@Subyman,
 
I certainly agree with your post. My defense of EVGA comes in the form of people making conclusions before actually receiving the card. I'll grant you it's a bit questionable as to what they've done with the  VRMS as well as some of the other issues you've pointed out. I also believe EVGA needs to provide more communication on the issue(s) being raised besides 1 post from the product/marketing manager. These are valid concerns and ones that will now seem to have a direct impact on their sales. I'm willing to give EVGA the benefit of the doubt based on my personal experience with them but I certainly don't excuse or condone misleading the consumer or selling a half-baked product.
 
Again ultimately everyone is free to make their own decisions and you as the consumer hold all the power in terms whether or not you keep or return the card and move on.  I suppose I'm a bit biased as I won't be directly affected as my step-up is for a reference 980.

Stephenk291

yapchagi
that's it. I'm returning 2 GTX 970 ACX back to amazon and get 2x Asus Strix GTX 970. Asus Strix card is cooler and quieter. It's a no brainer.

I don't get why everyone is jumping ship, like you're going to be able to tell the difference between lets say 25DBA and 35DBA. 

Actually, it's very easy to tell the difference between 25dBA and 35dBA.  Average humans can tell the difference of a 5dB increase, while more trained individuals can discern increases/decreases of 2.5dB and smaller.
 
Also, bit-tech did a 970 shootout between strix, acx2, and twin frzor v, and acx2 lost by 5 degrees celsius. I don't know about you, but I think that's a pretty big gap.  Couple that with the higher noise and worse power regulators, EVGA just becomes a much less attractive choice, but a choice I've made prior to seeing the reviews.
 
Either way, I am going to give my 2985-KR a go when it arrives and hope for the best.
 
edit:  I have been buying EVGA cards since 2007, not as long as some of you, but seeing Asus upgrading to solid capacitors really makes me jealous, since my 670 FTW's cheap capacitors blew up and required me to do a RMA....

Stephenk291
Yes you'd notice between both cards, my point was its not a ground shattering difference or one you'd really notice once your computer is up and running..  

I think that depends on how your system is built.  Mine's inside a recording studio, and it's whisper quiet.  I even took the liberty of switching out all of the fans, CPU, system, chassis to Noctua ones..

First post so hello everyone.
 
I bought a GTX 770 SC ACX from Scan a couple of weeks ago. I was fully aware then that Nvidia were about to release the 980 & 970. I also knew about EVGA's step up programme. So I thought I had my bases covered. If the 970 was something like £350 pounds at launch and was only marginally better than my 770 then I could stay with the 770. If the 970 had much better performance and was reasonably priced I could step up. Turns out it was the latter and hence I initiated the step up process. 
 
I've read all the posts on various websites about the heat sink issues. Two pipes directly contact the GPU and 3-5 degrees doesn't really bother me much. The third heat pipe doesn't seem to do much but that's not a major problem for me. From what I can see this third pipe is capped properly and not left open as some posters are saying - it's just the way the final ally fin is crimped at the very end of the pipe. A bit like a turtles head in it's shell if you get my drift. The bigger worry for me is the apparent use of inferior components on the PCB.
 
My problem now is do I return my better built 770(allegedly?) for a better performing 970 that seems to be of somewhat inferior build quality. I really want the 970 but I may be better off going for the MSI or Gigabyte versions?

Yeah going from 780 to 970 is a bit silly, from just a cost standpoint you'd be much better off going to the 980.

subyman
I went from a 780 to a 970.  It cost me $10.  I sold my 780 for $330 and bought the 970 for $339.99.  I moved over for the features, performance increase, and to SLI with lower power. Surprisingly, the 970 was about 15% faster than my 780 in Firestrike.

Well I sold both my GTX 780 for even more than the two EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX costed me...

Though I am still not sure if I should accept the delivery of the 970's given the "mediocre" quality and missing backplate. This is a deal breaker for me. Oh well, we will see...

deadlyalive
Here is a little experience I would like to share.
I recently RMAed my GTX 760 SC due to fan problems experienced when I was changing the thermal grease.
When I took the heatsink off on the RMAed card the contact looked exactly like the picture. I received my RMA card yesterday and proceeded with changing the thermal grease again, but this time the contact looks totally different, I should have took a picture if I saw this post prior, the contact is a probably <1mm thick copper plate. This is what it looks like, excuse my poor drawing.

B4 this my avg temp was in the high 60s and low low 70s playing D3
Now my temp is in the high 50s and mid 60s.
I am not sure if the thermal grease helped or it performs better since I couldn't compare them due to fan problems during the first application.
 

What grease / tim did you use, if you don't mind me asking? :)

deadlyalive
Arctic MX-4

k ty :)

this might be a silly question, but I've never done it. Does changing the thermal paste void the warranty?

Hi all.  Have been following this thread and many of the other 970 SC related threads and just wanted to add my opinions since I have now had 2x970 SC ACX1.0 since launch.
 
Firstly, I'm kind of kicking myself because I originally ordered 2xMSIs... but saw the EVGA and phoned to change my order!  I'm happy with the performance of the cards and TBH, the fan noise is no worse than the 660 Tis I just replaced.  I don't have the coil whine thing either.  Since I have them in SLI, the heat is more of an issue and the fans can ramp up quite a bit.
 
I think my biggest annoyance is, I accept that being a day 1 buyer that my card will be obsolete in weeks.  But to have ACX2.0 selling already and still market ACX1.0 makes me feel really cheated.  Why bother making a card that is obsolete on launch?  Before I get jumped upon, I'll move on to my constructive questions:
 
1:- I believe the cooling system can be removed under warranty to water cool... so would EVGA rectify this by offering ACX1.0 users an option to buy the ACX2.0 cooling system for a nominal fee and fit it ourselves?
 
2:- Fan noise.  The EVGA response says a new "bios" to fix  fan noise at idle.  So is the issue just the idle noise (which doesn't bother me) or is the aggressive fan profile aggressive under load as well (I'm afraid to shift to quiet profile as card 1 is 17 degrees hotter than card 2 - 77 degrees / 60 degrees under heavy load?
 
Thanks.

ap1970

astacy12
 ...slightly higher temps. This has nothing to do with the performance or integrity of the GPU itself...

 
 
Off course it has. Running at "slightly higher temps" which can be let's say 1 to 15 degrees higher (or even more) can shorten the life of the card by overheating some of the components. Nobody knows exactly how this affects the performance at long shot.
 
I am not buying one of these unless they provide me lifetime warranty.

That special mean for DirectCU II because their VRM hit boiling point every year.
And every year is same story, temps on graphic cards with 100-120MHz less clock 15-20C higher than on EVGA Classified.
And always it's same story They plan to work on 95-100C. That mean they plan to hardware stay operative shorter time.

I think sometimes EVGA because they are best start less care for product quality while others try on every way how they can to go on first place.
Some of China manufacturer at the end will start to import parts from USA and to build in their high end models instead of EVGA with best Japan parts and better control quality.
Customer used on best quality from EVGA, they will not forgive saving cost because great support.

clo007

phreakwarz77
Hi all, After reading about the issues with the EVGA card and then finding out no backplate, all I can do is be in disbelief of the quality of EVGA! The least that EVGA could have done is given its customers a simple backplate to say thanks for supporting EVGA. I receive my 970 on 9-22 Wed.. At this time there is a very good chance that my card will be sent back. I chose EVGA for one reason and one reason only...because of its great customer service!

Unless you live in EU, I am really not sure what the issue is with the backplate promotion. It was for EU only, not the US.


Should we be pissed that eVGA is making a promo for EU only in regards to free 5 year warranty?
http://eu.evga.com/articles/00877/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-980-970-FREE-5-Years-Warranty/
 

Absolutely, EU gets backplate and 2 years of warranty, but we get nothing?

Like everyone it was my opinion! I can't find a review that gives EVGA any kind of real thumbs up over their competitors for the same product! As far as the backplate goes, there was a link, but that link no longer works. When I read about that EVGA would send the backplate to the owners, it was one more thing that said buy this card. This was way be for I heard about the other issues. Its funny that "lesser manufactures" can supply this backplate, but EVGA can't!

Vlada011

Stephenk291
this might be a silly question, but I've never done it. Does changing the thermal paste void the warranty?

Only with EVGA no, others lie. EVGA allow customer to decide only to take care and avoid physical damage.
In Serbia every service will back your card if they notice damage on screw and some
models even came with sticker and you can't separate cooler with card without destroying.
GIGABYTE, MSI special. ASUS have strong support and maybe allow to some special customers if you deal
before shooping because here most hardware you pay with cash in shop but they don't allow to everybody open like they want.
I mean they have right to back your card if notice anything from watercooler block, aftermarket cooler, changing paste.
 
If you ask me EVGA should remove from China everything possible for their hardware and produce in Mexico or USA.
I offer 25% more for every peace of hardware without complains.
China workers have tendency to sabotage, take them job and can eat garbage and next time will make better.
 
 

I am sorry but your post is just outrageous.
 
Yah? Is that true?  How are china workers responsible for poor and cheap-out design from evga?
 
"China worker have tendency to sabotage"?
How many Chinese workers do you know? how many factories have you investigated? how many business have you run there for you to conclude on that?
 
Why don't you trash all the made-in-china stuffs you have and see goes you feel without them?
then maybe you can appreciate their labor work a bit more, you ungrateful little crap.
 
BTW,  what does your little sh*ty country produce and contribute to the world other than racial conflicts and wars?