats just insane pricing for this performance.


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## Anth0789 (Sep 19, 2014)

newtekie1 said:


> This is my next card!  Time to put my GTX670s up for sale...  $330...thats just insane pricing for this performance.



Couldn't agree more!


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## entropy13 (Sep 19, 2014)

970 is the beast...shame I don't have the money lol


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## AndreiD (Sep 19, 2014)

So... the GTX 970 is much cheaper, faster and power efficient than the 290X? ... AMD is kill.


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## GhostRyder (Sep 19, 2014)

This card is the king of price to performance!!!  I mean a couple of these in a 4k gaming machine for ~$650 would be beast!


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## The Von Matrices (Sep 19, 2014)

This is just insane value for the price.  This GTX 970 launch is game-changing, the same level as the legendary 8800 GT.

I feel bad for the people who bought R9 290X's last week at $450 thinking they were a good deal.  Looks like we're going to start seeing ~$300 R9 290X's


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## suraswami (Sep 19, 2014)

Very low power consumption, Impressive!!  Take my money.  Next one is the 970, ditching AMD.


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## Tonduluboy (Sep 19, 2014)

i hope in my country this card does not go beyond $400 mark, coz i been preparing to buy this card... waiting for MSI and Shappire reviews now...


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## punani (Sep 19, 2014)

Holyy .. this exceeded my expectations. Shame there are few games to challange this card @ 1080p so i dont see the need to upgrade just yet. And if aiming at 4K gaming with max eye-candy it seems to be barely hanging on, so with this in mind i will hold on to my $ a while longer.


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## The Von Matrices (Sep 19, 2014)

If I'm not mistaken, this is the first GPU to ever get a 9.9 rating on TPU.


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## punani (Sep 19, 2014)

The Von Matrices said:


> If I'm not mistaken, this is the first GPU to ever get a 9.9 rating on TPU.


exact 9.9 perhaps, but then there was this one (link)


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## Maban (Sep 19, 2014)

The Von Matrices said:


> If I'm not mistaken, this is the first GPU to ever get a 9.9 rating on TPU.


http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_Ti_Gaming/29.html


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## Fluffmeister (Sep 19, 2014)

Nvidia didn't use a torpedo W1zz, they used a nuke!

Amazing cards!


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## Frick (Sep 19, 2014)

I'm not even remotely interested in gaming cards, but even I am flabbergasted by this.


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## erixx (Sep 19, 2014)

The price converted to euros and adding VAT (21% in my case) gives 317 EURO
Nowhere are they selling this card near that price. AllI see is 360 Euro.
Other brands, custom designs, are about 325 Euro.
A cheapo Palit 970 standard design is for 309 Euro! (computerbase.de search)


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## ISI300 (Sep 19, 2014)

Wow. W1zzard, I'm guessing you haven't given a lot of 9.9s for many of product releases. Maxwell sure looks awesome.


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## hardcore_gamer (Sep 19, 2014)

Why isn't this a 10? 
I'm getting two of these. Can somebody suggest an inexpensive 4K monitor ?


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## buildzoid (Sep 19, 2014)

hardcore_gamer said:


> Why isn't this a 10?
> I'm getting two of these. Can somebody suggest an inexpensive 4K monitor ?


AOC ASUS and Samsung make them for 500-650$ but they are TN panel


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## kajson (Sep 19, 2014)

I'm a bit worried for AMD, the gap performance/ power consumption was already quite big, now NVIDIA ads 1/3rd performance vs 770 at lower power and about the same price. And the 770 was already considered the best buy. Anyone slightly interested in power consumption/heat won't even consider AMD in the near future, not unless they kill their profit margins or even sell at a loss.

I can't really believe the 330/350 dollar pricepoint because that puts pressure on a lot of nvidia's former lineup as well. I've yet to spot the price drop on 770's over here in the Netherlands at least.

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So I just checked Dutch pricing and and Newegg...  the 780 Asus custom 3gb cost 440 until yesterday and just dropped to 405 euro.. And is still offered by 36 companies. The 970 which offers similar if not better performance is offered at 330$ costum asus 350$. thats 257 euro-  270 euro... 

Conclusion for me is, Nvidia is trying to put AMD out of business, why else would they undermine the 780 by such huge margins, surely the retailers that have 780 still stacked in warehouses are screaming murder.


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## W1zzard (Sep 19, 2014)

hardcore_gamer said:


> Why isn't this a 10?



Similar power consumption as GTX 980 reference
Only small performance gains from overclock out of the box
Memory not overclocked


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## entropy13 (Sep 19, 2014)

W1zzard said:


> Similar power consumption as GTX 980 reference
> Only small performance gains from overclock out of the box
> Memory not overclocked




So you'll just have to wait for a bigger, badder, OC'd 970 that has also more efficiency to give a 10?


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## W1zzard (Sep 19, 2014)

entropy13 said:


> So you'll just have to wait for a bigger, badder, OC'd 970 that has also more efficiency to give a 10?


exactly, and this is not something impossible.


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## Tonduluboy (Sep 19, 2014)

damn just saw MSI gtx970 gaming selling at $463 in my country, Asus strix should be more higher since Asus in my country always expensive than other brands... Bad luck for me


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## Dawora (Sep 19, 2014)

Tonduluboy said:


> damn just saw MSI gtx970 gaming selling at $463 in my country, Asus strix should be more higher since Asus in my country always expensive than other brands... Bad luck for me



Asus Gtx970 Strix cost here 389e
not bad thou.. have to buy it.. cheaper and faster than gtx780


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## ne6togadno (Sep 19, 2014)

kajson said:


> I'm a bit worried for AMD, the gap performance/ power consumption was already quite big, now NVIDIA ads 1/3rd performance vs 770 at lower power and about the same price. And the 770 was already considered the best buy. Anyone slightly interested in power consumption/heat won't even consider AMD in the near future, not unless they kill their profit margins or even sell at a loss.
> 
> I can't really believe the 330/350 dollar pricepoint because that puts pressure on a lot of nvidia's former lineup as well. I've yet to spot the price drop on 770's over here in the Netherlands at least.
> 
> ...


dont forget that over those 350$+??$ shipping you have to pay vat and import taxes.
here is how eu pricing would look like
current 290x eu pricing
no reason to upgrade from yesterday's top performers unless you really really need that power saving/noise reduction


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## evilacg (Sep 19, 2014)

Thanks for the today's reviews.
However it seems like NVIDIA decided to officially supporting the GTX 970 for only 3-way SLI, just like they did on the GTX 780 which also officially supporting only 3-way SLI. But maybe it is possible to mod the driver to support 4-way SLI just like some enthusiast did on the GTX 780.


> GTX 970 Technology Support:
> NVIDIA SLI® Ready          Yes (3-way)


http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications

If that's true, then these might need to fix:


> You may combine up to four GTX 970 cards in a multi-GPU SLI configuration. AMD recently switched to transferring CrossFire data via the PCI-Express bus, in order to handle 4K frames. NVIDIA's SLI has no such limitations, so there is no reason to use PCIe.


http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_970_STRIX_OC/3.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_970_SC_ACX_Cooler/3.html


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## Air (Sep 19, 2014)

Card looks amazing on all fronts. Maybe a little needlessy wide. Wont fit some itx cases.

Any chance we will see referente 970s in the market?


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## hardcore_gamer (Sep 19, 2014)

W1zzard said:


> exactly, and this is not something impossible.



Makes sense.


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## ne6togadno (Sep 19, 2014)

Air said:


> Card looks amazing on all fronts. Maybe a little needlessy wide. Wont fit some itx cases.
> 
> Any chance we will see referente 970s in the market?


http://www.computeruniverse.net/products/90569809/palit-geforce-gtx-970.asp
http://www.computeruniverse.net/products/90569805/gainward-geforce-gtx-970.asp
not exactly ref coolers but both fit strictly in 2 slots.

edit: msi also have blower type offerings
http://www.techpowerup.com/205439/msi-announces-geforce-gtx-980-and-gtx-970-ocv1-series.html


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## Air (Sep 19, 2014)

ne6togadno said:


> http://www.computeruniverse.net/products/90569809/palit-geforce-gtx-970.asp
> http://www.computeruniverse.net/products/90569805/gainward-geforce-gtx-970.asp
> not exactly ref coolers but both fit strictly in 2 slots.


Sorry, i meant the nvidia ref cooler, the "Titan" one. I would gladly pay a little more for it.


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## ne6togadno (Sep 19, 2014)

Air said:


> Sorry, i meant the nvidia ref cooler, the "Titan" one. I would gladly pay a little more for it.


if i understood well pr there wont be nvidia 970 ref (for now).


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## terroralpha (Sep 19, 2014)

Just bout 2 EVGA GTX 970 ACX SC. can't wait until they get here!



erixx said:


> The price converted to euros and adding VAT (21% in my case) gives 317 EURO
> Nowhere are they selling this card near that price. AllI see is 360 Euro.
> Other brands, custom designs, are about 325 Euro.
> A cheapo Palit 970 standard design is for 309 Euro! (computerbase.de search)



those prices are the result of insane import and sales taxes. that's the price of socialism.


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## DtrollMC (Sep 19, 2014)

Wow can play 4k30fps and only costs $350!!!!??? Holy shit I just found my next card.


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## apoe (Sep 19, 2014)

Even though I don't need an upgrade for the games I play... time to replace the GTX 760!!! Almost +70% performance improvement over the 760 at $330. omggggegegeg excited.


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## Nabarun (Sep 19, 2014)

terroralpha said:


> Just bout 2 EVGA GTX 970 ACX SC. can't wait until they get here!
> 
> 
> 
> those prices are the result of insane import and sales taxes. that's the price of socialism.


In India that's about 30% (and then some). Not socialism.


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## erixx (Sep 19, 2014)

^LOL thanks Nabarun, I thought the yanks only mixed up liberalism and freedom, now also taxes with political color! As if any modern state with roads and infrastructure and security can exist without taxes. Only Kim Jong 1 could manage that! hahha


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## Air (Sep 19, 2014)

Can you set the fan to always on using a custom fan profile in these Strix cards?


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## Nabarun (Sep 19, 2014)

Air said:


> Can you set the fan to always on using a custom fan profile in these Strix cards?


+1


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## PeterMac (Sep 19, 2014)

Nice card but 47C at idle too much for me, maybe it is possible to enable fun below 65C on this Strix someone know that ?


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## rrrrex (Sep 20, 2014)

I still can't believe that they improved perfomance/watt value so much without any tweaks. Someone have to compare screenshots of 7xx and 9xx series. If AMD will not make the same, the next console generation will get Nvidia GPUs.


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## Thumby (Sep 20, 2014)

I ALMOST ORDERED A 780TI FOR $650 A WEEK AGO, THANKS GOODNESS I DIDNT!

Ordered this 970 strix from memory express...here in Canadian dollars its $379 + 5% ...nice!

BTW, they are selling the 980's for over $625 canadian... +10 frames for + 80% $$ didn't make any sense to me. For that money, you could almost get 2 of these 970's.


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## Nabarun (Sep 20, 2014)

Here they are asking for US $592 for *a freakin reference 970*


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## chencxm (Sep 20, 2014)

Air said:


> Can you set the fan to always on using a custom fan profile in these Strix cards?



W1zzard, could you address this question please? Is it possible to set a custom fan profile using e.g. precision X so that the temperature is lower when idle and doesn't exceed 60 °C when gaming?

My main concerns re. this card are: 1) only one DP, 2) custom fan curve? 3) width


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## chencxm (Sep 21, 2014)

Also, W1zzard, could you review the Gigabyte G1 Gaming 970 if possible? I want to stick with Gigabyte, but this time, unlike the gtx670, they decide to charge a $40 (13%) premium over the nvidia MSRP. I would like to know if the performance and/or thermal/acoustic justify the price increase. Thanks! There are reviews on other websites, but temperature and noise data mean little when the setup and methods of measurement differ.


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## W1zzard (Sep 21, 2014)

chencxm said:


> W1zzard, could you address this question please? Is it possible to set a custom fan profile using e.g. precision X so that the temperature is lower when idle and doesn't exceed 60 °C when gaming?
> 
> My main concerns re. this card are: 1) only one DP, 2) custom fan curve? 3) width


I'm actually not sure, ASUS does not use a custom fan profile with 0% fan speed for the TRIX functionality. I'll have to look into this next week.
3) is answered in my review, page: "the card"



chencxm said:


> Also, W1zzard, could you review the Gigabyte G1 Gaming 970 if possible? I want to stick with Gigabyte, but this time, unlike the gtx670, they decide to charge a $40 (13%) premium over the nvidia MSRP. I would like to know if the performance and/or thermal/acoustic justify the price increase. Thanks! There are reviews on other websites, but temperature and noise data mean little when the setup and methods of measurement differ.


Haven't heard from Gigabyte regarding a review, which means it won't be happening before mid-October (going on vacation end of next week)


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## 7950 Flex (Sep 23, 2014)

I actually ended up buying the MSI 780 ti Gaming a while back because of the review you did on it and that 9.9 score 
The card was great when I first got it. It was silent and I could not hear it at all and came with a good overclock and it looked pretty nice.
But then it started making this really loud noise so I sent RMA'd it and the replacement they sent me was broken (going to different color screen every ten seconds).
After sending the replacement back they sent me a brand new card in sealed box. I popped it in and it worked fine but had some coil whine. At first I was going to RMA it yet again 
but I did not because I was just too tired and annoyed of dealing with it and not being able to play my games. Besides the coil whine the card worked fine for a while. Unfortunately, the card failed on me
this week. I finally replaced my 6 year old 24 inch TN dell monitor with the ROG Swift PG278q and was able to play on it with the 780 ti for about a week before it failed. I sent the 780 ti in for RMA yet again 
and in the meantime I'm using a Gigabyte R9 270 to get by =/ 
Apparently there are a number of horror story reviews on Newegg for the MSI 780 ti Gaming. They complain of the coil whine (which wasn't too terrible for me) or worse... the card spraying an oily subtance all over the inside of their PC which luckily has not happened to me yet.
I feel that the card deserves the 9.9 review as it was very silent and performed well but quality control does not.  I wonder how many more times I'm going to have RMA this product.

This new monitor that I got has a 1440p resolution and while I can play any game just fine on it with the one 780 ti, I still want more power. These new maxwell GPUs from Nvidia are great but their launch frustrates me just a little bit because I spent $700 on the 780 ti just a few months back
and now I could get 2 970s for that price and would be nearly double the performance (in most cases). But I guess that's just how this industry works and these GPUs are cheaper because they are cheaper to make right. Also, the prices of some of the 700 series cards have gone down substantially on newegg today.
The 780 can now be had for $330, same as the 970s. My 780 ti is now $559.00 but I don't think I'll be spending that much. I may order a second one if it goes down to $400. 

The MSI rep that has been helping me this whole time should have my card tommorow and he will test it and tell me where we can go from there. I will probably try and whine my way into a refund or different card as replacement.  I do want the new maxwell gpus but much more than that I don't want to have to go through this again.

I have a question though about the new software features from Nvidia. These features like MFAA and DSR and the new lightning tech they got only apply to the new 900 series cards or will they work with the 700 series as well? I assume it's 900 series only.


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## Tonduluboy (Sep 23, 2014)

feel bad for u 7950 flex  
Go for gigabyte? since i wanna buy gigabyte soon...


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## Tonduluboy (Sep 23, 2014)

Nabarun said:


> Here they are asking for US $592 for *a freakin reference 970*



Join the club, ASUS has always or usually the most expensive pc items in my country... So far my MOBO is the only one Asus brand  for the fast few years.
Check this current price in my country *ASUS ROG MATRIX NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 TI PLATINUM 3GB *
USD$900 not including postage!!!

add $100 more, i can buy 3 zotax GTX 970!!!


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## Nabarun (Sep 23, 2014)

The Zotac non-ref 970 seems quite cheaper compared to the Asus one here. Would be nice to see a review from W1zzard. I'm concerned about the noise since the fans look smaller compared to those in MSI/Asus.


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## 7950 Flex (Sep 24, 2014)

Just got off the phone with my MSI rep and he is testing out a brand new 780 ti gaming for me. He says it is not making any coil whine and he will leave it to run over night. I thought about selling it and getting two 970s but the most I'd probably end up with after all the ebay fees is like $400.
I think I'm just going to order a second one of these for SLI. They obviously have their lemons but a proper working 780 ti gaming is a great card and it's 30DBA under load that's only 1 DBA more than this Asus Strix 970. It's also faster of course, not enough to warrant the price gap between the two or between the $330 780
and the 780 ti but I already have one so oh well. Atleast I get some bragging rights! I was considering the Asus 780 ti DirectCU but after seeing that it puts out 39DBA (same as reference 780 ti) I won't go with it. It is priced very nicely though.


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## chencxm (Sep 24, 2014)

chencxm said:


> W1zzard, could you address this question please? Is it possible to set a custom fan profile using e.g. precision X so that the temperature is lower when idle and doesn't exceed 60 °C when gaming?



From http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...ews/67488-asus-gtx-970-strix-oc-review-8.html
"Unfortunately, the temperature at which the fans are enabled can’t be modified by ASUS’ GPU Tweak utility quite yet ..."


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## Nabarun (Sep 24, 2014)

chencxm said:


> From http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...ews/67488-asus-gtx-970-strix-oc-review-8.html
> "Unfortunately, the temperature at which the fans are enabled can’t be modified by ASUS’ GPU Tweak utility quite yet ..."


That's a shame.


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## maukkae (Sep 27, 2014)

MSI Afterburner 4.0.0 works with the Asus GTX 970 Strix. You can edit the fan profile and set the fans to come on at what ever temp you like.


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## maukkae (Sep 28, 2014)

It seems that Asus GPU Tweak also works as long as you enable the advanced mode from the hexagon icon on the left from the profile selection.


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## Troy210 (Oct 22, 2014)

I have always bought used cards (mainly from this website) but after this review, I purchased it straight away today from Newegg. 

Thank you W1Z


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## gamble (Jan 19, 2015)

Strange, out of the box my Asus GTX 970 runs at 1329mhz out of the box without touching anything and theres no downclocking in 3d. 

It OC up to 1450mhz on the core and Im able to bench or game at that setting for everything and will slightly down tick if I dont move the power limit slider up to 120%.   I can bench up to over 1520mhz but I wouldnt call that a stable clock.  The ram only does 7350mhz though but would rather have high core OC. 

Im running it at 1400/7200mhz for 24/7 OC and its straight line on the core, power limit is set to 120% and core already runs at 1.2v so dont need to touch that.  Using custom fan curve to 55% and keeps it under 70c.


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## SmokingCrop (Jan 25, 2015)

gamble said:


> Strange, out of the box my Asus GTX 970 runs at 1329mhz out of the box without touching anything and theres no downclocking in 3d.
> 
> It OC up to 1450mhz on the core and Im able to bench or game at that setting for everything and will slightly down tick if I dont move the power limit slider up to 120%.   I can bench up to over 1520mhz but I wouldnt call that a stable clock.  The ram only does 7350mhz though but would rather have high core OC.
> 
> Im running it at 1400/7200mhz for 24/7 OC and its straight line on the core, power limit is set to 120% and core already runs at 1.2v so dont need to touch that.  Using custom fan curve to 55% and keeps it under 70c.


Use GPU-Z to check how much Mhz you're actually doing. e.g. MSI Afterburner uses a different approach which gives you numbers that are not comparable to those TPU uses.


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## gamble (Jan 27, 2015)

@SmokingCrop Hi, yes just confirmed, the clock matches from both programs.  Runs 1329 on the core with stock settings, if I only move the slider for the power limit to 120%, it goes to 1342mhz.


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## Pumper (Mar 20, 2015)

Hey, can someone enlighten me? 

Just got Strix 970 and been testing it. Since I have 4770K at 4.2GHz, I am trying to duplicate TPU results, but always get lower FPS than the ones posted in review, i.e. (1920x1080):

- Bioshock Infinite 120fps vs 140fps in review
- Metro LL 75fps vs 80fps in review
- Arkham Origins (max, noAA, noPhysx) 120fps vs 150fps in review
- Thief 105fps vs 120fps in review
- etc.

Any ideas whats going on? Full specs:
Win 7 64bit
Asus Gryphon Z87
4770K 4.2GHz
32GB 1866 RAM
Strix 970 stock
Corsair TX650W
OS and games on SSDs


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## newtekie1 (Mar 20, 2015)

There are a lot of things that can affect game performance.  I big factor is things running the in the background.  I'm pretty sure W1z uses a bare install for his testing, so just Windows and the games installed.  Things like AV running in the background can affect performance.  Same thing with different drivers, newer drives can actually cause slight performance difference, both good and bad.  Like performance might go down a few FPS, but stability is improved because of it.

Also he tests his cards in an open test bench, so they get the best possible airflow, and the card will run a little cooler.  This means his card might boost a little higher than a card in a close case.


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## W1zzard (Mar 20, 2015)

Also I'm testing different scenes than you


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## Pumper (Mar 20, 2015)

So your test results are not from the built in benchmarks?


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## Maban (Mar 20, 2015)

Pumper said:


> So your test results are not from the built in benchmarks?


W1zzard uses his own time demos, not the built-in benchmarks. I assume to reduce the risk of driver/developer cheating.


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## aged (Dec 5, 2015)

nice card I like it ！


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