Gigabyte GeForce GTX970 Windforce 3X

Super-cool value still viable?

THE GEFORCE GTX 970 was our most recommended graphics card of last year. In fact, you’d be hard pushed to find a tech journalist who wasn’t suggesting you buy this for a fresh system. For 1080p gaming, it was the sweet spot of the time. 3.5GB of VRAM aside, it consistently provided solid performance in AAA titles at 60 frames per second, and for an incredibly reasonable price. Combine that with Nvidia’s aggressive marketing of both G-Sync and GeForce Experience, and it was a shoo-in for Team Green earning a healthy chunk of the mid-range market share.

Times have changed, however. The likes of the GTX 1060 and the RX 480 are on the scene now, so can this ageing hero keep up with the new generation of more powerful, more efficient youngsters? In a word, perhaps. It depends on the manufacturer and make. Take this Gigabyte Windforce card: It’s a triple fan cooled, high overclock variant of the reference GTX 970. It comes with a high base boost clock reaching up to 1,278MHz in its overclocked mode—a full 100MHz higher than the stock card—and performs damn near close to the reference GTX 980, at least at 1080p, scoring in the mid50s in both Far Cry Primal and The Division.

Crank up the overclock, and you can easily hit a final core clock of 1,500MHz. We managed 1,529MHz as our final boost, in fact, a whole 4MHz higher than our reference GTX 980. Winning is winning here, and that’s damn impressive for what should otherwise be a crippled core. Even at stock, that led to a 1,200 point increase in Fire Strike, and around a 10 percent increase overall in our other titles, or the equivalent of swapping from a Intel Core i7-6700K to a 6950X.

At the time of writing, this little beauty is available for $280, putting it just above an AMD RX 480 in price. Is it worth buying now? Probably not, but the old girl’s still got some life in her yet, and if you’re not quite ready to give her up, it might be worth considering SLI.

VERDICT7

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 Windforce 3X

HURRICANE Astonishing overclock; solid 1080p performance; cool and quiet.

LIGHT BREEZE Long card; still a touch pricey; 3.5GB of effective VRAM.

$280, www.gigabyte.com