Just an update on my new GTX 970 SSC's. I saw them go over their rated clocks more than a few times, not by a whole lot... but I did see it hit 1386mhz a few times. COD:AW was so damn smooth while playing... the cards stayed pretty cool too... around 65c under load for the bottom card and 76c for the top. Not the cards fault on the difference... my micro atx motherboard design is not really the best for multiple cards, leaves almost no space between the cards for the top to breath.

Unfortunately it will be a while. I got a little greedy and wanted more performance. I messed up my i7 3770K when I delided it and I am stuck at work on a 16 hour shift at the moment.

A little birdie told me about a certain "win+" coming out next week… ;)

Scarlet-Tech

RainStryke
Unfortunately it will be a while. I got a little greedy and wanted more performance. I messed up my i7 3770K when I delided it and I am stuck at work on a 16 hour shift at the moment.

Uh oh. Pictures please. Which method did you use? (sorry, don't mean to get off top)

Vice method. The vice wasn't secure enough, the board slipped and snagged 3 capacitors from the middle of the socket.

maranhao

outlawii
Why does everyone think EVGA owes then something? Are the cards failing? From what i've read its a lack of overclocking,if so then they owe u nothing! No where on the site or description of these cards does it guarantee overclocking of any fashion. And now they come out with a FTW+  big dam deal get over it ,this kind of thing is called marketing ! Hopefully im not getting my conclusions wrong about this thread and if i'am i apologize. But as of right now i'am truly embarassed by all the EVGA owes me responses in here truly a disgrace for the pc community!

I (has as large number of costumers do) have a card that has massive coil whine starting from anything as low as 30 fps (and even below that). Then the card underclocks when under load. I don't even care about the boost clock, but when it gets to 980mhz instead of ~1200 of the ftw's base clock something is definitely wrong.

In 17 years that handle PC hardware I've never had something bought that left me so disappointed. On top of that I'm pretty sure this one that I've spent more money on.
One of the reasons I purchased the ftw was expecting it to be better quality then the others expecting that to make them coil whine free. Had that happened I wouldn't even be lurking around in the forum and would be unaware of the ftw+.

 
So did you RMA it?

RainStryke
Vice method. The vice wasn't secure enough, the board slipped and snagged 3 capacitors from the middle of the socket.

 
Super glue them back on and send it back for an RMA... lol. Sorry to hear you are down for now. 

jthd92
My plan is to wait for the ftw+ to come out and if there isn't a step up to it stepping up to a 980. So if no ftw+ step up please offer a step up to the 980 ftw!

Same plan here but what if neither is available for step up? That's what I'm worried about. I don't want to step up to the vanilla 980 which seems to be the only 980 option currently. I can give it another 1-2 weeks until my window closes, then my only option would be the new 970 SSC. Seems to be a decent card BUT: the SSC doesn't come with a backplate whereas the FTW+ does (and I got a free backplate for my 970 SC).

MvdL79
I heard EVGA will release a FTW++ within 3 months from now! :PP

I heard it was the FTW+4 the 4 stands for 4x better than the first FTW

Dear EVGA,
I am patiently waiting for your next revision of the GTX 970 FTW+, and I see that my 2nd choice from another manufacturer is now back in stock and available. There are rumours of a release date for next week, however my patience is wearing thin. I'm afraid that I'll need to make a decision by mid-week. If I don't see a response or an update, then I will move on to the other brand.
No hard feelings!
PM

El-Dubya

RainStryke
Just an update on my new GTX 970 SSC's. I saw them go over their rated clocks more than a few times, not by a whole lot... but I did see it hit 1386mhz a few times. COD:AW was so damn smooth while playing... the cards stayed pretty cool too... around 65c under load for the bottom card and 76c for the top. Not the cards fault on the difference... my micro atx motherboard design is not really the best for multiple cards, leaves almost no space between the cards for the top to breath.

 
Nice! Btw if you can, would you mind telling me what your ASIC is on each card? Mine boost to 1380 but I can't seem to overclock at all beyond that (ASIC 64%) and I'm wondering if it's this new driver (347.09) or just bad silicon luck.  

Okay, just checked... My first card is 70.8% and my second card is 78.4%.

Pls. delete

El-Dubya
 
 

RaghuC99

RainStryke

El-Dubya

RainStryke
Just an update on my new GTX 970 SSC's. I saw them go over their rated clocks more than a few times, not by a whole lot... but I did see it hit 1386mhz a few times. COD:AW was so damn smooth while playing... the cards stayed pretty cool too... around 65c under load for the bottom card and 76c for the top. Not the cards fault on the difference... my micro atx motherboard design is not really the best for multiple cards, leaves almost no space between the cards for the top to breath.

 
Nice! Btw if you can, would you mind telling me what your ASIC is on each card? Mine boost to 1380 but I can't seem to overclock at all beyond that (ASIC 64%) and I'm wondering if it's this new driver (347.09) or just bad silicon luck.  

Okay, just checked... My first card is 70.8% and my second card is 78.4%.

Hm, seems these ARE binned higher

Umm, not in my case (see posts you quoted). Thanks for that RainStryke, seems I did lose this round of silicon lottery. Oh well, bought this card for it's newer *fixed* features and factory clock so I didn't have to mess with it at all. One last thing though, see if you get any coil whine during a run of MS WEI. Thanks again.  

Yeah, I could hear coil whine on the MS WEI. It was very feint, but I could hear it... I'm also getting black lines across the screen when I run any version of 3DMark. I was not getting it in COD:AW, but after about 20 minutes of gaming, I could see it happen from time to time. Yeah... These are going to get a return... This is really annoying. I was expecting a nice change since my problems with the GTX 660's I bought back when those were brand new. I'm sick of having to RMA my brand new cards.

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR MORE SPECIFICS ABOUT THE GTX 970 FTW+, most of which we already know check it
Part #:04G-P4-3978-KR
This quote inserted on this page is copy and pasted straight from a page on EVGA's website titled, "EVGA - Product Specs - EVGA Geforce GTX 970 FTW+ ACX 2.0 ",   (UPDATE) OKAY I CANNOT POST LINKS DUE TO THIS IS A NEW ACCT, THEREFORE PM me FOR INFO, and this is text copied and pasted from that page:
 

The new generation of EVGA GeForce GTX 970s have arrived with the FTW+. This enhanced model offers an included backplate, improved cooling, double BIOS support, new display output configuration and 6 power phases for robust overclocking support.

These new cards also feature EVGA ACX 2.0 cooling that features optimized swept fan blades, double ball bearings and an extreme low power motor. The EVGA ACX 2.0 cooler offers more air flow, with less power, unlocking additional power for the GPU.

New Features:

dBi – dB Noise Inverter turns fans off below 60C, generating 0dB of noise during idle!
QSD BIOS – Quick Switch Dual BIOS allow you to switch to secondary BIOS with the flick of a switch.
MMCP – Memory MOSFET Cooling Plate reduces MOSFET temps by 47% and Memory by 14%.
OPT – Optimized Power Target offers 33% more power over reference.
SHP – Straight Heat Pipes reduce GPU temperature by almost 5C!

SPECIFICATIONS
Base Clock: 1216 MHZ
Boost Clock: 1367 MHz
Memory Clock: 7010 MHz Effective
CUDA Cores: 1664
Bus Type: PCI-E 3.0
Memory Detail: 4096MB GDDR5
Memory Bit Width: 256 Bit
Memory Speed: 0.28ns
Memory Bandwidth: 224.3 GB/s

DIMENSIONS
Height: 4.376in - 111.15mm
Length: 10.1in - 256.5mm
Width: Dual Slot

KEY FEATURES
NVIDIA Dynamic Super Resolution Technology
NVIDIA MFAA Technology
NVIDIA GameWorks Technology
NVIDIA GameStream Technology
NVIDIA G-SYNC Ready
Microsoft DirectX 12
NVIDIA GPU Boost 2.0
NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical Sync
NVIDIA Surround Technology
NVIDIA SLI Ready
NVIDIA CUDA Technology
OpenGL 4.4 Support
OpenCL Support
HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.2 and Dual-link DVI
PCI Express 3.0
EVGA ACX 2.0 Cooling
Quick Switch Dual BIOS
1.215v+ Voltage Boost
dB Inverter
Memory MOSFET Cooling Plate
Optimized Power Target
Straight Heat Pipes
Preinstalled Backplate

RESOLUTION & REFRESH
Max Monitors Supported: 4
240Hz Max Refresh Rate
Max Analog: 2048x1536
Max Digital: 4096x2160
REQUIREMENTS
500 Watt or greater power supply.****
PCI Express, PCI Express 2.0 or PCI Express 3.0 compliant motherboard with one graphics slot.
One available 8-pin PCI-E power connector and one available 6-pin PCI-E power connector
Windows 8 32/64bit, Windows 7 32/64bit, Windows Vista 32/64bit
 
**Support for HDMI includes GPU-accelerated Blu-ray 3D support (Blu-ray 3D playback requires the purchase of a compatible software player from CyberLink, ArcSoft, Corel, or Sonic), x.v.Color, HDMI Deep Color, and 7.1 digital surround sound. Upgrade your GPU to full 3D capability with NVIDIA 3DTV Play software, enabling 3D gaming, picture viewing, and 3D web video streaming.
****Minimum system power requirement based on a PC configured with an Intel Core i7 3.2GHz processor

(Quote above was copy and pasted from a EVGA webpage titled, "EVGA - Product Specs - EVGA Geforce GTX 970 FTW+ ACX 2.0") 
 
Yet when you click on learn more it goes to the SSC page. So yeah just thought that might help, also kinda hints that the launch of the FTW+ in imminent.
I became interested in this due to CES coverage and my interest in ordering a GTX 970 SSC sometime in the next couple of days, and I have been heavily considering the GTX 970 FTW+, considering it is essentially the same upgrade that occurred between the SC to the SSC, except the FTW+'s higher base and boost clocks AND the FTW+ is shipping with a BACKPLATE!!! along with the welcome addition of the "cooling plate" that cools the VRMs and Mosfets on the SSC and FTW+ 
 
I didn't read all of this thread but I have noticed this subject being brought up in several different social outlets. Just thought it might help, plus any word on a release date would be cool too. 
 
Thanks,
AJayTheTech

RaghuC99

MapRef41N93W
Isn't the 3975 supposed to have a 33% higher power limit? My card is only showing +10 as the max. 

10% is relative to your card's normal power limit, I think.

Exactly!
 
Power Target for the new SSC (3975) is 201W (100%) so it will go up to 225W (110%).

VulgarDisplay88
Question for people that have stepped up before:

Ive received an email asking to pay for delivery, paid yesterday, website says "Return Original Product to EVGA" but I haven't had an email with an RMA number or instructions on how to send back. Thanks

You should have unless you misspelled the email address. Go to my products and then 'view details' on the item being stepped up.