The EVGA 970 SSC ACX2.0+

As the name suggests the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SSC ACX 2.0+ comes with EVGA’s latest revision to their ACX line of coolers. EVGA first introduced the ACX line back in May of 2013 with the launch of their 780 lineup. The latest revision promises even quieter and more power efficient cooling than its predecessor. We saw EVGA showing off a demo of this latest revision at CES and we’re very excited to put it to the test. Thanks to Nvidia’s extremely power efficient architecture EVGA was able to design a cooler that doesn’t even have to turn on unless under heavy stress! Coined “dBi” or dB Noise Inverter, it turns off the fans of the cooler if the card is below 60C, which with no additional OC, we found is actually most of the time.

EVGA put these marketing slides and videos together for their new ACX2.0 coolers, later on in the review we’ll discuss our findings.

(Courtesy of EVGA) New Features:

• dBi – dB Noise Inverter turns fans off below 60C, generating 0dB of noise during idle!
• QSD BIOS – Quick Switch Dual BIOS allow you to switch to secondary BIOS with the flick of a switch.
• MMCP – Memory MOSFET Cooling Plate reduces MOSFET temps by 47% and Memory by 14%.
• OPT – Optimized Power Target offers 33% more power over reference.
• SHP – Straight Heat Pipes reduce GPU temperature by almost 5C!

Marketing aside, lets get this GPU unboxed:

The 970 SSC comes in now standard EVGA packaging.

Inside the box you’ll find the usual suspects of goodies from EVGA.

• A large poster
• Several stickers
• Case badge
• Driver disk
• Instructional Manual
• Additional marketing handouts
• DVI->VGA Adapter
• Dual Molex -> 6 pin power adapter
• Dual 6 pin -> 8 pin power adapter

Nothing particularly exciting but still more than most vendors send.

While at this point we are well aware that the fans will not turn on before the GPU hits 60C, we definitely don’t blame EVGA for wanting to throw this in the box for those that may not be aware of this feature. We can only imagine someone who’s building their computer for the the first time freaking out because their fans aren’t turning on. Take note others vendors, small handouts like this can save you a lot of trouble in the future.

Case badges are less popular these days than they were five years ago but EVGA still manages to make a good looking badge. Unlike the flimsy ones you may receive from Intel or AMD, these badges are rigid and feel heavy duty.

Standard DVI->VGA, Dual Molex -> 6 pin, and Dual 6 pin -> 8 pin. The latter maybe confusing because most 970s only have 2 6 pins, but this higher powered card has an 8 pin and a 6pin.

Although it’s nice to see that the cables are black, we would have much preferred to see them individually sleeved like the PSU cable sets EVGA offers. These glossy, and sort of sticky, cables are not our favorite.

Finally, the card itself! We do miss the protective foam that EVGA used to ship their GPUs in.

The molded plastic did its job and the GPU arrived in perfect condition with plenty of additional plastic protection on the card itself. Read on for a look at EVGA’s ACX2.0+ cooler!