Introduction

GTX 970 Market Segment Analysis Radeon

R9 280X GeForce

GTX 680 GeForce

GTX 780 Radeon

R9 290 GeForce

GTX 970 MSI GTX

970 Gaming Radeon

R9 290X Radeon

HD 7990 GeForce

GTX Titan GeForce

GTX 780 Ti GeForce

GTX 980 Shader Units 2048 1536 2304 2560 1664 1664 2816 2x 2048 2688 2880 2048 ROPs 32 32 48 64 64 64 64 2x 32 48 48 64 Graphics Processor Tahiti GK104 GK110 Hawaii GM204 GM204 Hawaii 2x Tahiti GK110 GK110 GM204 Transistors 4310M 3500M 7100M 6200M 5200M 5200M 6200M 2x 4310M 7100M 7100M 5200M Memory Size 3072 MB 2048 MB 3072 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB 2x 3072 MB 6144 MB 3072 MB 4096 MB Memory Bus Width 384 bit 256 bit 384 bit 512 bit 256 bit 256 bit 512 bit 2x 384 bit 384 bit 384 bit 256 bit Core Clock 1000 MHz 1006 MHz+ 863 MHz+ 947 MHz 1051 MHz+ 1114 MHz+ 1000 MHz 1000 MHz 837 MHz+ 876 MHz+ 1126 MHz+ Memory Clock 1500 MHz 1502 MHz 1502 MHz 1250 MHz 1750 MHz 1750 MHz 1250 MHz 1500 MHz 1502 MHz 1750 MHz 1750 MHz Price $205 $340 $350 $230 $330 $350 $310 $410 $1000 $400 $550

The GeForce GTX 970 is the smaller brother to NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 980, of which both are based on the Maxwell architecture using the GM204 graphics processor. The GTX 970, much like its predecessors, the GTX 770 and GTX 670, is destined to be an underrated card decking out lower shelves under the GTX 980's shadow. Steam Hardware survey trends would also agree with our guess that this card will end up selling more between the two in volume to probably even fetch NVIDIA more revenue overall.The GeForce GTX 970 is carved out of the 28 nm GM204 silicon the GTX 980 is based on, by disabling three of sixteen streaming multiprocessors with 128 CUDA cores each. The resulting shader count is 1,664. Texture memory units are, proportionately, down to 104, as are clock speeds, although they stay well above the 1 GHz mark. The ROP count stays at a whopping 64, with a 256-bit memory bus width and a standard memory total of 4 GB.MSI is one of the leading players on the graphics card market, and their GTX 970 Gaming, reviewed today, has been available since NVIDIA's launch. We previously tested the MSI GTX 980 Gaming , and are today finally taking a look at the GTX 970 Gaming.MSI's GTX 970 Gaming is a fully customized variant of the GTX 970 with a new dual-fan MSI TwinFrozr cooler and a custom board design with new voltage-regulation circuitry. The card is also overclocked to a base clock of 1114 MHz out of the box.The card is currently available online for $350, which is a reasonable price as it is in-line with similar offerings.