GTX 970, which version?

Which version is the absolute best to get?

I'm looking at:

MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4GB GDDR5

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 Gaming-4GB GDDR5 G1 Gaming

EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 SSC ACX Cooler 2.0

The SSC is the one that I take is the most clocked and has the highest core clocks, would that make it the best? Or?

Gigabyte has the better cooler, so you can possibly get a better overclock, than the others.

I think its between the G1 gaming and MSI brand, overall which one would be better performance,OC wise with good temps?

@Mortalmaster123: +1 to what @04dcarraher said.

I had your dilemma, more than 1 year ago.

I was gathering data from everywhere. I daily read 15 hardware sites, so you can imagine the search I did.

From all the data I gather, I chose Gigabyte G1.

Why?

Better temps. I live in the hottest EU country so I wanted the best temps.

Not only for core that @MonsieurX posted but for VRMs as well.

This is for Gigabyte G1:

And this is for MSI gaming:

Also an other guy that reviewed ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte Cards found that the G1 from Gigabyte was the only GPU that wasn't throttling.

So that makes also Gigabyte's G1 faster than some other maybe in the same or faster clocks. How is this happens? Kepler and Maxwell architecture boost the clock depending on how good a cooler is cause of temps.

In the end the choice for me was clear.

Gigabyte G1 GTX970 was my next GPU.

All you are awesome thanks for the photos with comparisons and explanations on which one you think is better.

I'll be going with Gigabyte G1 gaming 970 and OC it to reach 980 levels!

G1 if money is really not an issue. It cost about $30 more.

One last question before I make the purchase.

I can get a

Powercolor Radeon R9 390X PCS+ 1060MHZ 8GB 6.0GHZ

At the same price as the 970. Still better to stick with the g1 gaming 970?

@Mortalmaster123: Powercolor R9 390X PCS+ is a nice GPU that got good performance (since its the R9 390X model it should be faster than GTX970) and great temps.

But it has a problem that annoys some people.

Its loud when you are gaming.

Acoustical Testing from Hardware Canucks

What you see below are the baseline idle dB(A) results attained for a relatively quiet open-case system (specs are in the Methodology section) sans GPU along with the attained results for each individual card in idle and load scenarios. The meter we use has been calibrated and is placed at seated ear-level exactly 12” away from the GPU’s fan. For the load scenarios, Hitman Absolution is used in order to generate a constant load on the GPU(s) over the course of 15 minutes.

Throughout our testing with the PCS+, one thing stood out: it was one of the loudest cards we’ve encountered in a long, long time. At idle, the fans don’t make a peep since they’re programmed to turn off when the card is idling but when gaming, things get messy quite fast.

As you can see in the chart above, PowerColor seems to have programmed the card to top out at about 2000RPMs which isn’t all that bad considering the fans are actually quite quiet at that level. However, that step doesn’t last for long as the card then kicks things up another gear before leveling off at a ballistic 2350RPMs.

We have a funny feeling these fans speeds have been carried over from the R9 290X PCS+ which did indeed require higher RPMs to insure nominal temperatures. However, the Grenada XT core is supposed to require substantially less cooling which is why PowerColor’s competitors have been able to effectively reduce their fan speeds despite utilizing identical heatsinks as their respective Hawaii XT-based products.

The acoustic numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise with the PCS+’s fans spinning away at “good GOD!” levels. What makes this so frustrating is there’s absolutely no need for this; PowerColor could have implemented a fan speed profile that allowed their card to hit between 70°C to 75°C with a significantly more intelligent RPM output method and we would have been singing its praises.

So if you are fine with this, then go for it.

If not then stay with GTX970 G1.

The GTX 970 has 3.49 teraflops, the r9 390X has 5.6 teraflops.

And 7990 has 8,2 teraflops.

This is just compute FP32 performance.

You shouldn't see these numbers nor FP64 when you want to buy a GAMING card.

This is just compute FP32 performance.

So it means nothing then, it's insignificant?

EVGA cards I noticed are a big hit and miss. Mine I can't even get +100 on the core.
Jayztwocents, well his SSC? a dud for OC'ing, he said it wouldn't go passed 1442. If that is true, he didn't even get +50 on the card.