So, what is the difference in these cards?
 
 
Is it only factory overclocks?
 
Anything that would be better for more overclocking headroom, such as a higher power target %?

Tomca nailed the differences exactly. SC= Superclocked, SSC= Super Superclocked, and FTW= For The Win

Tomca
Higher factory OC's, also the SSC and FTW have improved power phases and circuits, the FTW also has an improved heatsink design with a plate directly connecting the heat pipes to the chip :D And yes the FTW will have better OC headroom due to the extra power phases, it is also a better binned chip than the rest.

Just want to add on to this, yes the card will have more headroom for overclocking but there is no guarantee it will overclock better. Silicon lottery is still a factor.

Tomca
Higher factory OC's, also the SSC and FTW have improved power phases and circuits, the FTW also has an improved heatsink design with a plate directly connecting the heat pipes to the chip :D And yes the FTW will have better OC headroom due to the extra power phases, it is also a better binned chip than the rest.

EVGATech_JaesonW
Tomca nailed the differences exactly. SC= Superclocked, SSC= Super Superclocked, and FTW= For The Win

Really? Because from what I've seen based on review cards, and heard from EVGA_Jacob the 970 ACX boards are all identical save for two things: the single VRM chip that allows slightly higher voltage on the SSC and FTW, not increased amount of power phases or better quality components in said power phases. And second are the additional BIOS switches on the SSC (switches for dual BIOS) and FTW (switches for triple BIOS).
 
Increased power phases for better power filtering or better components in the power phases for both better filtering as well as decreased chances of coil whine would be significant benefits, but this is the first I've heard of this and I've heard and seen things leading me to believe the contrary.

Diomar13
Hi all. I'm new here so I hope I'm not in the wrong forum for the question. I'm giving my hubby for birthday all the components for him to build his own Gaming pc and I have an unopened GTX 770 Dual Classified with ACX now I'm thinking if I should do the step up program and exchange it for a GTX 970 and if I should I would like to know for which one should I exchange it. I thought about the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 FTW ACX 2.0. Would like your help on deciding what to do. 

-->>> Moved to
http://forums.evga.com/Ne...hic-card-m2239274.aspx

Tomca

freEVfoldinGA

Tomca
Higher factory OC's, also the SSC and FTW have improved power phases and circuits, the FTW also has an improved heatsink design with a plate directly connecting the heat pipes to the chip :D And yes the FTW will have better OC headroom due to the extra power phases, it is also a better binned chip than the rest.

EVGATech_JaesonW
Tomca nailed the differences exactly. SC= Superclocked, SSC= Super Superclocked, and FTW= For The Win

Really? Because from what I've seen based on review cards, and heard from EVGA_Jacob the 970 ACX boards are all identical save for two things: the single VRM chip that allows slightly higher voltage on the SSC and FTW, not increased amount of power phases or better quality components in said power phases. And second are the additional BIOS switches on the SSC (switches for dual BIOS) and FTW (switches for triple BIOS).
 
Increased power phases for better power filtering or better components in the power phases for both better filtering as well as decreased chances of coil whine would be significant benefits, but this is the first I've heard of this and I've heard and seen things leading me to believe the contrary.

Yeah sorry, was worded slightly wrong. I dont think it has better quality power phases, just more and a slightly different circuit

I don't believe it has more power phases either, it appears to be the same 4+2 that all the other EVGA 970s are. Picture of the 970 FTW from Anandtech, picture of the 970 SC from TechPowerUp. Note the card sent to TPU I believe to be a preproduction PCB hence the unfilled component slots and minor differences shown, I have a 970 SSC whose PCB appears identical to the FTW picture from Anandtech furthering this belief.
 
Again the only differences I am aware of between the SSC/FTW PCB from the rest of the ACX 970s is the single VRM controller chip that allows for higher voltage on those cards and the BIOS switches. Below are my sources to validate that, if anyone has proof to the contrary I'd like to see it.
 
http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2228491
http://www.overclock.net/t/1514085/official-nvidia-gtx-970-owners-club/2310#post_22948695 read from there to post #2322 on the next page.
http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2236234 -This is actually just the VRM controller from the reference 980, so the SSC/FTW can be accurately described as 970 ACX PCBs with the VRM controller chip from the 980.
 

crezno
Its possible that it has more power phases, but it looks like a 3+1, possible a 5+1 depending on how you look at it. I know that it was stated before that they upgraded the components which allowed allowed more voltage which allows higher stock overclocks. I believe there is 2/3 Bios switches on respective cards as well.
 
The SSC vents out the front and back with horizontal fin directions meaning some air will vent out the rear of the case and some will vent out the front of the card back into the case.  The FTW has vertical fins meaning that no air is vented out the rear of the case, its vented out the top and bottom of the card (towards the mobo and away from mobo).  With the addition of a solid plate that is connected to the heat pipes rather than heatpipes directly touching the gpu. In single card setups, this allow higher air flow over shorter distances which decreased temperatures by 4 degrees Celsius. Which lower temps usually are accompanied by slower fan speeds which nets you a quieter cooling solution.
 

 
Two things, freEVfoldinGA is right is those links are accurate for the ftw pcb then its definite 4+2 power phases. What you are mentiong about the coolers is that some have the refreence design that blows air out the back, and some have the ACX type coolers. 

So, is there any reason to buy a FTW edition over the regular?
 
What about if I plan to SLI or water cool in the future?

They are both good.
 
If you are going to watercool, it doesn't matter which one you get. At that point they are the same card only the FTW has 3 BIOS vs 2 of the SSC.
 
The air coolers are the only difference after that.
 
The Air coolers have been corrected. People need to understand that the FTW and SSC both use ACX 2.0. That doesn't mean its the same cooler.  The first release of the SSC had an defective cooler where the 3 heatpipes that touched the GPU were mis aligned and only 2 of the heat pipes actually touched the GPU. That has been corrected.
 
If you are holding the videocards in front of you so you are looking into the fans and the read of the card is to the left:
 
The Current FTW ACX 2.0 has cooling fins that to go Top to Bottom. Meaning the air is not vented out the rear of the case. Its vented towards the mobo and away from the mobo. Since the fins are vertical they air only has to travel a few inches to get reducing pressure required to move the air out, and increases the surface area of cooler air touching the fins.  This reduced noise as temps are lower. They have tested, and temps are about 4C lower that the SSC during the same Benchmark.  The FTW can come in quieter as well as it will have a reduced fan speed.
 
The Current SSC ACX 2.0 has cooling fins that go left to right. Meaning the air is vented out the rear of the case, and out the front of the card back in to the case.  It is a much longer stretch of area the air has to travel down before being released, requiring more pressure, resulting in higher fan speeds. The plus side, is that 50% of the air can be expelled out of the rear of the case, allowing easier evacuation of the head from the case. This is a more optimal design for SLI as the top card is only introduced to about 50% of the head from the bottom card.  However, overall the cooling of the cooler is slightly less effective that the FTW cooler.
 
So as I said before, if you plan to SLI on air, the SSC will more than likely run at cooler temps on the top card. If you plan to run 1 card, the FTW will prove to be better. If you water cool, the cards are essentially the same.

Why is a two direct contact heatpipe design a bust if it works? 
 
You don't have to tell me why the FTW is better, but I personally saved $50 Cdn going with the SSC. It's got the same vrm management, I've got my oc dialed up to 1505mhz on the core clock and another +450mhz on the memory... Runs stable through loops of the Heaven benchmark with the temp never getting higher than 78° (while leaving the fan profile at default)...
 
So I've got a card I can run 24/7 at it's max potential (which is quite high) without the aid of water cooling. Hardly a bust. 

flopticalcube

Jesso2k
Why is a two direct contact heatpipe design a bust if it works? 

Because on the internet, everyone is a thermal design expert, especially if they repeat what they read somewhere else.

I know this is a few months old, but that's a good one, haha. On the internet, almost everyone is an expert on video card design and cooling, so of course they know better than the engineers that designed it! ;-)