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MSI box artwork is immediately distinguishable – their Dragon logo takes pride of place across the front of the box. MSI list some technical information along the bottom of the MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G box.
MSI highlight their cooling system on the back of the box, including information on the Torx Fan and SuperSU Pipes built into the heatsink.
The bundle includes a power converter, literature on the product, and a software disc.
MSI also include a ‘Gaming App' on this disc which may prove useful for some people. I have to admit after playing with it for a few minutes I de-installed it completely. The only MSI software I like to run is MSI Afterburner (more on this later in the review).
This is the Cameron Diaz of graphics cards. Slim, beautiful and very sexy. It is built around a black PCB, which earns it bonus points (We don't like the nasty dark brown PCB's). Power is delivered via a 6-phase +2 configuration.
We can see the overhanging cooling heatpipes from the rear.
MSI are using 10cm ‘Torx' fans. The company have finally replaced their fans – and they are reportedly producing 19% ‘better' airflow than the fans used on the Twin Frozr 4 cooler.
MSI have also implemented a similar feature seen on their high end Lightning models – the fans are controlled independently by IC's on the PCB and GPU. MSI claim the independent GPU and PWM cooling reduces noise by up to 1.9dBa.
MSI point out that the new cooler is a ‘Hybrid' design and that they came up with this before ASUS did on their StriX Edition cards – which we really rate highly. They claim if the card is running below 50c then the fans will not spin at all, eliminating noise.
The MSI GTX970 Gaming 4G has two DVI connectors on the back (DVI-D and DVI-I), and a full sized HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort. This HDMI port will handle 4K resolutions at up to 60hz.
The new Twin Frozr 5 heatsink is a little thinner than previous Twin Frozr designs, meaning its a little thinner than 2 full slots. This will help when running multiple cards in SLi configurations.
The card is SLi capable, and takes power from an eight pin and six pin power connector. The Asus GTX970 Strix OC that we also reviewed today only requires a single 8 Pin power connector. In our tests, both cards were perfectly stable in all situations and overclocked to similar levels.
The new MSI cooling system looks formidable. There are four heatpipes in total. These are all running into various positions into aluminum fins on either side of the cooling base. High grade Samsung GDDR5 memory features on this card, cooled by a dedicated heatsink.
Special thanks to Mike over at Techpowerup for sending me over the latest beta version of GPUZ to fully support the Geforce GTX980. I felt like I was living in an episode of Back To The Future seeing a ‘release date’ of 19th September, when I started working on this review around the 13th.
The GM204 GPU is manufactured on the 28nm process. There are 64 ROPS, 104 Texture units and 1,664 CUDA Cores. The core speed is clocked at 1,140mhz with a turbo boost to 1,279mhz. The 4GB of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1,753mhz (7Gbps effective).
Looking good so far. Expecting even better performance after 2-3 driver releases 🙂
I like the price point. The performance it pretty excellent.
This is a future proof card meaning you probably shouldn’t get this just for 1080p gaming since there are a lot of other cheaper cards out there that does just fine at 1080p.
I’m curious, were you able to run the MSI 970 on just the single 8-pin like you can on the ASUS 970? If so then I don’t think you can consider the extra 6-pin a con. And if it can’t, then oh well, at least there should be some extra stability benefits to it.
I can totally understand the ‘lower than they could be’ clocks out of the box, as if they are clocked to high out of the box and they get a few defunct chips that can’t handle it, it would be far worse PR than ‘look there might be even more potential in your chips’.
I understand the drop of the half star as nothing is perfect but goddamn the 970 looks like it comes about as close a it gets!
So far MSI Twin Frozr V is the best cooler.
So far MSI Twin Frozr V is the best cooler.
Why are the stats compared to the GTX 680 and not the 780/ 780Ti etc?
The issue is, other than looks, what separates these two cards? Performance is almost identical across the board from FPS to temps and thermals.
i cant decide between the msi and asus 970. I prefer the single 8 pin connector and backplate on the asus but the MSI has better cooling is cheaper and is slightly faster =/
Msi site says the hdmi is 1.4 not 2.0
What gives?
you have cash or not, must get it, performance better than 780 + 150Watts + cheaper? OMFGGG
To be fair, the MSI seems to beat the Asus by a couple of fps in every game that I looked at.
Is the extra 6pin for overclocking? I read on another article that the 900 series can handle a lot of overclocking. So, would it be for overclocking stability if it’s able to surpass the amount the 8 pin can handle?
So for 700$ (two GTX 970), we can play in 4K without problems.
Official Certification by the HDMI consortium. The components are 2.0 (NVIDIA spec) just the card itself hasn’t passed the certification yet. No issue.
We actually use the 6 and 8-pin to separate the voltage between the GPU VRM and the memory/io/fan vrm. so, no, it doesn’t guzzle more power when connected, but does allow us to deliver cleaner power to the card.
I suspected that, but thank you for confirming since i had no 4k monitor here to confirm.
The card rocks.
This information should have been delivered to reddit/r/buildapc as that is where most conversation surrounding components and sales occur. Many people were concerned about the 1.4 listing and bought a different brand instead. At a minimum, if should have been mentioned to your selected YouTube reviewers so they could have clarified.
the MSI GTX 970 Gaming is by a long shot better than asus and especially the EVGA cards.
the reference design for the GTX 970 uses a 4+1 power phase design. 4 for the GPU, 1 for the memory. asus uses a 5+2 phase design while MSI beats them all with a 6+2 configuration.
also, asus strix GTX 970 uses a single 8 pin PCE I power input while MSI uses two power inputs, 8 pin and another 6 pin. this will allow much higher overclocks, assuming the chip on your card can handle it.
i have a pair of MSI GTX 970 Gaming cards. one overclocks to 1500MHz the other to 1560MHz with no voltage mods. in SLI they are about one and half times faster than the R9 295×2 i returned last week. they are also dead silent, use less power and produce less heat.
i paid about $680 for the two of them. at this price the performance is just incredible. i’ve been a long time fan of nvidia (but i have owned ATI/AMD cards) but i did not expect them to price this card so low.
Having looked at further benchmarks, the MSI GTX 970 blows the competition away – cheaper than the Strix, more powerful, just as quiet, bigger OC headroom. Unless AMD come out with something amazing, it’ll be my next gpu.
I think the Min and Average values in the Metro: LL benchmark are incorrect and have been confused for the Average and Max values respectively.
I just tested my MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G (at stock like here with exactly the same settings) and my Average: 45 fps and Max: 118. You show the same numbers as the Min and Average respectively.
Shut up
Crazy how this beast rivals the GTX 980 stock AND is ultra efficient/silent. Madness!