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[icecold1983]

There's nothing we can do about that, I'm afraid, and the same thing happens when playing on a native 4K panel.

hey andy, in some games DSR(and the custom resolution version of downsampling) causes the mouse pointer in games to display differently then where it actually is. any solution for this? off hand it happens in mania planet games and crysis 3.

 

[Serandur]

Wow, my 970 gave me some real gains in Watch Dogs over my 780. The ultra texture settings stutters like high used to on my 780, so not so much, while high is pretty smooth. Also running at high settings on everything else and low HBAO with temporal SMAA at 2560x1440 and sticking close to 60 FPS (unfortunately falling just short into the 50s frequently; time for an overclock). VRAM allocation never exceeds ~3500 MBs.

Space Engine saw similar gains for me in that my 780 was gasping for VRAM, but my 970 is seeing ~3800 MBs max allocation; though it's having some strange (driver-related?) artifacts. Should do a reinstall I guess. It also seems as though textures are loading in a bit more quickly.

 

[ZombieFred]

Welp, i've just bought two MSI GTX 970 GAMING TWIN Froz for £500. My poor wallet! Thank god for the discount I got from Novatech.

 

[derExperte]

Ouch. That sucks.

The cards in general seem like a bit of a lottery right now. The only one I haven't read much about having issues are the Asus cards but maybe that's just because less people have purchased it? Not sure.

I'm tempted to try out the Asus anyways as it's $20 cheaper than the Gigabyte and I think the Gigabyte is so popular I'm going to be waiting a month or more for my card

So I've managed to exchange my MSI 970 directly with an Asus 970 despite their store (Alternate.de) saying they have none in stock. Directly compared the cooler of the Asus should be a little less effective (smaller, smaller fans, less heatpipes) but I don't think it'll matter.

Just so we are clear, does v-sync usually limit the coil whine issue? Or if you have bad coil whine, you are screwed regardless?

It can help a lot if the coil whine is caused by very high framerates, most cards 'whine' when you go over 1000fps in menus for example. It can also help to reduce the load if that's when the issue shows itself but it looks like there are cards out there that will make sounds even under mild stress.

 

[Im a Manatee]

edit: oh my god i found DSR settings right after making this post.

 

[Mupod]

edit: oh my god i found DSR settings right after making this post.

I had a post made up about not being able to find them last night, right before I figured it out.

I thought I had to set it individually for each game like SGSSAA, the reality is a lot more convenient.

 

[Brerlappin]

My Gigabyte G1 970 has shipped

 

[runningjoke]

I have my pc connected to my tv. Some games (like Crysis) now default to 24hz in fullscreen mode. Windowed full screen sort of fixes this. If I want to use DSR I need to set my desktop res to 4k so the window also uses that res. Isn't there a more convenient way to force a specific refreshrate? I never use 24hz on my pc so I'd rather disable it.

I remember having to use a tool to get Counterstrike 1.6 to run at 85hz back when I had a CRT, can you do this in the drivers now?

 

[garath]

My Gigabyte G1 970 has shipped

From Amazon? When did you order it?

Congrats

 

[Brerlappin]

From Amazon? When did you order it?

Congrats

no, im in Ireland and amazon has abandoned us as far as stuff like this goes. Ordered from hardwareversand.de just over a week ago. Looks like theyll have some more in stock on the 10th, if any other euro peeps want to buy one

 

[mkenyon]

I have my pc connected to my tv. Some games (like Crysis) now default to 24hz in fullscreen mode. Windowed full screen sort of fixes this. If I want to use DSR I need to set my desktop res to 4k so the window also uses that res. Isn't there a more convenient way to force a specific refreshrate? I never use 24hz on my pc so I'd rather disable it.

I remember having to use a tool to get Counterstrike 1.6 to run at 85hz back when I had a CRT, can you do this in the drivers now?

Just google Crysis 24Hz, it's a specific bug with that game and using HDMI.

 

[garath]

no, im in Ireland and amazon has abandoned us as far as stuff like this goes. Ordered from hardwareversand.de just over a week ago. Looks like theyll have some more in stock on the 10th, if any other euro peeps want to buy one

Well at least it's encouraging that Gigabyte is getting the cards out.

 

[runningjoke]

Just google Crysis 24Hz, it's a specific bug with that game and using HDMI.

I did but those mostly just say use windowed full screen or create a custom resolution. I was wondering if there is a way to make the driver/windows only report 60hz as an option

 

[Spaghetti]

considering holding off on my new build to see what amd's new offerings in Q1 next year do to force nvidia's hand.

anybody else feeling like this?

 

[jim2point0]

considering holding off on my new build to see what amd's new offerings in Q1 next year do to force nvidia's hand.

anybody else feeling like this?

No. Especially since that's all rumor at this point (and the fact that I rely heavily on Nvidia's downsampling features).

But if I thought like that every time I considered buying a new GPU, I'd never buy a GPU. Because Nvidia will have something around the corner as well.

 

[Seanspeed]

considering holding off on my new build to see what amd's new offerings in Q1 next year do to force nvidia's hand.

anybody else feeling like this?

Depends on what you're waiting for. If you want some ultra high end card, then maybe wait.

I don't see the 970 becoming a bad value proposition anytime soon, though.

 

[luffeN]

Do I need 2x6 pin to power a GTX 970 or one 6 pin and one 8 (6+2) pin?

 

[georgc]

No, he's right, it's a 6pin and an 8pin for the Gigabyte GTX 970 Gaming G1.

Also, Boss★Moogle, I bought 2 of the same card and there were no seals on my boxes either

Edit:

I just got around to benchmarking my new cards. I didn't spend much time OCing. I just set the clocks to 1492Mhz and ran Heaven for 30 minutes. All seems to be in line with similar systems from what I've seen. I think I'm all set now with my new PC.

I'm trying to OC my Gigabyte 970's and I get artifacts on both cards at 105 over the core. What program are you using to OC? I tried Guru but that wouldn't save me settings so I use Afterburner. Did you have to change the voltage or power to get your OC that high?

 

[Addnan]

Do I need 2x6 pin to power a GTX 970 or one 6 pin and one 8 (6+2) pin?

Depends which one you go for.

 

[luffeN]

Depends which one you go for.

What do you mean? I was btw. completely wrong about the pins. The Asus Strix "only" has 8 pins total. I thought there were two blocks...

Edit: Okay, so it is only one eight pin connector now, was slighty confusing.

 

[bodine1231]

Fuck it, went ahead and bought a second 970 this morning. Mordor runs between 55-60fps with everything on ultra (textures high) @1440p and with Gsync on my ROG it's smooth as silk. Now let's see what two 970's can do...

 

[Kintaro]

Fuck it, went ahead and bought a second 970 this morning. Mordor runs between 55-60fps with everything on ultra (textures high) @1440p and with Gsync on my ROG it's smooth as silk. Now let's see what two 970's can do...

You've gone mad. Mad with power!

 

[Spaghetti]

Depends on what you're waiting for. If you want some ultra high end card, then maybe wait.

I don't see the 970 becoming a bad value proposition anytime soon, though.

No. Especially since that's all rumor at this point (and the fact that I rely heavily on Nvidia's downsampling features).

But if I thought like that every time I considered buying a new GPU, I'd never buy a GPU. Because Nvidia will have something around the corner as well.

i'm basically waiting because i want to go balls out with my next build, and i know that nvidia is mostly reactionary when it comes to pushing their technology further. if amd give them a little bit of a scare, there will probably be a new spate of releases to fend them off.

ideally i'm waiting for a 980ti, i'm not a sucker who will buy whatever the next titan is.

plus, i've recently found out i can still squeak out decent performance on my current rig with well optimised games (shout out to shadow of mordor, 6gb vram for ultra textures aside), so i'm okay with pushing my build back another 5-6 months.

 

[brotkasten]

Fuck it, went ahead and bought a second 970 this morning. Mordor runs between 55-60fps with everything on ultra (textures high) @1440p and with Gsync on my ROG it's smooth as silk. Now let's see what two 970's can do...

So Mordor's Ultra textures won't run well on the GTX 970?

 

[plagiarize]

A tip for anyone using DSR. If you're using the full 4x option (ie, doubling your horizontal and vertical resolutions) be sure to set the smoothing thing to 0%. At the other settings, some smoothing is definitely preferable, but if you're downscaling 4K to 1080p, it looks much nicer with 0% smoothing. Less blur, no jaggies. Again, anything that isn't a simple whole number downscale definitely benefits from some smoothing, but try using 0% on 4K to 1080p to see what I mean.

 

[Seanspeed]

ideally i'm waiting for a 980ti, i'm not a sucker who will buy whatever the next titan is.

I don't understand the difference. They're just names. They could release a card a step above a 980 and call it a 980Ti or they could call it a Titan.

Either way, its going to cost a fair chunk more than a 980.

Nvidia will likely produce a proper flagship GM200 card at some point in the near future, but we don't know when. And we don't know exactly what AMD are bringing to the table, especially in terms of pricing.

So like mkenyon said, there's always going to be something around the corner. You've gotta take the plunge at some point. I imagine buying good value cards will net you the least amount of buyer's remorse if that's what you're worried about. Otherwise, with the high end game, that kind of thing is just ultimately unavoidable. You have to accept that's how its played. You're gonna spend a lot of money and your hardware will probably be beaten by price or performance in pretty short order. If you cant handle that, don't get into it. Its not for everybody.

 

[jim2point0]

So Mordor's Ultra textures won't run well on the GTX 970?

Mordor's ultra textures are running just fine on my 980. I don't see any issues at all.

2560x1440 benchmark (63 average FPS)

1920x1080 benchmark (97 average FPS)

Both with ultra textures

 

[bodine1231]

So Mordor's Ultra textures won't run well on the GTX 970?

Some 970 users have said it starts to stutter after a while during gameplay so I didn't bother.

 

[mkenyon]

ideally i'm waiting for a 980ti, i'm not a sucker who will buy whatever the next titan is.

I have $50 that says there will be no 980 Ti.

 

[Spaghetti]

I don't understand the difference. They're just names. They could release a card a step above a 980 and call it a 980Ti or they could call it a Titan.

Either way, its going to cost a fair chunk more than a 980.

Nvidia will likely produce a proper flagship GM200 card at some point in the near future, but we don't know when. And we don't know exactly what AMD are bringing to the table, especially in terms of pricing.

So like mkenyon said, there's always going to be something around the corner. You've gotta take the plunge at some point. I imagine buying good value cards will net you the least amount of buyer's remorse if that's what you're worried about. Otherwise, with the high end game, that kind of thing is just ultimately unavoidable. You have to accept that's how its played. You're gonna spend a lot of money and your hardware will probably be beaten by price or performance in pretty short order. If you cant handle that, don't get into it. Its not for everybody.

it's not really about the money spent, i've already got cash put aside and if i want to i can just keep adding to that as the months roll on. i just want slightly more bang for my buck.

now if i was a real lunatic obsessed with the next big performance jump i'd be waiting for skylake, 20nm/16nm, stacked dram, ddr4 prices to get lower, volta, etc and probably wouldn't finalise a new build until 2016, providing there were no delays.

new high end reference nvidia cards next year aren't going to be all that different in price point from the ones just released, unless it's a titan. i'm just wondering if anybody else is going to wait just a few more months to get slightly better performance for the same money.

I have $50 that says there will be no 980 Ti.

which could totally happen, and if it does i'll just get a 980.

 

[mkenyon]

GM200 will be a Titan, and then a 1080/1080 Ti.

 

[Seanspeed]

it's not really about the money spent, i've already got cash put aside and if i want to i can just keep adding to that as the months roll on. i just want slightly more bang for my buck.

And that's exactly what I'm saying - waiting on best bang-for-buck in the high end game is a losing battle. Something will always come along and beat it pretty quickly in that area. If you are worried about bang-for-buck, you want to take a step down from looking at top end cards. They will only hurt you.

now if i was a real lunatic obsessed with the next big performance jump i'd be waiting for skylake, 20nm/16nm, stacked dram, ddr4 prices to get lower, volta, etc and probably wouldn't finalise a new build until 2016, providing there were no delays.

And by then, the next generation of cards will be on the horizon. You're seeing 2016 as the end of the currently foreseeable roadmap, but that will change over the next year.

new high end reference nvidia cards next year aren't going to be all that different in price point from the ones just released, unless it's a titan. i'm just wondering if anybody else is going to wait just a few more months to get slightly better performance for the same money.

There is no way to accurately predict pricing. And again, naming is arbitrary. There are all sorts of different strategies both companies can go with this. Look at the performance, look at the features and look at the price. Forget what its called.

GM200 will be a Titan, and then a 1080/1080 Ti.

Is there any reason to believe that this will definitely be the case? It seems like a case of 'well this past generation was like that, so this next one will be, too', but looking back, it seems that they are far less predictable than that.

 

[Deleted member 102362]

DSR seems like a pretty cool feature (I've never seen Counter-Strike GO look so smooth before!) but it makes the Steam overlay SO TINY! Almost unreadable. I had to squint to reply to messages, and click-dragging the box only made it take up more space without making the text bigger.

I just tried this out. Nifty feature! Unfortunately, I use Steam overlay quite a bit in CS:GO, so I'm going to have to opt to not use DSR for now.

 

[TMONSTER]

Mordor's ultra textures are running just fine on my 980. I don't see any issues at all.

2560x1440 benchmark (63 average FPS)


1920x1080 benchmark (97 average FPS)


Both with ultra textures

The benchmark doesn't correlate to the actual in game performance at all, my 980s are choked out by ultra textues at 1440p.

 

[garath]

The only reason I see waiting on a video card when you are sitting on something like a 660 or lower right now is if you believe in your heart that:

a) games will regularly require MORE than 4gigs of VRAM in the next few years
b) mfgs will indeed release 8gig versions of the 900 series soon
c) those 8gig versions will be worth the extra money
c) AMD has something magical up their sleeves ready to unveil before a game you REALLY want to play comes out (Witcher 3)

 

[mkenyon]

Is there any reason to believe that this will definitely be the case? It seems like a case of 'well this past generation was like that, so this next one will be, too', but looking back, it seems that they are far less predictable than that.

It's been a direct repeat of Kepler. Given the slower time for die shrinks, this is the way things will be for awhile. It worked well last gen.

There's no part, outside of GM200, that would work as a 980 Ti. They're not going to throw money away that could be had on a Titan and then later on as a 1080 just because.

 

[Ocho]

I went with an EVGA 970 superclocked reference cooler since they have OP customer support in case there is something wrong with the card.

 

[jim2point0]

The benchmark doesn't correlate to the actual in game performance at all, my 980s are choked out by ultra textues at 1440p.

Huh. Can't say I'm experiencing that with a single 980. It's been incredibly smooth for me.

 

[UnObtainium17]

It annoys the heck out of me seeing the slight bending of my msi 970. Unpluged the pcie cables to see if it was the reason my card is bent. But nope, it really has that slight bend to it towards the pcie ports.

 

[Felix Lighter]

I'm trying to OC my Gigabyte 970's and I get artifacts on both cards at 105 over the core. What program are you using to OC? I tried Guru but that wouldn't save me settings so I use Afterburner. Did you have to change the voltage or power to get your OC that high?

I use MSI Afterburner and I didn't change the voltage.

 

[UrbanRats]

In terms of manufacturers, who would be the best choice for the 970, this time around? I read the EVGA has noise and pipes problems? What's that about? Incidentally, is the only one i'm finding available around (without going for less renoun brands like palit or gainward).

 

[Addnan]

In terms of manufacturers, who would be the best choice for the 970, this time around? I read the EVGA has noise and pipes problems? What's that about? Incidentally, is the only one i'm finding available around (without going for less renoun brands like palit or gainward).

Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, the high end Zotac are looking really good to me and the whole EVGA issue seems a little overblown.

 

[Kevyt]

I just think that with games like Evil Within and Shadow of Mordor (of which Ultra textures require 6 gb VRAM) I think back at what Digital Foundry had to say:

From our perspective, there are two ways of looking at this memory-devouring optional mode. On the one hand, it's a good thing that developers are making all of their assets available to the userbase - and it's interesting to see that art is already being mastered at quality levels beyond the PS4/Xbox One console standard. On the other, the mere existence of this texture pack has led to concern that even high-end, cutting-edge GPUs like the GTX 970 and GTX 980 are already obsolete.

Indeed facing a lot of stuttering with a single 980 at 1080p with a title like Shadow of Mordor is a forewarning. It used to be that NVIDIA's flagship cards you could max out every game. In theory we can, the performance is there but given that consoles have 8GB of unified memory, with about 4-5 (and I suspect more to come in the future through OS optimizations) I'll put my money that 6GB VRAM will be required for Ultra settings. Mainly because of consoles.

I will wait for 8GB versions of the 900 series or AMD's next generation of cards... basically whoever comes with 8 GB cards first. The thing is that not being able to enjoy your game at 1080p with ultra settings is irritating.

I don't have a 980 but I've heard of people facing stuttering issues on 1080p with ultra settings on Shadow of Mordor and it becomes more of an issue higher resolutions.

 

[Canis lupus]

Is this a good card and a good price for it?

 

[Addnan]

Is this a good card and a good price for it?

How in the fuck. Yes it is.

 

[garath]

I just think that with games like Evil Within and Shadow of Mordor (of which Ultra textures require 6 gb VRAM) I think back at what Digital Foundry had to say:

Indeed facing a lot of stuttering with a single 980 at 1080p with a title like Shadow of Mordor is a forewarning. It used to be that NVIDIA's flagship cards you could max out every game. In theory we can, the performance is there but given that consoles have 8GB of unified memory, with about 4-5 (and I suspect more to come in the future through OS optimizations) I'll put my money that 6GB VRAM will be required for Ultra settings. Mainly because of consoles.

I will wait for 8GB versions of the 900 series or AMD's next generation of cards... basically whoever comes with 8 GB cards first. The thing is that not being able to enjoy your game at 1080p with ultra settings is irritating.

I don't have a 980 but I've heard of people facing stuttering issues on 1080p with ultra settings on Shadow of Mordor and it becomes more of an issue higher resolutions.

a) Selective bolding for the win. Digital foundry says they are "concerned" that the cards may already be obsolete
b) Mordor is the only game right now that utilizes more than the 4. Evil within's requirement is just fine for the 900 series
c) The ultra texture pack for Mordor isn't because of consoles. Consoles don't have the ultra textures. They have the high quality textures.

That said, it's perfectly fine to wait for 8gig cards if it makes you more comfortable. You'll pay for it though.

 

[Honey Bunny]

That stealth brag

 

[Faith]

970 coil whine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yGtg-8zV8Y

This shit is just unacceptable.

 

[garath]

970 coil whine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yGtg-8zV8Y

This shit is just unacceptable.

That's pretty rough.

 

[RCSI]

Darn, so that's coil whine. Unfortunate for those who have a card with coil whine. Do retailers/manufacturers not accept RMAs on that issue?