Gainward Phoenix GTX 970 4GB Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Price

The Gainward Phoenix GTX 970 is currently available in the UK from SCAN for £273.56 and for an estimated $360 in the US. Stock isn’t currently available but from experience, Gainward tend to supply the US later than the EU with new cards.

Overview

There we have it, probably the last new GTX 970 to be produced until Pascal is released next year. The sub £300 market is saturated with many options from both AMD and NVIDIA and the bad press of the GTX 970 has put off most manufacturers. Thankfully Gainward is keeping the competition on their toes and should keep pricing and innovation competitive for the coming months.

We’re really at the point of graphics card design where everything looks the same, a three fan design will be around as long as any other three fan card, same with dual fans and so on. However, Gainward has managed to unleash a little more creativity than we know them for with the Phantom range and produce something that is extremely pleasing to look at.

One thing I noticed straight away when I picked the card up was just how light it was, I’ve picked up heavier ITX orientated graphics cards, yet the cooling is still superb and ultra quiet. The quality feels cheap due to the plastic shroud, but this helps keep the weight down and it’s not every day you hold your graphics card.

Gainward has managed to squeeze out slightly more performance out of this compared to other GTX 970’s available. It just goes to show that by spending a little more time on the designing and production process, you can increase the performance. As we know from experience with the GTX 970, it has more than enough power to play all games at 1080p and maximum settings and with some quality settings decreased, you can hit over 60FPS at 1440p.

Pros

• Extremely cool and quiet
• Good power increase of other GTX 970’s
• Unique styling

Cons

• None

Neutral

• Longer than needed PCB detracts from finish

“The Gainward Phoenix GTX 970 is another great option if you’re planning on joining the Maxwell family and offers unique design compared to the dreary black and red designs that has saturated the market.“

Thank you to Gainward for providing this review sample.