Which 970 model to choose?

Keep in mind that there are always exceptions. This forum also has a lovely MSI red if not 2 (not 100% sure).
 
Thank you everyone for your time and your recommendations.

Due to pricing issues, I decided to go with the Gigabyte G1 Gaming edition.

The speed is quite nice, 1.4GHz without OC and it went to 1.5GHz with no problems as well, the memory is not so lucky, GPU-Z says it's Elpida and it's kinda hard to overclock (currently I tested +200MHz for stability, I believe it would max out at 300-350 as I started with 500MHz but did not have the patience or necessity to test the memory quality in detail).

Overall a great card, however there is a small issue of a noticeable amount of coil whine though I can't say exactly for sure if it's the GPU itself or the PSU, I noticed it starts to whine only when in high load and if I play games that don't put much load on the GPU it won't whine at all.
I will also add that my case is open on the side.

Should I be worried of the coil whine? it's not exactly loud but it's very noticeable if you take a moment to listen to it, and, is there any way to fix it from my side?

I saw on the internet that overclocking and overvolting it a bit makes the coil whine go away (though it didn't for me) and someone claimed that leaving it running over night with a game or something where's it's pumping 1k fps will make the whining go away. Though I did not test the second method as I'm not sure if that would make things worse or better.
 
Overall a great card, however there is a small issue of a noticeable amount of coil whine though I can't say exactly for sure if it's the GPU itself or the PSU, I noticed it starts to whine only when in high load and if I play games that don't put much load on the GPU it won't whine at all.
I will also add that my case is open on the side.

Should I be worried of the coil whine? it's not exactly loud but it's very noticeable if you take a moment to listen to it, and, is there any way to fix it from my side?

From my experience it's just pot luck I've had a GTX 260, 480, 760 and a GTX 960 and only my 760 had a small amount of buzz. Supposedly many 'premium' cards/brands these days feature components that are less prone to it but I think that's just marketing. I can hear my monitor buzzing if I put my ear next to it, it's pretty normal. I wear headphones anyhow.
 
I've seen some people say that when they OC'd the cards it went away at certain clocks etc. Though for all my 970s the worst I had was one that you couldn't even hear when the case panel was off. So I never bothered to try.

Could always try to OC it, or a burn in could possibly help.
 
I had a MSI GTX970 and it sag a lot but that is cause MSI IMO did a bone head move bye not putting a back plate on it i was never happy with it.
 
I had a MSI GTX970 and it sag a lot but that is cause MSI IMO did a bone head move bye not putting a back plate on it i was never happy with it.

Yeah i got the msi 970 100me which does have a backplate and it has no intention of sagging, it still is as straight in the case as the day i installed it, compare that to my brothers normal msi 970 and it sagged so much we put up a piece of plastic to hold it a bit more straight.
 
My Strix sags quite a bit despite the sturdy backplate, but less so in my current motherboard - plus I zip tied it to hold it up. Pugit in the USA makes brackets to hold them up but the only sell locally - I want one.

I imagine the Windforce being kinda equal in weight.
 
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Hello.

At the moment the G1 970 is not sagging at all.

Coil whine is still noticeable though, it is 100% coming from the GPU.
 
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