The Palit GeForce GTX970 Jetstream 4GB Is A Monster

I finally decided what graphics card to upgrade with, and my choice was the Palit GeForce GTX970 Jetstream 4GB, and wow what a card performance wise.

I rarely update my PC, but with the increasing amount of AAA games it was becoming needed. Especially as my 560ti has been getting lower frame-rates in games than I have been wanting for a smooth experience. Unity games especially are quite resource hungry, so this should do me for quite some time I hope.

A shot of the new beast sitting in the box:


Here's a look at different frame-rates across a few select games, these are the FPS (lowest-highest) I seem to get at different scenes.

Not 'official benchmarks' here, but a general look at just how good the card is in my real-world testing of it. These are not really automated benchmarks, just proper use of the card to see how it performs for a gamer.

Tested together with an Intel i5 4670K 3.4GHZ, 8GB DDR3 RAM and Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.1 64bit. This is with the 346.35 Nvidia driver.

Borderlands 2
1920x1080, High settings, 4X AF

560ti: 37-51
970: 38 for a split second, and then mostly lowest of ~55 - 130

Metro 2033 Redux
Detail level set to High.

560ti: 30-40
970: 113-160

The Witcher 2
1920x1080, High Settings, V-Sync Off

560ti: 23-37FPS (Noticeably sluggish too)
970: 53-99 (HOORAY! I can finally play it!)

Unigine Heaven
This was only tested on the 970 due to time and impatience on my part (I want to play games!).

On Ultra settings, Extreme tesellation, and 8X AA it managed a minimum of 30.5 and a max of 79.5, I think that's amazing for something so demanding, and again shows how good the card really is.

Annoyingly, I had to buy a new power supply unit to go with it, as the 970 made my original 500w Cooler Master squeal like a pig on helium (coil whine), and it was extremely annoying. So, this became a rather expensive upgrade, but it should make my Livestreams and game-play video's much smoother. I thought it was the new graphics card making all the noise, but after careful listening when taking the PSU out of the case I found out that it was creating the noise.

It also seems to have lights on it, so that's something. Not sure why anyone wants fancy lights and stuff like that, but it was an interesting surprise:

Yes, I know my cables are a mess, and I'm okay with that.

Verdict: Bloody buy it. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.