Power, Temperature and Noise
EVGA's factory overclock has narrowed the performance gap between GTX 970 and GTX 980, but raised shipping frequencies do come at a cost: the 970 FTW chews through more power than a stock-clocked 980. On the flip side, the card uses roughly the same amount of juice as a GTX 770, yet is significantly quicker.
We touched on the capability of the ACX 2.0 cooler earlier in the review, and here's the proof. Relatively speaking, the FTW card runs practically cold: 66ºC when gaming is very impressive. So much so that it'll be interesting to see what other manufacturers are able to achieve, especially on cards that aren't overclocked quite so high.
Such impressive temperature readings do come with a proviso, mind you. The GTX 970 FTW isn't loud by any stretch of the imagination, but it isn't as quite as Nvidia's reference cooler and it certainly won't be the quietest GTX 970 on offer.
Sifting through our log files reveals that fan speed rises to nearly 1,800 RPM when gaming. That allows the card to run incredibly cool, but it's a case of what the user prefers: lower temps or lower noise? We fall into the latter category, but we suspect the target audience for an FTW card would place a greater emphasis on cooling.
