Awesome Improvement for Gaming on Dell XPS 8700
349477
I bought this GTX 970 FTW for improving the gaming on my Dell XPS 8700. I read very good reviews about the performance of this graphics card so my main concern was whether it would fit my XPS 8700 and if the stock 460 power supply was adequate. From what I read, while they recommend a 500 w power supply, the draw from this GPU is low enough  that it won't matter unless you are running other accessories demanding power. Anyway, seeing that others have been running this card for over a year with stock PSU, thought I would give it a go.
Very glad I did, install was plug and play. Just make sure you have gone to Dell and updated your Bios to latest A10 version first. The actual install is easy and there is a pretty good YouTube video on this exact model. I also upgraded to 16 GB of crucial memory at same time and that was well worth the investment as well. The only thing that is a little tricky when installing the card is you need to hold the optical drive cable under the back end of the GPU as you install it because stock cable is too short to go over this unit. I laid the cable flat next to RAM plugs and it is snug, but not stressing either connectors or the cable.
Once installed, you just grab latest drivers off nvidia site and configure you monitors. I used both the DisplayPort and HDMI outputs for my two monitors.
The results? On the ARK survival game I was getting 15-25 FPS on medium video settings -- high and epic levels were unplayable. With new GPU I get 80 FPS on med, 60 on high and 45-55 on epic. Not much difference in visual quality between epic and high, so I use high setting and fans kick on now and then after heavy action sequences, but go off again on their own. Very quiet fans.

Overall, a great investment for a casual gamer and easy install if you feel comfortable popping the back off of your computer.
4617164
This was my first big purchase moving up from 2 6870's in Crossfire. I just have to say that I got every penny I spent I got back experiencing absolute gorgeous games like Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, Far Cry 3, Metro: Last Light. I rarely dip under 50 FPS with everything in-game maxed out at 1920x1080 only lowering AA if necessary. I contemplated my choice of card after I had gotten it, wondering if I should have picked up a 780 and in the end I'm more than happier with my purchase than ever.

It's worth it, every penny. It was such a gigantic improvement from my 6870 x2 setup that I still get giddy opening up a game and just oggling what it has to offer graphically. You will be glad you made this purchase and you will be golden for the years to come. I have plans to get another one of these bad boys and SLI them at some point but everything runs so well with just one at the moment that there just isn't any rush.
4146609
Great Video Card!!  Outstanding value for performance
4315480
Upgraded to an R9 390X and FX-8350 from R7 360 and Athlon X4 860k, and I must say, the improvements are nice! I get way more  FPS than I usually do (Denoted by the FPS counters, I have a lame 60hz monitor), and I can  go from playing medium\high graphics with good fps to Ultra on pretty much all  games at 60+ FPS. This thing is a beast for gaming AND rendering video.  Pretty good for a card built on 1.5 year old architectures. Can't wait til AMD's next gamechanging graphics card release later this year.
1203880
I bought this computer toward the end of February. It arrived quickly and was well packaged but not overly packaged. The first few days I had it I received multiple error messages and it would not update drivers through the Nvidia control panel. It kept saying it couldn't connect now and to try later. The computer still ran well  but it was a bit annoying to keep receiving error messages on a brand new system. I eventually updated the NVidia driver directly from the website and that got the Nvidia control panel to work but didn't seem to do much else.  A day or two after I did that Nvidia released a driver update that solved all of my issues with the computer. I'm now I'm incredibly happy with the performance. The system goes from completely off to fully booted and ready to go in about three seconds. It is super stable and Fallout 3 now runs in windows ten without having to install dubious fan-made patches.
2575909
UPDATE:
- update BIOS updated to 1.10, important for HDD/RAM upgraders
- update Intel HD Driver to 8.15.10.2761, important for the everyday use.
- update NVIDIA driver to latest WQHL driver: 306.23, important for GW2, Borderlands 2, and Torchlight 2.
- Remember to use Ninite.com to download latest Flash and other good backend stuff.

First and foremost, remove a star or even two if you're going to do any hardware modification such as HDD replacement, or even just reinstalling a fresh windows to remove bloatware. A fresh install of windows won't see much of the laptop hardware at all, and requires that you get all of the drivers from Acer's website then burn them to a disc. Please note that both the LAN and WLAN will not function, meaning that you must grab the drivers from another computer. To top it all off, acer's drivers are quite behind but are still required for your hardward to even see any updates for it; biggest being the Nvidia Optimus duo. Get the acer version drivers for both Intel HD and Nvidia, install, then get the latest versions of both from their respective websites and reinstall (the beta 304.79 is the only Nvidia driver that will install correctly under optimus and only after you update the Intel HD to it's own latest drivers). It goes past being a critical annoyance.

For the raw hardware, though, this is a decent deal. The specs are good enough to play modern games on at least mid (and more than likely high) due to the combination of the still-current GT 630M and the somewhat-low 1366x768 screen resolution. LoL and Dota2 load up just fine, as does Diablo 3. GW2 runs fine at mid, but that's the beta build.

As far as video performance goes, you CAN run the supercodec madVR at full settings with 1080p content, which is an accomplishment at this price. However, the laptop does not play blu-rays without an external player, so good luck using it for that.

As for editing, AdobeSuite/Blender sees the GT 630M and defaults to that, and every last tool in the suite works fine and with a decent speed. A few tweaks and you're ready to go. Note about Adobe Dreamweaver CS6: it will complain on install but otherwise run fine once you rearrange it.

TurboBoost looks erratic but it's intended this way. It will dynamically underclock the CPU when it's not being used to conserve power, or kick it up to 3.1GHz (though it likes to keep it at 2.8GHz) when under load. Without the notification going, however, you'll never notice it.

The laptop can get a bit warm (not scalding hot, though), so I'd recommend a stand if you're to use it on your lap. Grab evga's GPU tuner if you want to underclock the GT 630M a bit if you don't plan on using it to spare you some heat/power consumption.

Ports are in a pretty standard place. Nothing going on here. Overall design-wise, it's nice and thin. Thinner than expected, actually; you may want to figure out a bag for it when travelling. As the other reviewer said, though, fingerprint magnet, even if you've recently washed your hands (but nothing a little plastic polish / microfiber cloth every once in a while can't fix).

Battery life is as stated so long as both TurboBoost and Optimus are working as intended. Otherwise it is a bit lower.

Quirks? If you have large hands you're better off turning off the touchpad and using a mouse, as you'll bump into it constantly. The fan sounds a bit erratic, thanks to TurboBoost/Optimus. The sound is LOUD but just the slightest bit tinny through the build in speakers. The touchpad's left mouse button won't register near it's center as it feels pretty solid around the divider.

But if you want, you can replace the HDD with a SSD and get some nice G.Skill RAM and this thing will replace your desktop pretty easily for a great price. Just be careful when reinstalling Windows.

Pros:
Hardware specs for the price
Gaming/Video/Editing Performance
Can actually last a while on battery
That screen

Cons:
Reinstalling Windows WILL be a pain
Has a few, non-gamebreaking quirks
No blu-ray
Bad support from Acer software-wise
496318
Great addition to my computer.  I needed a card that would give me better HD video and play some of the games that my integrated graphics wouldn't allow especially at full settings (Half-Life 2, GTA 3, Sim City 4).  Very quiet card (I can't hear it at idle).  Very easy and fast installation.  Great card for my 7 year old system.  No installation issues with my P4 CPU and motherboard.  Card is backwards compatible with PCI-Express x16 & 2.0  The only negative experience from installing this card is that I had to reinstall XP again because the Operating System wouldn't re-validate once the video card was installed.  Overall, very good card and the price was unbeatable.
970769
Synopsis

The product arrived on time and in great condition.

I want a card that gives me a great gaming experience with no lag and no stuttering . When I am recording, I want my  gaming experience to be just as great. I also want a card that's well built, has power to grow, and looks awesome.
This card is exactly what I want.  The MSI GTX 680 Power Edition has black and yellow detailing that looks great with my MSI Big Bang Z77 Mpower motherboard.  It has military grade components which gives durability to the card.  It has enough power to grow as games become more power intensive and enough power now to give me a great gaming experience.

What is a GTX 680 Power Edition?

I came across this Power Edition card and wanted to learn more about the differnces between it and the lightning. I quickly realized there is precious little information about the PE card. So, I am writing this to put some more information out there to you.

This card appears to be a binned down version of the 680 Lightning.  The components are military grade, the design is the same, and even the N2 BIOS and Power Reactor are included on the motherboard. And oh yes, the same Lightning color scheme.

I first installed this card in my older Dell XPS 700 computer. I had to use the included 6 pin to 8 pin power adapters to supply power to the card.  I was cautions, as the card specs require 38 amps on the 12 volt bus and my power supply only has 30.  Since I wasn't planning on overclocking the card, I felt I wouldn't cause any damage to the XPS power supply or the card.
The card performed very well in the XPS and I noticed a significant boost in performance in games like Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3.  Unfortunately, my CPU was still bottlenecking my gaming performance.  I didn't do any bench or stress testing with this card in the XPS as that was not the purpose of the XPS install. My purpose of installing the card in the XPS was to make sure the card worked, that the card would work with the 6 pin power adapters, and to basically state that the card will work in older systems.

Specs

The GPU processor has a Core / Base clock of 1019 MHz and a Boost clock of 1058 MHz. The card that I have boosts to 1110 MHz, which just happens to be the Core / Base clock of the Lightning.

I ran Haven and acheived the following Scores:
Score  1088
FPS 43.2
Min. 27.3
Max. 111.8

I also ran PC Mark Vantage (The free version) and obtained the following scores:
P28469
Graphics 33291

Conclusion

I am very pleased with my purchase of this card.  The card meets and exceeds my expectations.  The card performs extremely well in my new system and even works well in my older XPS system. While I have no intention of overclocking this card at this point, as games progress.  I expect I'll be able to overclock it to get better performance as the need arises and because it's overbuild, the card should last until such time.

I highly recommend this card and highly recommend Amazon as the source vendor.
4765922
I purchased this to replace my high-end ASUS gaming laptop which burned up after 3.5 years.  I am an avid MMORPG player and needed a computer with the speed, power, graphics, and RAM to run The Elder Scrolls Online and Everquest II, among others - as well as handle my acounting and personal graphics work.  My Dell XPS does a fabulous job - graphics are smooth and crystal clear, no jerking or lag, reponse time is lightning fast.  Highly recommend it to anyone who games!  I was a tad leery of Win8, but very quickly came to love it.  All in all this is a great system!  It arrived on time (in spite of frozen roads in the north) and was very securely packaged.  Just a note, I never use the included keyboards and mice, but purchase Logitech peripheral products.
2429791
Upgrading my video card from a gtx 520 to 760 is such an amazing change. Now with the capability to play anything in ultra settings I can sit back, relax and enjoy the scenery
1984104
Windows performance index got a healthy boost from 5.1 to a 8.1 on my Windows 7 Desktop. :) Highly recommended!
4672855
Better than I expected from an "entry level" graphics card thats for sure! This was easy as pie to install. Just popped it into the mobo and plugged in the 4 pin connector and the system was ready to go. I've been testing it out relentlessly on my first time pc build. So far no issues whatsoever. It can handle just about any game you throw at it, and while sure it may not get you ultra quality every time but I experienced excellent framerates between 40-60 depending on the game. I suppose I'll mention my system has 2 4gb g skill sniper ram cards and amd athlon quad core cpu. All I wanted was a rig that could handle the current gen and beyond games at the very least with minimal quality and I got more than that with this.

The only negative thing I can say is that at first the card for me would run too hot and shut down automatically only minutes after playing a game, but with the program speedfan I was able to monitor the temps and crank up my gpu's fan to 100% which, for some reason it was not at. After doing that I have been incident free!

Games I Tested & Run W/O Issue: *UPDATED 7/19/14*
[Testing @ High/Very High/Ultra settings in 1080p with results between 40-60+ fps)

- Smite - Team Fortress 2 - DOTA 2 - Portal 2 - Painkiller: Black Edition - Super Meat Boy - Mortal Kombat Komplete - The Darkness II - Fallout: New Vegas - Left 4 Dead 2 - Warframe - Path Of Exile - Minecraft - Bioshock - Spec Ops: The Line - Skyrim - The Bureau: XCOM Declassified - Tomb Raider GOTY Edition - Prototype - The Witcher: Enhanced Edition
2733232
This is a great card, awesome upgrade from FX5200 AGP. All my games runs great for me at 1440x900 on my 17' widescreen monitor. Great buy!
4298791
I recently built myself a new gaming pc and bought this card to power up my Acer XB271HU monitor, which is a 1440p g sync monitor and you need more horsepower to run games on it. Every single game so far runs beautifully and for the first time in my life I am able to properly experience gameplay without any screen tearing and at ultra settings, at 1440p too. I'm not really a tech guy so I don't have benchmarks and all that, but I have been playing Doom, Witcher 3 and Total War: Warhammer all at ultra settings and it is like a treat for my eyes. I did use asus tweak to try and oc my card, was able to get 2011 MHz but didn't want to go for more as I'm new to the oc arena and theres a lot I don't know but don't want to know about oc. I'm already very satisfied with the quality it has given me.

I got my package on time and brand new for USD$679, if I remember correctly. For those of you who can afford it, this is definitely a worthwhile purchase. At the time of writing, I'm only waiting to play Mafia 3 and battlefield 1!
2496600
These work great in the old Dell running XP! I had to update memory information in the BIOS, then the computer started right up. Increased RAM was a big boost to speed.
2309373
I got a pair of these to upgrade my Dell 2950, and I couldn't be happier. I don't know the voltage specs on these off the top of my head, but I've seen a drop in motherboard temperature and an increase in overall server speed. I got the 5450 because it had the larger (12MB) cache on it, and I can see the difference in performance.

As always with Amazon, the purchase, shipping and delivery process was smooth as silk.
4928924
So it's been about to months now that I have had this computer. Have had a few hiccups, but tech support has been awesome at getting my computer running smoothly. I also recommended this to someone else and he has bought and received his and is not having any issues. I was using a laptop before this and am now seeing frame rates in World of Warcraft of 80-110 vs my laptop where I barely got 12 sometimes. So Happy with my purchase.