SLI Endeavor / Main Computer: Palit GeForce GTX 970 (No Reference) Unboxing and Overview

Now this week I placed an order for the new GTX 970 which arrived at my doorstep. This is the base reference model of the card. This card is currently being sold at 329 USD which is converted 420 Singaporean Dollars. However, mark up and shipping costs will bump the cheapest model available at 509 SGD, 410 USD also from Palit. I did manage to get one at 459 (Including 7% Goods and Service Tax, so without it was 420SGD). This is the start of an SLI endeavor. This will require a bit more money and it will require me to sell my GTX 780. I was hoping that I didn't need to do this as with 2 new cards I could potentially setup a 2nd machine as a bedside computer.

I'm needing some divine intervention to win parts from Various Giveaways that I've been participating over and over and over. And this is an important project!

REASON

The reason I bought this as you might have guessed to replace the 780 I have. However, why replace such a good card already at this point? Well, as I said, I want to go SLI setup. And this will be the first time in 2 and a half years where I use 2 Graphics Cards in the system, the last being 2 Radeon 6970s that was really really hot and use more power. However the GTX 780 OC was consuming a tonne of power. And if I use an SLI Setup of stock GTX 970s, there's a chance that the Power Draw can be less than a heavily OCed GTX 780. And once I replace my Crappy Coolermaster 650W RS-650 PCAR PSU with something finally having a 80+ Medal (Bronze, Silver or Gold) PSU, the power savings will be a lot evident. What's more I just found out today that the CM RS-650 PSU is only 70% Efficient (OUCH!!!!!!), so actually I'm pulling off a lot more watts off the wall than I should!

And knowing GK 110 Kepler Overclock + 70% Efficient PSU: It's not an ideal combi.
80%+ Bronze/Silver/Gold...etc Certification + Maxwell is the way to go!

Also, the bigger 1GB GDDR5 Buffer will help in higher resolutions in the long run, at least have some head room when I run my Triple screen setups.

THE CARD

Well, enough talk, this topic is well an unboxing and overview of the card. It's just a simple one, without fuss.

The package that arrived from Convergent Systems: It's a plain white box.

The back of the box.

Well here's the back of the box that contains the general info about the card.

The Maxwell architecture has been well received throughout for its Power to Wattage ratio and it meant nightmare for AMD, This card after several reviews could already battle the R9 290X head-on. This is causing AMD to lower pricing of their cards to compete with the GTX 970 and 980.

Very simple unboxing

For now it's a very Simple unboxing:

It contains the:
- Palit GTX 970
- A Driver Disc, This is a starting point to get your card running but I strongly recommend downloading the latest definitions from GeForce.com
- Manual
- DVI to VGA Adapter: As always very nice to have on hand as it does work for Surround. These cards do call for stuff like display port monitors and all this, but hey. Include an adapter, why not.

The Bad which is very unfortunate:
- No mini HDMI to HDMI adapter and Mini Display to (DVI / HDMI or whatever) adapter
- No included Dual Molex to PCI-E 6 Pin connector

IO at the back: DVI (support Analog) 3 mini Display
in its typical backside view.

This is how it looks like in a typical orientation.
No Flashing LED. But that's not a bother for me.
Included is 2 6-pin PCI-E. TDP is about 145-150 Watts.

This card does support nVidia Surround plus an additional Auxiliary monitor. But the I/O isn't something that I like. It just requires me to go through the trouble of getting adapters for mini HDMI to HDMI and mini Display to DVI. However, there's a huge PC DIY complex next to LaSalle College of the Arts where I study so I'm able to stock up what I need. I was able to get an SLI Bridge which was actually an even bigger problem because major shops didn't have them as the bridges should come with your motherboard but I don't have one. No worries, easy remedy.

Tipping the card to its typical orientation, you could see the Palit logo. The card does measure just under 10 inches long, 245mm to be exact. Like most cards though, it's advisable to leave some extra length in your chassis for extra airflow.

The Typical stock GTX 970s normally have the Silver reference cooler with the LEDs. This one doesn't have it. Looks are subjective. And in this case of the Palit's base card, I'm not fussy with appearance. This is just fine. This card meant to be a cost saving. And 2nd my case doesn't have a window on it. Also seen are the 2 six-pin PCI-E Connector which is the same as most Maxwell GTX 900 series cards.

The specs are the same as the reference GTX 970 so you can look this up yourself in nVidia's GeForce website or finding Palit's website that has the spec sheet of the base card.

The Base Palit GTX 970 measures in about 24.5cm or 245mm
which is just under 10 inches from its bracket to the end of the card.
It's not that large compared to stuff like ASUS Matrix, Sapphire TOXIC.

BOTTOMLINE

This card is meant to be a simple cost effective way to get a  GTX 970 in your system. No frills just the lack of the ideal IO put me off somewhat.

In the near future, once exams are over, I'll start giving this card a whirl. Apart from the lack of stuff in this unboxing, the GTX 970 looks to be an exciting value card that nVidia finally cranked into the High-End Tier.

So you can expect some benchmarks to compare single and Dual GPUs at the end of November! So stay tuned! But first I need more money or somebody to give me a free GPU and a larger Power Supply!