Unlike the GTX 980, the GTX 970 is only available in custom SKUs courtesy of Nvidia's board partners. MSI is one such partner, and its GTX 970 Gaming 4G is a cracking card too.
The GTX 970 GPU is essentially the same as the GTX 980, but with three SMMs disabled, reducing its stream processor and texture unit counts to 1,664 and 104 respectively. The reference clock speed is also slightly down at 1,050MHz, but clock speeds also vary between partners. Elsewhere, the full 4GB cf GDDR5 memory again runs at 7GHz (effective) across the same 256-bit interface, and all 64 ROPs are intact too.
The specifications tell us that the GTX 970 should offer roughly 80 per cent of the performance of the GTX 980, yet it costs just 60 per cent of the price (models start at around £255). MSI makes up the performance deficit slightly by increasing the base clock to 1,140MHz for a boost clock of 1,279MHz, although the memory speed is untouched.
Thanks to MSI's oversized cooler, the heiqht of the card is 140mm, so small form factor users will need to check there's room for it in theircase. The cooler also extends over one of the SLI connectors, so 3-way users will need SLI ribbon cables to reach over it - a fixed bridge won't fit On the plus side, the card measures a few millimetres below dual-slot depth, which leaves more space for airflow if you need to cram some cards together in SU mode.
MSI uses an elder selection of connections that favours DVI over DisplayPort, although the HDMI connector is still version 2.0. It has expanded the card's power specifications too. kitting it out with an 8-pin and 6-pin combination, and a tasty 6+2 phase delivery system with Military Class 4 components.
The sizeable, high-quality Twin Frozr V cooler comprises four nickel-plated copper heatpipes that pass through a massive baseplate for the GPU, along with a large heatsink and two 100mm fans. The design is semipassive too, so the fans stay turned off until the GPU reaches around 65°C, so idle workloads will be silent. You can also manually control the fan speeds independently of each other.
Performance
This card offers seriously impressive performance As thp specifications hinted, it's closer to the GTX 980 than its price suggests. At 1080p, it trumps the R9 290X every time, managing over 60fps in every game except Crysis 3. At 2,560 x 1,440, the R9 290X creeps head in Battlefield 4, but MSI 970 is way ahead in Biobhock and narrowly leads in Crysis 3 too. Meanwhile, at 4K, the R9 290 and GTX 970 are very close, with no meaningful oerformance difference other than in BioShock, where the MSI just manages to stay above 30fps while the AMD can’t. Still, neither card is suitable for gaming at maximum settings at this resolution.
Power consumption is very good too, although the MSI card consumes a little mere than the GTX 980 as a result of its bolstered power inputs and factory overclock. The cooler is whisper-quiet too; you'll struggle to hear it.
What's more, our MSI GTX 970 sample overclocked even better than the reference GTX 980. We reached a base clock of 1,315MHz, giving us a stated boost clock of 1,454MHz. In games, however, the significant power and thermal headroom saw the MSI card boosting constantly to 1.5GHz, which is incredible, especially as the noise and GPU temperature were virtually unaffected It's highly recommended you Iry overclockiny - in our lesls, the MSI exceeded stock GTX 980 performance in both Battlefield 4 and Unigine when overclocked.
Conclusion
MSI asks for a £20 premium over basic GTX 970 models, and that's well worth paying for the quality of the semipassive cooler and the factory overclock. The GTX 970 also compares very favourably with the rest of the market. AMD's R9 290X starts at around £270, but that buys you a noisy, hot and irritatingly loud stock cooler, and this MSI GTX 970 card is a much better all-rounder. If you've been itching for an awesome sub-£300 graphics upgrade, this is it. MATTHEW LAMBERT
VERDICT
MSI’s overclocked and custom-cooled GTX 970 offers great performance, an exceptionally quiet cooler and loads of overclocking headroom for an attractive price.
SPECIFICATIONS
Graphics processor Nvidia GeForce GTX 970, 1140MHz (boost clock 1,279MHz)
Pipeline 1,664 stream processors, 104 texture units, 64 ROPs
Memory 4GB GDD35, 7GHz effective
Bandwidth 224GB/sec
Compatibility DirectX 12, OpenGL4.5
Outputs/inputs DisplayPort, DVI-D, DVI-I, HDMI
Power connections 1 x 8-pin, 1x 6-pin, top-mounted
Size 265mm long, dual-slot