I recently purchased one of these and typed on some impressions for the [H]forum. I'm cross-posting from there - apologies if that offends anyone's sensibilities.
To be clear, this is the card I'm talking about:
http://www.galaxstore.net/GALAX-NVIDIA- ... dt8rvz.htm
Galax is the new name for the brand formerly known as Galaxy (or KFA2 in certain regions). The boards aren't available through retailers in the US yet, however Galax(y) sells them direct through their website. I was shopping for a video card for a small form factor system and wasn't thrilled with the various options that had popped up - the Gigabyte card blocked all rear exhaust with its 37 different outputs, the Zotac card had rear exhaust but vertical heatsink fans, which I figured would direct most of the warm air up and down instead of out of the case, and the Asus card hadn't been announced yet.
So when someone posted a link to Galax' new website and I saw they had a smallish 970 (listed at 193mm on their website), with a rear exhaust cutout and horizontal fins, I figured it was worth a shot. I ordered one on the 22nd and picked it up from the post office two days ago.
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First things first, I run 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04.1 on my system, so I can't test D3D out with anything. Likewise there are a lot of newer games that don't run on Linux, so my "testing" is a bit limited. I've put driver install instructions at the very bottom of the post if anyone is unfamiliar with how to do it. Ubuntu 14.10 may require it as well.
My system is an SG05-450 with Asus Z97I-Plus, i7-4790k, 16GB of LP Ballistix Tactical and M550 512GB m.2 SSD. This is currently connected to a Dell U2715H - my home office monitor - so I can try out some native 2560x1440 resolution. Using Ubuntu 14.04.1 with the xord-edgers PPA for drivers (see below for install instructions).
I don't see any DSR options in the settings, so I can't test that under Linux. It might be supported in the newer drivers... or it might not be doable on Linux currently because of some weird X nonsense.
Here's some results from two Unigine Valley runs:
2560x1440, quality High
FPS: 56.6
Score: 2370
Min FPS: 33.6
Max FPS: 95.5
1920x1080, quality Ultra:
FPS: 81.1
Score: 3395
Min FPS: 39.3
Max FPS: 128.6
The scores are lower than some D3D 11 scores I've seen posted, and mine are a little lower than some other Linux benchmarks (Phoronix', for instance, although they had an updated kernel installed on theirs which might account for that), but basically: it's a GeForce 970. No surprises there.
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As for the quality of the thing, a few notes:
packaging/shipping:
Shipping took 8 days from when I ordered it to the post office's attempt at delivery (needed a signature and I wasn't home) - which is great considering it had to go through customs, too.
They shipped it by putting the box in a Fedex box, with no additional packaging. I was concerned about this at first - I opened it at the post office after I picked it up to make sure it wasn't damaged - and was happy to see that the actual card's box was full of a custom cut foam tray for the card to sit in. While the box was a little dinged up, the contents were definitely protected, and that was the important thing.
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weird noises:
I think I've read about this before but can't find where now, but if I drop resolution and turn off vsync, getting framerates well into the hundreds, there's an odd buzz/whine something sound that shows up. It's noticeable at 60fps, though quieter than when I first noticed it two days ago. Coils whine/buzz of some sort, I expect. I may just leave it running for a while to "burn-in" and see if that affects it. Or maybe it needs to be introduced to the oven.
Also, one very strange one: on some 2D screens in a 3D app, it... whistles? Once again, maybe some coil thing, that's always a safe bet when it comes to weird noises. The only instance I can think of where this is noticeable is when I close Unigine Valley or Heaven - that flat "credits" screen that displays for a few seconds causes it. But only in full screen mode, it doesn't do it in windowed mode. Perhaps a result of framerates shooting into the stratosphere on a single 2D screen while it's still using OpenGL for rendering?
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Heatsink and fan:
This is my only 970, and my first "modern" video card. Prior to this I was using a 560ti (bought cheaply as a stopgap while I waited for the 900 series to launch), but before that, I had strayed away from PC gaming, so my systems just used onboard video.
I expect fan noise is similar to any other 970; very quiet at idle, lots of fan noise at load. But this is the price paid for a small form factor, high end video card. The fans still spin at idle; I know some newer cards have a fan stop feature where, if temps are low enough, they don't spin at all, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Also, at load, I can definitely feel the cool air being sucked in the SG05's side vent. The fans are positioned perfectly to get air drawn in to them. Very pleased with that.
Speaking of temps, it seems to max out around 71-72C, with the fans going at a pretty good clip. It also gets there really quickly, within a minute or so of loading up Unigine, for instance. It doesn't get any higher than that, and I'm not seeing any down-throttling after letting the test run for half an hour ish. Dunno if this indicates that I need to reapply the thermal paste or if it's normal behavior.
The heatsink is beefy. It's got decent heft to it (I didn't think to weigh it, sorry) and the shroud is made of a solid metal, not plastic. The horizontal fins and the rear exhaust vent are what made me buy this particular model, figuring it would be the best setup for a small case, and I think I chose correctly. Once it is running at load for a bit I get a good amount of warm air getting pushed out of the exhaust vent. There's warm air being exhausted into the case, as well, but it doesn't feel like as much. This is using the highly scientific "hold your hand here" method. I need to get some sort of thermometer I could use to check the airflow and see how it is, might have something in the kitchen that would work.
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Card dimensions:
This is the big one, or, actually, the small one.
The PCB measures 170mm, and the heatsink's shroud is only a tiny bit longer, I measured it at 173mm. That's a full 2cm shorter than what Galax' website says (they list it at 193mm there). That came as a pleasant surprise. It will easily fit in a CM elite 110 (and I happen to have one of those on my desk). Combined with the standard card height, that leaves only the top-protruding PCI Express power connectors to interfere with your build.
This makes it a much more palatable choice than previously expected. The Gigabyte ITX 970 is 183mm according to their website (although it seems to be closer to 170mm in pictures); the new Asus one recently announced is listed at 17cm, and the Zotac 970 is 204mm at the shroud (though 190 at the heatpipes and 170 at the PCB).
I took a few pictures if anyone is interested, will get those uploaded somewhere later this evening.
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Ubuntu driver install instructions:
Ubuntu 14.04.1 (which I'm using) doesn't have support for the GTX 970 "out of the box" - the drivers aren't in the repositories yet. Expect this to be corrected when 14.04.2 comes out (scheduled for February 5). Thankfully, since it's just a point release, it will be an automatic update, and from then on the drivers should show up under "additional drivers" like they typically do.
In the interim, getting a 970 set up in Ubuntu is still pretty easy (and can be done without going to the terminal):
1) Go to "system settings" / "software & updates"
2) Click "other software" and then "add", and type:
3) ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
4) click "close" and then "reload" when prompted.
This will add a new software repository for your system and update the list of available software. This particular one is maintained with all of the newest video stuffs for Ubuntu.
After this, run the software updater (if it doesn't automatically come up, click "system settings" / "details" and on the first tab there should be a button about checking for updates). It will install all updates available and might require a restart.
Last step. Open up the Ubuntu software center and search for "nvidia 343" for the 343 series driver. (There's also a 346 driver but it is marked as Beta on nvidia's site. I haven't tested it.) In the list of search results you should see "NVIDIA binary driver - version 343.22" and a package name underneath that of "nvidia-343".
Click "more info" and then, under the optional extras, make sure everything is checked except Optimus support. Let it install, do a reboot and you should be good to go.
