The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 Review: Featuring EVGA
by Ryan Smith on September 26, 2014 10:00 AM ESTCrysis 3
Still one of our most punishing benchmarks, Crysis 3 needs no introduction. With Crysis 3, Crytek has gone back to trying to kill computers and still holds “most punishing shooter” title in our benchmark suite. Only in a handful of setups can we even run Crysis 3 at its highest (Very High) settings, and that’s still without AA. Crysis 1 was an excellent template for the kind of performance required to drive games for the next few years, and Crysis 3 looks to be much the same for 2014.
Crysis 3 is another game where the outcome between the R9 290XU and GTX 970 depends on the resolution. At 4K Low the GTX 970 trails the R9 290XU by 10%, only for the two to get within a frame of each other at 1440p High. Past that it’s all NVIDIA at 1080p. This once again neatly illustrates that AMD still holds a general resolution scaling advantage over NVIDIA and the Maxwell 2 architecture. Though since we’re looking at a $329 card that’s cheaper than any 4K monitor, that’s not an advantage that’s going to be of much value in the real world.
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dibbademevos - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
hidibbademevos - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
hi
SkyBill40 - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Having always been an MSI guy, I've not really considered going with another vendor... until now. This looks like a nice card which also happens to conveniently match my color scheme whereas the red coloring of the MSI Gaming line sadly does not. Still, the overclocks are pretty much a wash and the only real differences seem to be in the cooling solution. The ACX 2.0 seems to be on par with the MSI, so I suppose I could go either way.Oxford Guy - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
Is it the case that the ACX card uses only 4 power phases which is why overclocking it beyond the factory setting isn't going to work very well? There is no mention of power phases in your article.Kanuj5678 - Sunday, October 5, 2014 - link
GTX 970 beats the shit out of everything and that too in style with lowest TDPCheers
Kanuj
ambientblue - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Enthusiasts dont care about TDP that much. The 290x is held back by HSF cooling (Uber mode is actually stock advertised speeds) while the GTX 970 is not. Water-cool the 290x and OC it to 1200mhz and it will match a 980, surpassing it at 4K resolution easily.igyb - Tuesday, October 7, 2014 - link
Is the gtx 970 just an underclocked 980? i might just get that because i cant really afford a 980.Kimtastic - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
Dear Ryan,I had a MSI GTX 970 and found that under heavy load the core clock was fluctuating and causing FPS drops. After having read this article, I now understand that its due to the TDP limit. Is this something that will/can be fixed or something permanent?
I would be grateful for your advice. Many thanks.
hoohoo - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Thank you for including an HD7970 in the test!Shoiti2 - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
Those price are damn cheap. I would say, buying a gtx980 in the U.S wouldnt even buy a gtx 970 in Brazil. I'm living in Brazil right now and ordered an evga gtx 970 sc. Ok, how much did i pay for the gtx 970!! Nothing less than $750USD.the Gtx 970 at $750USD still very cheap for us Brazilian, the world's most expensive country.
The evga gtx 980 is costing around $1100USD, not kidding, check for yourself.