EVGA GeForce GTX 970 04G-P4-2972-KR 4GB GAMING w/ACX 2.0, Silent Cooling Graphics Card

Pros: The biggest plus for me is that I received the card as a Step Up from EVGA and only paid $45 including shipping to them for it, can't beat that! - Amazing performance with very low power consumption. - EVGA sent a free back plate with it, so that its self almost covers the money I paid for the Step Up. - Boost right out of the box is 1254mhz - 5 minutes later and first try the clock is 1400mhz core and 8000mhz memory. When I have a bit more time will see what is the maximum, with the 1400/8000 passes Valley benchmark 5 times on a roll with no issues, temps stay around 73 with room temperature of 22. - Almost no Coil Wine, but I am not worried about it, read below about it. - Very good packaging and outstanding warranty and support by EVGA. - Completely silent till about 50 degrees, before this point the fans are not spinning and after that they are pretty silent in my humble opinion. - I like it so much, I will actually grab another one from NewEgg as soon as they become available.

Cons: Not really big cons, just nit picking by me: - The connectors for power delivery are kind of a pain to reach with the PSU cables, I would have preferred if they were on the end of the PCB and not almost in the middle. - The fans and heat-sink plastic shroud feels a bit flimsy and cheap, but no big deal, just don't put too much pressure on it. - With the StepUp I didn't qualify for the free nVidia game, which is kinda ridiculous, since is a new cared and should be considered a new purchase. - Small amount of Coil Wine, read below about it. - Had to wait almost 2 months to receive the card, but hey beggars cant be choosers, right.

Overall Review: So about the Coil Wine, I see a lot of people really being frustrated with it and I can understand that, but keep in mind that is not EVGA fault, all brands and I mean all brands, have the same issue, read the reviews for Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and the rest, they all do, some more, some less. The thing is, and a lot of people report the same, with time the Coil Wine goes away, 2 to 4 weeks of heavy gaming and benching and it will vanish, all the people that had that issue initially are now reporting that things are great and the Coil Wine is not present. Now if yours is really loud and mixed with other electrical buzzing noise, you can always RMA and hope the next one will be better.

Pros: Smokes my old GTX 460 v2 SLI setup while using less power. Slim design. Overclocks well using EVGA's software. Minimal coil whine- can't hear it above case fans.

Cons: Less than half the cost of GTX 980 but I still don't have enough for two.

Overall Review: My FREE backplate already arrived. To register for FREE backplate: 1. go to EVGA's website 2. Create an account 3. Upload your invoice 4. Apply for FREE backplate 5. Wait for confirmation email. Simple as that. I guess I'm an EVGA fanboy but they've always done right by me Warranty wise.

Pros: Runs cool and quiet, no coil wine during furmark, or gaming on high/.ultra for extended periods of time. This thing is small compared to the other GPUs in it's class. 9.5" is great, it's only an inch or so longer than my previous 550ti. Also, it takes like 30watts more power than my 500ti, which is also quite lower than the competitors. Runs most new games on High at above 60gfps, Ultra on some more intense games is very playable. After doing some research, this card lands nicely at the intersection of price, performance, power draw and size.

Cons: None so far, I have had no coil whine, the fans are quiet and the card works. If something happens with more use, I will update here.

Overall Review: This card is great if you don't have the room for a cheaper but comparable option. I looked into a lot of AMD cards, but I would have probably needed a new PSU, and a new case to fit as my Antec mid-tower has a max GPU size of 11". I couldn't find a smaller card at this performance level. I have an i5 3.4ghz ivy bridge processor, 16gb of RAM, and this nice new 970. With this set up I pulled the follow FPS on 1080p. BF4: Ultra settings, 100+FPS, never dipped below 90 even when all hell broke loose on screen. Shadow of Mordor: Settings on Ultra, ~60FPS, no dips noticeable enough to disrupt immersion. My 550ti could run this on lower graphics at around 40fps. This was the biggest difference visually. GTA5: With most things on max, extended distance scaling included,I was getting 50+FPS. I did not have the following advanced settings on: long shadows, high res shadows and high detail while flying (Options in advanced graphics in the GTA5 menu) With those settings off, I average 50-80FPS in both story and online mode, and while the 550ti ran it beautifully, this is the next level of visuals. I parked beneath a huge neon light and the reflection off my car caused me to stare at it until somebody flew past me and blew me up with an RPG, this card great. All things considered, if you're looking for a smaller card that doesn't take a lot of power and will perform cool and quiet on games that range from BF4 to GTA5, this is a great card. I can only speak for 1080p, but I have heard that at 1440p it still does pretty well.

Pros: -Outstanding single card performance at 1080p -Excellent Technical/RMA support -Doesn't break the bank -You'll probably never need to SLI at 1080p -It still performs excellent while downclocked

Cons: -Had to RMA Reason: Graphics card drivers crash while under heavy load and result in permanent black screen until hard reboot unless downclocked by -150 from default stock speeds. Tested with Unigine Heaven 4.0 Ultra presets @ 1920x1080 fullscreen with vsync disabled. Error also occurs in demanding games.

Overall Review: Always do a lengthy stress test for all components even if you aren't overclocking to verify their integrity.

Pros: Runs games at or near the same level as a GTX 780Ti for less than half the recent price of that Ti. This CPU coupled with a stock i7 4790K runs the newest games at their max settings at a consistent 80-120 FPS @1080p (lows never dip below 60) This includes Shadow of Mordor, Thief, Tomb Raider, Arkham games, Battlefield 4, Alien Isolation and more. It rips through everything with ease. Power usage (or lack there of) is amazing for such a powerful card. Tempuratures are better than my old GTX 760. The 970 literally doubled my framerates in nearly everything and the 760 wasn't bad at all. The card is nice looking. It's fairly understated. It's also nice and slim so running 2,3 or 4 of these would be a breeze.

Cons: Coil Whine. During certain benches (basically at extreme high framerates), I get significant coil whine. The ancient graphics card testing "ATI Tool" exposes it best. It happens in real world gaming but it's quiet enough that I'm not gonna sweat it much.

Overall Review: My card isn't the greatest over-clocker (of 970s ,that is) . I'm running mine at a modest +202 (1352) and +100 on the memory. Fantastic in terms of GPUs but nothing special for these 970s.

Pros: I bought this card back when it released before the whole "it only uses 3.5 gb of memory controversy" and at 1080p gaming who cares 3.5 gb is way more then enough for my own needs plus this card overclocks nicely. Runs everything I have tested so far at max Far Cry 4 , Shadows of Mordor plus a beastly 11k 3dmark score in firestrike nonultra

Cons: I don't like the fact the fan is essentially off until the card reaches a certain temperature but for people who enjoy a quiet pc I guess it's fine. I simply just set a custom fan profile and problem solved!

Pros: -Good looking card. -Amazing performer (just look up some benchmarks and comparisons against 780's, 290x's, etc). -Great value. Probably one of the greatest performance-per-dollar cards ever put out. -EVGA quality. -Free backplate from EVGA with purchase. -These cards are great overclockers, BUT...

Cons: -Somewhat loud fans. Not coil whine, just loud. Not unnervingly loud, just louder than I'm used to. These cards run so cool though that you can maneuver around this problem with custom fan profiles. -No matter what you do, these cards throttle at times, and it can get somewhat frustrating when trying to get stable overclocks. Considering hardcore overclocking isn't something that these specific cards were designed for, I probably shouldn't complain. It's still an amazing card, and an amazing bargain at this price point.

Overall Review: -Newegg started a free game promotion with the purchase of these cards a few days after I purchased mine. I chatted with customer support, and they immediately sent me a code for a free game. Newegg customer service at it's finest. It doesn't get any better.

Pros: I went from two GTX 570 in Sli to this and it blows the 570s out of the water . I am able to play advanced warfare, nba2k15, middle earth all on ultra settings with no stutter and smooth frame rates. I am running a corei5 2500k CPU over clocked to 4.4ghz and 8 gigs of ram . So far I have not heard any coil whine and this card is much quiter then my previous cards even under heavy load . The energy savings along are worth it .

Cons: So far I haven't experienced any

Overall Review: If you are looking at a high end card like the GTX980 . Save your selves some serious $$$ and get almost the performance for less .