ASUS STRIX GeForce GTX 970 4GB Graphics Card Review

A Closer Look

The STRIX GTX 970 is a largely black design. The metal shround features some interesting detailing on it while the two fans have red stickers over them to resemble the owl’s eyes of the STRIX branding.

A backplate comes fitted as standard which is most definitely a welcomed touch.

At the bottom we get a glimpse of the rather chunky nickel plated copper heatpipes that ASUS have decided to use.

At the top we spot the huge 10mm heat pipe, the bottom two (pictured above) are both 8mm. Three heatpipes are equipped in total.

At the far end of the GPU we see an open-vented design so heat can be expelled into your case.

The rear I/O has been pruned over the reference design. ASUS drop the multiple DisplayPort options in favour of dual DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. While giving you less flexibility, in theory most users of this card in practice are likely to have cost effective 1080p monitors, or a single 1440p or 4K monitor. You won’t be able to run triple G-Sync monitors…but if you wanted to surely you’d buy a GTX 980?