EVGA’s GTX 970 lineup is one of the most extensive among NVIDIA’s board partners and their FTW version is arguably the fastest available. Considering we’ve already looked at examples from ASUS, Gigabyte, PNY, GALAX and even EVGA, this isn’t an idle boast at all.The back-story behind EVGA’s Maxwell lineup is an interesting one since it has been beset by wild successes and some very public speed bumps. Their GTX 970 cards have been in high demand since they combine a low price with awesome performance and legendary customer support. However, many early adopters reported coil whine on their cards, an issue that EVGA readily admitted to and has since rectified. We reported on this last week and found that revised cards have made their way into the channel so you can buy with confidence. Fan speed profiles on the new ACX 2.0 cooler weren’t optimized either; idle noise was far too loud at launch but a new BIOS was rolled out that put things right.After the aforementioned revisions what we have on the test bench today is supposed to be the “final” GTX 970 FTW and let me tell you, it is a beast in the specifications department. Both base and Boost frequencies are the highest we have seen so far from a pre-overclocked card. It is fast for the GTX 970. Really, really fast. However the GDDR5 memory speeds remain at their default settings.The FTW is also equipped with EVGA’s second generation ACX heatsink which promises complete silence in idle scenarios while providing optimal cooling performance despite extreme clock speeds.One thing to remember is that EVGA’s FTW edition is the only GTX 970 in their stable that limits confusion by only coming equipped with the ACX 2.0 cooler. The Reference clocked card, Superclocked and SSC each come in up to three flavors: with a blower-style design, the original ACX heatsink design or include the upgraded ACX 2.0 cooler. Pay close attention to product numbers before buying.The high tolerance core binning that leads to this card supporting such extreme out of box frequencies naturally leads to a hefty price premium. At $380 the GTX 970 FTW is some $50 more expensive than the reference card and even one-ups products like Gigabyte’s GTX 970 G1 Gaming by a significant margin. With that being said, if you are purely looking for the best warranty-covered performance around, the FTW should fit the bill quite well.While it may be one of the fastest GTX 970’s on the market, EVGA’s FTW is surprisingly compact at just 9 ½” in length. Believe it or not, the size of its heatsink is not supposed to negatively impact temperatures despite the “bigger is better” approach some of the competition is taking.The ACX 2.0 heatsink itself is a pretty straightforward affair with two 80mm, 11-blade fans that use swept blades to better direct airflow. They also have a number of other upgraded internal components like a reinforced magnetic o-ring, an advanced motor design and double ball bearings. Internally, the heatsink itself makes use of an HDT base alongside an aluminum fin array that runs the card’s entire length.Aside from the more visible primary heatsink, EVGA has installed a PCB-hugging aluminum strip which not only helps cool PWM components but also adds to the card’s rigidity. This is an essential addition since the PWM on these cards can run hot and ACX 2.0 cooler is anything but light, putting significant strain on the PCB.Around the card’s backside there really isn’t anything interesting going on but it’s a bit disappointing to see EVGA avoiding a backplate on such an expensive card. The memory modules are left to fend for themselves which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since GDDR5 tends to run relatively cool but a secondary heatsink here would have alleviated any latent heat concerns.Input power is handled by a pair of 6-pin connectors which is par for the course but may be surprising for gamers who are used to the 6+8 pin affairs on competing cards. One thing to take into account is that the GTX 970 isn’t anywhere close to being bottlenecked by its power distribution and the FTW is no different. Utilizing a different layout with an 8-pin connector doesn’t add one iota of overclocking headroom to these cards, regardless of what some marketing departments would have you believe.The I/O plate is pretty basic and follows the usual template for Maxwell cards. There’s two DVI outputs (one DVI-D and one DVI-I) alongside a single HDMI 1.4 connector and a DisplayPort. This allows for NVIDIA Surround from a single card and also includes 4K capabilities through the single DisplayPort output.