ASUS Strix Edition GeForce GTX 970 Graphics Card Review

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by Rob Williams on September 24, 2014 in Graphics & Displays

With the help of Maxwell, NVIDIA has hit a definite home run with its GeForce GTX 900 GPUs. In our look at the GTX 980 last week, we were left thoroughly impressed, but little did we realize at the time, the GTX 970 – and ASUS’ Strix edition in particular – was about to impress us even more. Simply put, you need to check this card out.

Page 9 – Synthetic Tests: Futuremark 3DMark, 3DMark 11, Unigine Heaven 4.0

We don’t make it a point to seek out automated gaming benchmarks, but we do like to get a couple in that anyone reading this can run themselves. Of these, Futuremark’s name leads the pack, as its benchmarks have become synonymous with the activity. Plus, it does help that the company’s benchmarks stress PCs to their limit – and beyond.

3DMark

While Futuremark’s latest GPU test suite is 3DMark, I’m also including results from 3DMark 11 as it’s still a common choice among benchmarkers.

ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix - Futuremark 3DMark

ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix - Futuremark 3DMark 11 - Performance

ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix - Futuremark 3DMark 11 - Extreme

3DMark 11 can’t seem to decide exactly where the GTX 970 ranks in comparison to the GTX 780 Ti, but in 3DMark (2013), the ASUS’ Strix ekes ahead of both the 780 Ti and R9 290X.

Unigine Heaven 4.0

Unigine might not have as established a name as Futuremark, but its products are nothing short of “awesome”. The company’s main focus is its game engine, but a by-product of that is its benchmarks, which are used to both give benchmarkers another great tool to take advantage of, and also to show-off what its engine is capable of. It’s a win-win all-around.

Unigine Heaven 4.0

The biggest reason that the company’s “Heaven” benchmark is so relied-upon by benchmarkers is that both AMD and NVIDIA promote it for its heavy use of tessellation. Like 3DMark, the benchmark here is overkill by design, so results are not going to directly correlate with real gameplay. Rather, they showcase which card models can better handle both DX11 and its GPU-bogging features.

ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix - Unigine Heaven 4.0 (1920x1080)

Heaven becomes yet another test where the 780 Ti is mysteriously able to leap past the GTX 970. Overall though, ASUS’ Strix has definitely been the dominant card.

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Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.

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